YouTube Music Android app gets a new feature to play music offline

Google has relaunched its YouTube Music with the promise of an unrivalled library coupled with algorithmic supremacy. And, while the music streaming app is relatively new to Indian audiences, it has been around one year since it was first launched to users.

But despite the time and backing of one of the world’s frontrunners in AI technology, the app is still light on features and heavy on bugs. The road to fix the bugs and fill the gaps in YouTube Music has been quite long, but Google will have to tackle several issues if the app is to fully replace Google Play Music as the search giant’s premier music streaming service.

Google recently integrated local playback into YouTube Music, a feature already available with Google Play Music. After an initial rollout to select users, the YouTube Music app for Android now supports locally-stored tracks.

The most recent version of the app features a Library tab that lets users organise their collection of tracks into multiple categories including Downloads, Playlists, Liked songs, Artists, and Albums. The Artists section here gets a new Device Files tab as well as a YT Music tab.

The YT Music app provides a list of artists you’ve subscribed to, while Device Files allows playback of audio files stored on your phone. Accessing Device Files for the first time will require permission to enable the app to access and play your music files.

And, while this feature comes as an excellent addition to YouTube Music, it does have a few limitations. You cannot add local tracks to playlists or queues with songs from YouTube Music. The playback controls also remove the like and unlike buttons. You also won’t be able to cast device files, despite the cast button popping-up.

It’s worth noting that this is a first iteration of the local playback feature and Google will undoubtedly update it to its maximum potential in the upcoming months.