Desktop: New "Now Playing View" sidebar

[MattSuda]

Spotify is introducing a new "Now Playing View" sidebar in the desktop app and Web Player to go along with the recently released "Your Library" sidebar.

Together, the individually customizable design of these new views provides a richer experience, more context, and quicker access to personal favorites.

The Now Playing View in the right sidebar shows the album art and info of the current song or podcast you are playing and also shows more information about the artist.

When you expand the album art in the bottom left corner of the app, it will no longer hover over the Your Library sidebar. Instead, the new right sidebar will open up. You can resize the Now Playing View sidebar to your preferred size.

You can open and close the Now Playing View sidebar by clicking the button in the bottom right of the desktop app.

The Now Playing View sidebar will open up on the right side of the app by default when you start playback, but you can disable this behavior under Settings ➜ Display ➜ Show the now-playing panel on click of play.

The Friend Activity feed is still accessible via the "friends" button next to your profile picture in the top right corner of the main content area. There is also an option in Settings. You can swap between showing either the Now Playing View or the Friend Activity feed in the right sidebar.

The new Now Playing View sidebar is now rolling out to all desktop users worldwide, so you should be seeing it soon.

You can read more info about the new desktop experience in the Spotify Newsroom post:

➜ Spotify’s Desktop Experience Gets a Brand-New Look With Redesigned ‘Your Library’ and ‘Now Playing’ ...

You can read more info and give feedback about the new Your Library sidebar here:

➜ Desktop: New Your Library sidebar

FAQ:

This section will answer your frequently asked questions and will be updated with the latest answers.

The Now Playing View sidebar keeps opening at the start of playback, how do I turn this behavior off?

• The Now Playing View sidebar will open up on the right side of the app by default when you start playback, but you can disable this behavior under Settings ➜ Display ➜ Show the now-playing panel on click of play.

How do I get the album art to expand in the bottom left corner like before? When I try to expand the album art, it opens the Now Playing View sidebar to the right.

• Unfortunately, that is no longer possible. When you expand the album art in the bottom left corner of the app, it will no longer hover over the Your Library sidebar. Instead, the new right sidebar will open up. You can resize the Now Playing View sidebar to your preferred size.

Can I hide certain sections in the Now Playing View sidebar?

• Right now it's not possible to hide sections, so you will see all of the sections. However, you can drag and resize the sidebar to your prefered size.

Feedback:

Where can I give my feedback about the new Now Playing View sidebar in the desktop app?

• We welcome your feedback about this change. The best way to share your feedback is to comment here in this thread.

Updates:

This section is to inform you of updates to the new Now Playing View sidebar such as changes and new features.

July 2023:

• Click to enlarge album art on album pages
  
  When you are viewing an album page, you can now click on the album art at the top next to the title to view it bigger in the middle of your screen.

[Goodmano]

For the love of god make this thing optional. The most recent update means it's always poking out the side now. I don't care about merch, about the artist or song credits.

I want the album art to be larger like it was before and be able to click the song title to go to where it's playing from (like before) now it always takes me to the album it came from.

Give us some flexibility, please. We pay for this service and pushing these useless features makes no sense, you're not going to make any more money off me by doing it. 

[tunaman_jim]

Just as a reminder.. I STILL think the "Now Playing" pane sucks.

[morefluff]

In a renewed attempt to get this onto the devs' radar, i've submitted it as an idea. Could everyone experiencing issues with this **bleep** awful piece of ux-design please upvote it?

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Fix-the-Now-Playing-sidebar/idi-p/6636850

[Pansauce]

I always try to click on the album art to make it bigger to have a closer look and I never can! It would be fun to see album cover art larger on our screens. Thx! 

[UGoDiva]

UGH! WHY does the new desktop app update force us to have something on the right.  Let ME decide if i want 'now playing view' & if i want it auto-hide/minimized or not.  The way this new FORCED 'now playing view' always sits auto-hid on the right side does NOT work for me.  Every time i try to use my vertical scroll bar, the now playing view suggestion pops-up. This is BAD DESIGN. Please put it back where we could turn it on/off using the little buttons on the bottom by volume & lyrics/etc.  i need my vertical scroll bar easily accessible!

[Nekse]

Broken Feature 2025, does nothing.. Setting-> "Show the now-playing panel on click of play" = off/on, now playing view show up every time regardless..

[sw_m4j-v5ael]

There was an update last night to the PC version of Spotify. Where the scroll bar used to be (which is now more to the left), there is this new panel that pops out a little bit, giving it the impression to be clicked.

PLEASE GIVE US THE OPTION TO REMOVE THIS. This makes it EXTREMELY unpleasant to get to the scroll bar. I have had tendonitis for years and now you're causing me to exert more effort to find this scroll bar. (Using the scroll wheel causes me pain)

[perpends]

I'll chime in here as well and say that I dislike the new collapsible panel. I realize that Spotify's product team is trying to drive engagement towards the "Now Playing" view, but slicing off a big chunk of my screen real-estate to render a single chevron is a bit much. I'm getting really tired of the constant A/B tests and UI micro updates on the desktop app.

[benpaulk]

Really surprising that this issue has been going on since 2023 and Spotify won’t simply give us an option to disable it. There are clearly a lot of folks who dislike it.

[Lanciano007]

Horrible this damn sidepanel shrinking all the stuff I use, need and want.

How can I opt-out for this annoying interferring sidepanel on my laptop desktop app? 

if I accidentally scroll over the decreased centimeter with the arrow it presents itself very obsessively in the form of growing another half of centimeter. What is this intrusiveness for, if we have already decided to use the most common way to know what we are playing now. That can be seen in about 4/5 other different ways and places....

And not when yet another panel slides over everything. You don't read a book overlapping another book you want to read, do you?

[Lanciano007]

Hello, 

I got many issues on desktop app after last 2 updates. One of them fits in this section i think. My Homepage loads very slow and sliding songs in playlist or organising them takes a few fractions of a second to get on the right spot. Seems everything has some kind of delay. Can it be because of the new huge album art at the bottom?

@Pansauce I liked your idea:  "click on the album art to make it bigger". 

I see it's implemented now. We can press the albumcover to get bigger. Nice one! Problem solved. But do we need those huge ones on the bottom of our homepage while we have this option now? In my opinion it doesn't fit there, and also not with the rest on that page. And i'm a bit worried the delays are maybe coming from this. Kind regards.

[whatintheworldisthis]

I'm OK with ads, I'm not OK with the queue tab closing in favor of the "Now playing view" after EVERY AD BREAK. I don't want to have to reopen the queue tab after EVERY AD. Please, please fix. Make it possible to have both of the tabs open at the same time, or make it possible to completely 100% disable the Now playing view.

[jompish]

You still want feedback? Remove it

[Biohazard90]

You've increased the prices again but you can't manage to provide a basic, working user experience.

The "collapsed" side bar is SO IRRITATING. I want the main SCROLL BAR to be at the right and not get covered accidentally because I hovered over this WASTE OF SCREENSPACE you are forcing on us.

[Jenjam]

There is simply no need not to include an option to hide this. You better believe whatever Spotify's reasoning for this is, it's not with customers in mind.

The user experience has been slowly but surely downgraded over the years and what we're left with doesn't actually resemble what it's supposed to be - you know, an app for playing and managing music.