YouTube’s mobile redesign has removed the Subscriptions tab from the bottom navigation bar on Android and iPhone. Subscriptions content now sits behind a “Subs” label on the Home screen, a swipe from the main feed, and the bottom bar has been rebuilt around Shorts and content creation.
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The tab had held a spot in the bottom bar since 2017, and its departure has drawn sharp criticism. Commenters on 9to5Google called the result sloppy and disgusting, and one went as far as calling it the worst UI Google has ever made. A top commenter said the Subscriptions page was the part of the app that person mainly used.
From the bottom bar to a Subs label on Home
Ben Schoon of 9to5Google, writing on Nov. 5, describes a redesign that replaces the app’s five-button navigation bar with a leaner layout. Subscriptions are no longer a dedicated destination; they are a swipe away on the new Home tab, which blends recommendations, subscription content and more. Laurent Giret of Thurrott.com, reporting on Oct. 23, counts four bottom buttons now: Home, Shorts, Create and Profile, with Profile holding viewing history and personal playlists.
Across the top of Home, the tabs include Subs, Music, Live and a More menu that leads to Movies & TV, Gaming, Podcasts and the Playables collection of casual games. The default Home view is algorithmic, which is the root of the complaint: the channels a person chose to follow no longer own a permanent button, and reaching them takes a swipe or a tap on a small label instead of a thumb press at the bottom of the screen. Heavy subscribers who treated the old tab as their real home screen are the group most likely to feel the loss.
Custom feeds and their limits
Ubergizmo’s Paulo Montenegro adds that the Subscriptions tab had occupied the bottom bar since 2017 and that the side navigation menu is gone, with custom feeds syncing to the web version. In the Oct. 22 description, Subs sits second after Home, followed by dedicated feeds for Live, Music and Movies & TV, each a separate swipe from the main recommendations.
The structural change arrived with a new feature. A plus button on Home lets viewers describe topics, channels or moods in natural language, and each description becomes a feed tab. According to 9to5Google’s Oct. 22 report, free users can save up to three active custom feeds and YouTube Premium members up to eight. Thurrott notes the feeds refresh automatically to match current interests. They first roll out in English to signed-in viewers in the U.S., on mobile and desktop, and YouTube plans to expand to more countries without giving dates.
YouTube framed the update as the start of a series. On mobile, the company said it is kicking off a series of updates to shape a more seamless Home experience. The Movies & TV feed appears only for users with active subscriptions such as Primetime Channels, and the update also removes the navigation drawer. Together with the custom feeds, the changes shift the app from a menu of destinations toward a set of swipeable streams, each fed by a mix of the viewer’s own choices and YouTube’s recommendations.
A server-side rollout after months of testing
The Nov. 5 article says the change appears to be server-side rather than an app update, reaching Android first, with many iOS users also seeing it. That explains why two people with identical app versions can have different navigation bars, and why the new layout can appear on a phone without any visible update. Schoon notes that Android got it first, while a share of iPhone users have it too. Ubergizmo, in a piece published Oct. 23, described the rollout as gradual in the U.S.
The design was not a surprise. On May 18, 9to5Google’s Will Sattelberg covered an early test in which Subscriptions had moved out of the bottom bar and the plus button gained a Create label. YouTube called it an experiment. Sattelberg called it a pretty awful change that adds no real benefit for viewers, and the test layout vanished from his main profile after an app restart.
Getting back to Subscriptions quickly
The Nov. 5 report includes one workaround. Long-pressing the YouTube app icon on the home screen reveals a Subscriptions shortcut, marked with a plus sign, that opens the app straight to the subscriptions feed. It does not restore the tab, but it spares followers of many channels from swiping through an algorithmic Home first.
Critics quoted in the coverage, including readers who left comments under the 9to5Google story, described the new design as sloppy and disgusting, and their central complaint is that the app seems built around what YouTube wants viewers to do rather than helping them reach channels they follow. The article carries no official YouTube statement on the backlash, so whether the company will offer a toggle to bring the old bar back remains unanswered.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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