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.

[MattSuda]

@kobart1101

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.

[Reloadable]

Very disappointed with this update. 

Not only do I now have to look at the opposite side of the screen from where I've found album artwork for the past 8 years, but I also can't enlarge my album artwork and show friend activity at the same time. 

With no option to switch back to how it was, this feels like a huge downgrade in the UI. Simply more clutter and less usability.

[lokonji]

Thank you for letting me know about this, and this has 100% solved my problem

However, surely the designers have to know that this is poor design.. i shouldn't have to find a toggle in "settings". Closing the panel the first time should be enough for it to stop coming up.

I cannot picture a use scenario where a user would want to temporarily close it, but would want it to pop up again when they next play a song.

I had been hoping it was a bug that would be soon fixed, whereas this reveals that this is actually part of the design.

Again, I'm happy that my continued use will not be subject to this annoyance, thanks to you having pointed me in the right direction. But I always get frustrated when I see such a poor approach to UI design.

Do the designers receive any of the feedback posted here, or are we just shouting into the void? I like to think they do. I remember a big update many years back, maybe 10 years.. there were many problems and a huge backlash. I found a way to stop the auto-update and used an old version of the client for a while. But, slowly but surely, they fixed many of the problems and made it better than ever.

[Baseyoyoyo]

Since the launch of the "Now Playing". I've noticed the lack of customization it offers. I personally do not want to see the artist's info or tour dates. This should be a toggleable option.

Additionally, why does the Queue only show 1 song? This should be customizable as I would actually find it very useful to see what songs are coming on if I have the playlist in shuffle mode etc.

[katasugi]

From a UI/UX standpoint, this update is plain terrible; it doesn't actually "add" anything except clutter, and is quite intrusive, being turned on by default while also taking a very large portion of the program's window. Like above users have said, you shouldn't need to delve into settings to stop this behaviour, closing it once should already disable it from appearing again forever unless the user explicitly clicks on the button again.

Also, clicking the little arrow on the album's art to expand the image puts it on the opposite side of the screen? What kind of logic is that? I'm sure the company has a bunch of talented people, but this just screams "I don't know what I'm doing but I have a degree", how can a large company like Spotify have such a low bar for professionals that they hire people who didn't even go through the basic principles in design and usability?

[Baseyoyoyo]

Following the new UI update the ability to have a large album art in the bottom left has been replaced with the "Now Playing" tab. Whilst some users may find this beneficial, the use of the Expand button on the smaller album art is very misleading. There is no use for it since the introduction of the "Now playing view" button.

Please give users the option to have the old larger album art back and keep the buttons separate. I don't see any reason why both features cannot exist.

You went to the effort of adding a new button for the "Now playing" panel, Why remove the large album art. It's a mess where it is currently.

[Baseyoyoyo]

Why can we not have the original large album cover back as well as this new panel?

You added a whole new button for the "Now Playing" Tab whilst keeping the original album cover "Expand" button.

If people want to see all the additional information then have them click the "Now Playing" button. And for those such as myself who enjoy the larger album art let them continue to use the expand feature. How hard is it to keep both of them?

Surely it took more work to remove the function then it did to just add the new button?

[sza100]

This is an awful update. Why do you insist on removing features and then adding them back half-baked (if at all)? How does it make any sense to click an arrow of the left side of the screen and it opens a giant cluttered panel full of wasted space on the right side? Who approves this?

[tjamesreagan]

This is the single worst User Experience change you guys have made to the desktop app. Absolutely infuriating with zero utility for users.

[bosi]

I repeat from the new side bar thread, please consult usability and customer-care experts. 

You repeat the mistakes to ignore your customers and force a new incompatible change onto us.

What do you think of the fact that you have got nearly 100% negative comments on the new side bar and now playing side bar?

Are you seriously trying to put spotify out of business?

Maybe I don't want to make the spotify window wider.

Maybe I was happy with the old side bar.

Why have you not acted on the customer comments on the new desktop UI https://community.spotify.com/t5/The-Blog-Vault/The-New-Desktop-App/ba-p/5175848?

[musicinmyear]

Another bloated update taking away enjoyable features and only adding useless bubbles in the worst areas. And still no mini player for desktop yet?

There must be some hidden metric for what is acceptable feedback and what isn't right? This constant addition of stupid while the highly upvoted and discussed features are being cut then suggested as "new improvements", someone need a head check.

Good bye.

[epiqu1n]

I really dislike the new "Now Playing View" and don't understand why it had to replace the large album cover in the bottom left. I keep Spotify open on the right 1/3 of my screen, so besides the fact that I don't care about the other things that the "Now Playing View" has, it makes the UI wayyy too cramped for me. And I miss having the large album cover in the bottom left, it was a nice little touch.

[rupert27]

apparently you can't delete replies either??

[Carighan]

So... how do I turn this off?

It opens every time I start playing a song - even though I disabled it - closing the social sidebar, which I then have to manually reopen after I closed the now-playing sidebar.

Further, it's odd: Why is the now-playing info on the left of the bottom row, but the now-playing sidebar that also opens if I click the little up-arrow on that info segment opens on the right?

(edit) 

Also... what is the use-case for this? There is already now-playing information on the bottom left, and previously the art could already be expanded from there. The new sidebar seems to not provide any new information that wasn't previously available in a more compact and more organized manner which resulted in better ability to browse music in the central section. Of which now more is being taken up by this sidebar. Is there a reason this was added despite not providing any new functionality?

[dan_san]

This needs to go away, lol, sorry. Closing it only to have it reopen every time I play a different song is very intrusive and creates a bad UX. 

[axin]

Love with new update. I don't use friends Activity. This view options allows me to navigate to my playlist and view the current song info.

Thanks 😍

[FaustoRigoni]

Why? Please, stop. Give customers options!!! 

The new Now Playing tab opens itself when I play a new album, and hides my friends activity.

Why don't we have an option like "use old UI"? That would solve everything. 

I'm very sad with all these changes since the last update to the UI. 

[Viraemia]

Horrible update as usual, great work everyone. 

[Doosyno]

Despise this. Give me back the album cover in the bottom left. Let me resize it. I don't want to see the additional artist constantly. I don't need it, I know more about some of these artists than Spotify will ever have displayable information on. Let me see the friends page at the same time. I don't care if these new UI changes are added, as long as they are OPTIONAL. I'm the end user, I should be able to choose how to use the product. 

[IrnBoy]

I've just received the "Now Playing" update and I really, really don't like it. So much so that I'm looking for ways to revert the update, which is what brought me to these forums.
I use Spotify on a vertical monitor and having almost half of my screen taken up by a black bar and useless information is terrible (see attached image). I enjoy looking at the album art since I have more of a visual memory (I will forget song names but remember the album art), but I don't want to open and close the Now Playing thing every time I look for new playlists. Please bring back the floating cover art, Spotify is significantly worse without it.

The previous UI and interface was easy to use, clean, and effective. The "Now Playing" update has made the UI clunky and more cluttered than an MMORPG. I've been a subscriber to Spotify for years but this update has me looking at alternatives.