YouTube is giving its Android navigation bar a Liquid Glass-y makeover

Google seems to be taking multiple stabs at tweaking how the bottom navigation bar in the YouTube app looks and works. After removing the Subscriptions tab from the navigation bar, the company is now experimenting with a new floating design.

According to a Reddit post by user SameRecognition5543, Google has started testing a floating navigation bar in the YouTube app on Android. The design looks heavily inspired by the Liquid Glass aesthetic of iOS 27, leading some users to accuse Google of abandoning its own Material 3 Expressive design language in favor of Apple’s Liquid Glass.

Google seems to be running a very limited test for the floating navigation bar on Android. We checked on multiple devices and couldn’t spot the new navigation bar test on any of them. However, we did spot the new floating navigation bar on a couple of iPhones. Google may be prioritizing an iPhone rollout first, which makes sense since iOS introduced the Liquid Glass design language.

Meanwhile, if you like the new look and don’t want to wait for Google to eventually roll it out to your device, there is a workaround you can use. The Morphe YouTube patcher has already been updated with a similar floating navigation bar featuring a Liquid Glass design. First, enable pre-release patches in Morphe on your Android phone. Then, go to Settings > General > Navigation bar and turn on the “Enable glass navigation bar” toggle.

User opinion on the new floating navigation bar is split. Several users are waiting for the update to reach their devices and are using Morphe in the meantime. However, other users aren’t too happy about the iOS-like design. Either way, this might well be the future of YouTube’s navigation bar on Android. If you don’t like it, you can take solace in the fact that Google’s rollouts are infamously slow and phased, so you might not have to see it for a while, even when it does start rolling out.