Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

1.1K

I have made a few observations about adverse changes that YouTube added to their Android application over the years.

This does not include the desktop version. That will be addressed in a different post. A list of removed desktop features would be much longer.

This list is probably by far not complete, but includes some of these (android.stackexchange.com) things and more.

Some of these removed features might already have reappeared.

  • Search history limited to 50 items instead of unlimited.
    • Minor: Search history only records lowercase letters. (Uppercase letters converted to lowercase.)
  • Loaded search results unload when tapping the search bar (which makes search history appear), requiring all the search results to reload when going back from the search history.
  • Unable to open the watch page of a video or the search result page before connected to Internet. (The user interface is included in the software, so opening the page without actually loading the video+metadata or the search results themselves is technically possible without Internet connection. If this explanation is unclear, please ask for further clarification in the comments.)
  • Rounded numbers everywhere. (Now, subscriber counts are only available as rounded to the three leading digits by YouTube's API anyway. But the YouTube application has been slowly drifting towards rounding numbers starting in 2014.)
  • Rounded profile pictures. Their benefit is having a distinct shape, their disadvantage is being less spacious.

There have also been design changes, which are a matter of taste.

  • Fun fact: YouTube's application used to be dark-theme only (img.xda-cdn.com) in its early days.
  • Random fact: YouTube's former XL.YouTube.com website appeared differently on the Nintendo Wii browser (some Opera derivation) than on Desktop.

I likely forgot mentioning something.
If so, please mention anything I forgot to mention in a comment.

I have made a few observations about adverse changes that YouTube added to their Android application over the years. This does not include the desktop version. That will be addressed in a different post. A list of removed desktop features would be much longer. This list is probably by far not complete, but includes some of [these](https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/196342/youtube-update-enforcement-bypass-reasons-why-the-old-youtube-app-is-superior) things and more. Some of these removed features might already have reappeared. * Search history limited to 50 items instead of unlimited. * Minor: Search history only records lowercase letters. (Uppercase letters converted to lowercase.) * Loaded search results unload when tapping the search bar (which makes search history appear), requiring all the search results to reload when going back from the search history. * Unable to open the watch page of a video or the search result page before connected to Internet. (The **user interface** is included in the software, so opening the page without actually loading the video+metadata or the search results **themselves** is technically possible without Internet connection. If this explanation is unclear, please ask for further clarification in the comments.) * Rounded numbers everywhere. (Now, subscriber counts are only available as rounded to the three leading digits by YouTube's API anyway. But the YouTube application has been slowly drifting towards rounding numbers starting in 2014.) * Rounded profile pictures. Their benefit is having a distinct shape, their disadvantage is being less spacious. There have also been design changes, which are a matter of taste. * Fun fact: YouTube's application used to be [dark-theme only](https://img.xda-cdn.com/VsViTUsn0LWmEHUYDyN-v5k_SSM=/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abload.de%2Fimg%2Fdevice8ql2.png) in its early days. * Random fact: YouTube's former XL.YouTube.com website appeared differently on the Nintendo Wii browser (some Opera derivation) than on Desktop. ----- I likely forgot mentioning something. If so, please mention anything I forgot to mention in a comment.

(post is archived)