Pixel’s Beloved Now Playing Widget Finally Gets Its Own App.
The only thing Pixel users love more than the “Now Playing” widget on their lock screen is the conversations about it. When I’m out and about with my Pixel and music is playing, I always sneak a peek at the lock screen, and yes, it recognizes the song. It’s magical. But until now, that’s where the magic ends.
What if you want a list of all the songs the widget recognized while you were at your local cafe? What if you want to save a song or play it on YouTube Music? Or even manually search for music? Until now, this was practically impossible. Now, Google has decided to add this functionality to a dedicated app as part of its March Pixel Drop update .
How to find your listening history in Now Playing mode on Google Pixel
First, download the Now Playing app from the Google Play Store. When you launch it, it may prompt you to download the latest software update and return in a couple of hours. After installing the update, everything worked fine.
To use the app, you must enable the background music scanning feature. If it’s disabled, you’ll be prompted to enable it before using the app (you’ll be redirected to a location where you can enable it).
The app opens in History mode, and you’ll be pleased to know that all the songs your Pixel’s “Now Playing” widget has previously recognized will be there. The list can be quite detailed. Mine contained over 100 songs.
You can do more than just browse your viewing history. Tap the three-dot menu button next to any song to listen to it on YouTube Music, add it to your Liked Songs, add it to a playlist, or add it to your Favorites (which you can access via the heart icon in the bottom toolbar).
Go to the “Settings” section at the top, and you’ll find the ” Connected Music Services” option. Here you can change your default music service. Unfortunately, only YouTube and YouTube Music are currently available, but hopefully this means Google will add options for Spotify and Apple Music in future updates. Otherwise, the Settings screen is fairly bare. You can tap “Clear History” if you want to delete all previously recognized songs, but that’s it.
How to manually search for songs using the Now Playing app
In addition to viewing your song history, the Now Playing app’s advantage is the ability to search for a song, even if the widget doesn’t automatically recognize it. Open the Now Playing app and go to the “Live” tab at the bottom. Then, tap the large “Music” button to begin song recognition (if you’ve ever used Shazam, this should be familiar). After a second, the app will recognize the song, and you’ll see a full-screen preview.
The Now Playing app also supports Quick Settings controls , one of my favorite ways to launch shortcuts and utilities on Android. To add the Now Playing control to Quick Settings, open the notification panel, go to the Quick Settings panel, and tap the Edit button. Find and add the Now Playing control. Now, the next time you want to check what you’re listening to, simply open the Quick Settings panel, tap the Now Playing control, and wait for the app to do its job.