Your favorite view for the New Your Library sidebar on desktop: Compact, List, or Grid view?

[AdamDam]

On the desktop app or web player, what’s your favorite view for the New Your Library sidebar (which was announced earlier this year in this thread and in this Newsroom article)? Do you like Compact, List, or Grid view the best?

Personally, I like to switch between the three different views of the sidebar on different occasions, but I’d say that I like the List view the best—probably because unlike in Compact view, List view shows the artwork for saved playlists and albums as well as the profile pictures of artists I’m following, which I find to be useful for finding items in the sidebar from a visual standpoint. Yet at the same time, List view also keeps the items ordered in a single-file vertical “list” when the sidebar is expanded, which I find to be easier to scan through to find what I’m looking for compared to when using Grid view.

You’re probably already familiar with how the different views of the New Your Library sidebar appear, but here are a few screenshots anyway where I’m viewing some of my playlists in Custom order in the sidebar; the middle screenshot (List view) represents how I usually view the New Your Library sidebar these days:

 

 

I’m curious to hear if other Spotify users have a favorite view for the New Your Library sidebar as well, so feel free to share! Or if you like all of these New Your Library views equally and don’t care which one you’re using, feel free to share as well.

Cheers!

[MattSuda]

I usually have my library in "List View" so that I can see the art covers and the titles.

Sometimes I use the arrow at the top right to expand my library more and then I switch to the "Grid View".

Sometimes I will also click on the "Your Library" heading to fully collapse the library sidebar so that just the art covers are showing. This is great for when you are in discovery mode and don't want any distractions when checking out artist pages and playlists and want the main content area of the app to take up more space.

[Inudesu]

I usually hit Shift-Alt-1 when I want to select a playlist (or 2 or 5 or whatever). Except for the (inexplicably) permanently pinned (and empty) "Liked Songs" playlist and "your episodes" (non)podcast, I think it's the best view for finding the playlist or album from my library I'm looking for.

[AdamDam]

Thanks for sharing, @MattSuda and @Inudesu!

@MattSuda I think it’s cool that you also like to use the List view most often on the library sidebar. I’ll fully collapse the sidebar sometimes as well, such as when I’m browsing search results or viewing/editing a playlist. Also, it’s a great guide that you wrote about the sidebar—really comprehensive with lots of helpful tips.

@Inudesu I appreciate you sharing this useful keyboard shortcut; I didn’t know about it before, but I’ve been trying it out the past few days (Shift-Option-1 on a Mac), and I like how it uses more of the space on the app interface to show the contents of my library. I agree, this view makes it easy to find the playlists that I’m looking for there (or albums, too, although I don’t have many saved albums personally).

Cheers!

[iam_nalin]

personally i like the "list view"

[Inudesu]

@mattsuda

Can you confirm that this shortcut has been removed (like on purpose???)?

Be a shame if so.

[MattSuda]

@Inudesu

Yes, in a recent desktop app update, the keyboard shortcuts to view the old Your Library view in the main content area were discontinued. The keyboard shortcuts now will filter the content show in the Your Library sidebar on the left.

The new Your Library sidebar on the left can be expanded in size if you would like to view bigger art covers similar to the old view. When the new Your Library sidebar was announced earlier this year, it was also said that the current keyboard shortcuts workaround to view the old Your Library would at some point be discontinued. The workaround has now been discontinued.

While I do enjoy the new Your Library sidebar, I did sometimes like to view the old view of my library in the main content area. Hopefully the developers of the desktop app will allow us to view Your Library in the main content area again in the future.

[Inudesu]

Thanks for the confirmation.

What a terrible decision to double down on such a bad design! The old library view had flaws (like the pinned and giant "Favorites") but it was way better than even the expanded view of the sidebar. It's a shame they took this option away. Now the library is much worse in both the mobile and the desktop apps. On mobile I was able to turn off updates in time to avoid the degradation (for now). But there wasn't enough warning here to turn off automatic updates.

"We recommend that you always use the latest version so you get all the latest features" rings so hollow when every update is a downgrade in quality.

[vaajy]

I use it ONLY in this View.

1. Tiny screen, low resolution, so I need to save all the space. You can not have the view extended, too much information and you as well can not use any 3rd column, steals too much space, especially together full view.
2. It has too much options, like look at this drop down menu posted before, too much selections. Too cluttered. They could stick with one option only, like view I use for example. At least it does not steal space and looks bearable.

I don't like this view, but it gets used in the option I use it.

Tried all text, but it makes app colorless and too light, almost like a disaster for ears.

Now playing sidebar totally unneeded.

[Inudesu]

I really miss that shortcut to the old library (well, what I miss is the old library view). I just don't understand this approach. It's less of a headache to me on the desktop app than the mobile app (where it's truly awful) but is this what UX people think we want? Is this really the preference? Like with data showing it's better somehow? I guess it's possible, but I can't see any positives. What is better?

[canieladosta]

List!