YouTube’s Smart TV experience just got a serious makeover. As part of its 20th anniversary rollout, Google has pushed a wide update to its YouTube app on smart TVs—bringing new content rows, navigation tweaks, and better playback tools designed to make watching from the couch more intuitive.
YouTube Smart TV adds five new personalized shelves
The biggest change is the introduction of five new “shelves”—those horizontal rows of recommended videos that now show up in more specific categories:
- Continue your search – Picks up your top three searches and lets you resume right where you left off.
- Listen again – A music-focused row featuring your most-played songs.
- Live performances, remixes, and covers – Surfaces alternate versions of songs you’ve already watched.
- Primetime channels – Highlights content from paid channels you’ve interacted with recently.
- From your top channels – Aggregates fresh uploads from creators you watch most often.
It’s a focused shift meant to surface content you’re more likely to engage with, especially in passive TV viewing environments.
YouTube will now offer Smart Downloads support for Shorts videos. This will allow you to watch Shorts even when you're offline.
New tabs include Podcasts and Shorts rows
Podcasts have found their way onto the big screen. YouTube has added a dedicated Podcasts tab to its TV app, following Google’s integration of podcast content into YouTube Music earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Shorts are finally getting better placement, too. You’ll now see a dedicated Shorts row in your “Watch Next” feed and a Shorts shelf inside the Subscriptions tab. Team YouTube says it split Shorts from long-form videos for a “cleaner layout” and easier browsing.
Smart TV app gets looping, immersive previews, and analytics upgrades
YouTube is also rolling out smaller but meaningful updates. Looping, once limited to playlists, now works for all VOD content—you can toggle it from the Playback settings menu.
Previews are sharper, too. Inline previews have expanded to show up on channel pages, topic hubs, and subscriptions. And immersive channel previews—full-screen animations at the top of creator pages—are now fully rolled out.
For creators, YouTube Studio Analytics now includes a Device Type card, which breaks down watch time across TVs, tablets, phones, and computers. It’s a nod to the growing importance of big-screen viewing.
All YouTube Smart TV updates live now
Unlike most Google features that roll out in waves, these YouTube Smart TV changes are already live. Whether you’re diving into podcasts, binging music videos, or looping your favorite VOD, the platform just got a lot more couch-friendly.
