YouTube Said to Be Testing New Vertical Scroll Gestures for Mobile App, Leaving Users Disgruntled

YouTube is testing new vertical scroll gestures for its mobile app that might change the way how users navigate through and consume content on the platform, according to claims on social media. The video-streaming platform is said to be testing a change in the outcome of the swipe-up and swipe-down gestures when the fullscreen mode is toggled on the YouTube app. Notably, this development comes after YouTube for Android and iOS was speculated to roll out the ability to control the playback speed of videos more intricately.

At present, swiping up on any video on YouTube’s mobile app toggles the fullscreen mode, while swiping down brings it back to the default view. Additionally, it also allows users to see videos from the suggested, for you, or related tabs by swiping up when the fullscreen view is enabled. The functionality of these gestures are now tipped to be changed.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), user Tushar Mehta (@thetymonbay) highlighted new vertical swipe gestures that are currently being tested by YouTube. If the proposed changes come to fruition, swiping up on any video will automatically send the user to the next video, instead of minimising to the default view. This is said to work along the same lines as the scroll gestures on YouTube Shorts.

Furthermore, swiping up when the playback controls overlay is on the screen will bring up a scroll window, enabling the user to scroll through the video frame-by-frame. However, this change is said to be in testing and has not been implemented on the current version of the YouTube mobile app.

Despite this change not being official, users on X appeared to not be fond of it. “this is so frustrating. Frustrating enough to drive me to twitter to see if I’m the only one who’s annoyed”, commented one user.