YouTube may soon let you hum-to-search songs.
YouTube is testing a feature on Android that allows users to hum-to-search for songs. Here’s what you need to know.
There must have been times when you’ve had a song stuck in your head, a tune you would heard before—but now you can’t recall the name or the lyrics—leaving you restless with the earworm. While Android already allows you to search for songs by humming, Google is bringing similar functionality to YouTube as well.
In an official support document, Google notes that YouTube is testing the ability for people to find a song on YouTube “by humming or recording a song that’s currently being played.”
However, the feature is currently being tested “experimentally,” which means it’s available to a small group of users—specifically those who use YouTube on Android. And notably, this feature is currently not available for iOS users, and it also remains to be seen when of if YouTube rolls out this feature for users widely.
For those with access to the feature, you can toggle on the YouTube voice search to the new song search option. Then, hum or record the song you are searching for, holding the recording for 3 seconds or more to allow for song identification.
“Once the song is identified, you’ll be sent to relevant official music content, user- generated videos, and/or Shorts featuring the searched song in the YouTube app,” YouTube notes.
Google already introduced this functionality in 2020—allowing you to hum-to-search for an earworm stuck in your head using the Google Assistant and the Google Search app. Google explains that it uses machine learning to identify songs based on your hum and to provide potential matches.
