YouTube is testing a TikTok-like swipe gesture to go to the next video

Recently, YouTube redesigned its playback speed controls and has added some nice features to its app. Various things have been tested over the past few months, and some tests sound pretty exciting, while others raise people’s eyebrows. In the latest YouTube test, we’re testing a new gesture for longer videos: TikTok’s “swipe up” gesture takes you to a new video. As the gesture became popular through TikTok, it was also copied to YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, among other short video sharing solutions. Now YouTube is testing the gesture for regular-length videos, not shorts.

The swipe up gesture is a quick and easy way to move through a series of short vertical videos, but is generally best suited primarily to vertical videos. However, YouTube seems to think the gesture could be useful for horizontal videos too, and this change is pretty dramatic.

If you’re currently watching a video on YouTube in full screen (landscape) mode, you can conveniently exit full screen mode using the swipe up gesture. The test was discovered by a Digital Trends employee Tushar Mehta. The tested full-screen video player swipe gesture results in a new video playing.

The change was only discovered on Currently Android phones. You can also swipe from both sides Android phones To exit full screen mode, you can also do so using the arrow button in the top left corner.

It is currently unclear when this change will be rolled out globally. Since it is still in testing, user feedback may play a role in whether or not this update is even released. Some people have mixed feelings about this, which I agree with, because if you’re already used to what a gesture does in an app, it would be pretty annoying to change that.