Google Messages tests the return of its YouTube pop-out player

When we spot Google working on a new feature for one of its apps, it’s often anyone’s guess just how long we’ll have to wait before it’s ready to go live — assuming it even does at all. That can be a matter of days, weeks, months, or longer. Today we’ve got some good news about a long-ago-spotted upgrade that finally looks like it’s nearly ready for prime time, as it starts hitting beta testers.

We’re talking specifically about Google Messages, and its support for a handy pop-out YouTube player. It used to be that when a friend texted you the link to a YouTube clip, you could view it right in Messages though a picture-in-picture window that made it easy to keep up with conversations as you watched. But then Google ultimately killed that functionality off back in August 2024.

This past March, however, we started to get the sense that Google might be bringing it back, as one of our APK teardowns provided evidence that the YouTube PiP code was returning. And now, eight months later, it’s finally showing up for beta testers, as Stephan shares on X.

Sure enough, while last time we looked we were able to surface the in-progress PiP UI, it wasn’t then functional. But trying again now, it’s fully operational:

One cool thing about this is that it’s all baked right in into Messages — technically, you don’t need YouTube installed separately. So far we haven’t managed to get the PiP window to persist when switching apps, but that may just be a consequence of our initial testing being on an account without access to YouTube Premium.

While the PiP interface itself is quite basic, with you really only able to pause and resume playback, tapping to go fullscreen unlocks a more much more useful UI, including your nav bar and playback options.

We’ve confirmed that not all YouTube beta accounts have access to the PiP player yet, so testing appears to be quite limited at the moment. That said, the fact that we’re hearing about it at all is big progress, and this might finally have the momentum behind it to be ready for a public release soon — hopefully sooner than another eight months, anyway!