A small but telling absence has appeared on Pixel devices: the Favorites tab within Google's Now Playing feature quietly vanished following a routine system update, leaving users without the quick access to their liked tracks they had come to rely on. Whether this is an unintended bug or a deliberate clearing of the ground ahead of a broader redesign remains unannounced by Google. In the larger story of how we relate to our tools, it is a reminder that even the smallest conveniences, once woven into daily habit, carry weight when they disappear without explanation.
Google Pixel's Now Playing loses Favorites tab in latest update
Users now hunt through history for tracks marked with a heart
Mark
So the Favorites tab just vanished? Users woke up and it was gone?
Mimi
After the Android System Intelligence B13 update, yes. No warning, no explanation in the release notes.
Luke
Do we know if it was intentional or accidental? The source material seems genuinely uncertain.
Mimi
That's the thing—Google hasn't updated the support page, so there's no official word. It could be either.
Mark
But users can still mark things as favorites, right? They just can't see them all in one place?
Mimi
Exactly. You can still heart a track from the lock screen or notifications. You just have to dig through the history to find your marked songs.
Luke
That's a meaningful difference in usability. How many people actually use that feature, though? We don't have numbers.
Mimi
No, we don't. But the fact that Google built it in the first place suggests enough people found it useful.
Mark
And Google's redesigning the whole thing anyway?
Mimi
They're testing a new version with album art, playback controls, the works. So this might be part of clearing the old interface.
Luke
Might be. But we're speculating at that point. The only confirmed fact is the tab is gone and nobody's officially said why.
Mark
Fair. So people are just stuck waiting to see what comes next?
Mimi
For now, yes. Either it gets restored, or the new design makes it moot.
Le Pouls
- A silent update to Android System Intelligence erased the Favorites tab from Now Playing, stripping away a feature users had quietly built their music habits around.
- Google offered no changelog entry, no support document update, no acknowledgment — leaving users to discover the loss on their own and wonder whether to wait or adapt.
- Finding a liked track now means scrolling through an unbounded history hunting for a filled heart icon, turning a one-tap action into a minor but recurring frustration.
- Google is simultaneously testing a richer Now Playing redesign — with album art, playback controls, and deeper music app integration — hinting the removal may be deliberate groundwork rather than accident.
- New entry points like a lock screen shortcut and a Quick Settings tile are also in development, suggesting the entire feature is being rethought from the interaction layer up.
A small but telling absence has appeared on Pixel devices: the Favorites tab within Google's Now Playing feature quietly vanished following a routine system update, leaving users without the quick access to their liked tracks they had come to rely on. Whether this is an unintended bug or a deliberate clearing of the ground ahead of a broader redesign remains unannounced by Google. In the larger story of how we relate to our tools, it is a reminder that even the smallest conveniences, once woven into daily habit, carry weight when they disappear without explanation.
Google's Now Playing, a quiet fixture on Pixel lock screens that identifies nearby music and surfaces track information without any user input, has lost one of its small but relied-upon conveniences. After the Android System Intelligence update to version B13, the dedicated Favorites tab disappeared — no announcement, no explanation, no update to support documentation.
The feature itself remains functional. Users can still mark tracks as favorites from the lock screen or notification shade, and those marks persist. But without a dedicated tab to surface them, retrieving a liked song now means scrolling through the full listening history and scanning for heart icons — a friction point that compounds quietly across repeated use.
What makes the absence harder to read is the context surrounding it. Google has been testing a significant overhaul of Now Playing that would introduce album art, playback controls, and direct links to launch tracks in a preferred music app — a far more expressive interface than the current minimal text display. Alongside that, developers have spotted a lock screen shortcut and a Quick Settings tile in development, suggesting the company is reconsidering how users access the feature entirely.
Taken together, the missing Favorites tab may be less a bug than a quiet demolition — old scaffolding removed before new construction begins. Or it may simply be an error that will be patched. Google has not said. For now, users who depended on that quick access are left in the familiar position of waiting to learn whether something they lost will be returned, replaced, or quietly forgotten.
Google's Now Playing feature, a fixture on Pixel lock screens for years, has quietly lost a key function. The Favorites tab—the dedicated button that let users quickly access their marked tracks—vanished after the Android System Intelligence update rolled out to version B13 on eligible devices. The change arrived without announcement, leaving users and observers uncertain whether Google intended to remove it or whether a bug slipped through.
Now Playing itself is a modest but useful tool. It listens to music playing nearby and displays track information on the lock screen or always-on display, refreshing as songs change. The feature has remained largely unchanged since its introduction, which is partly why the sudden disappearance of the Favorites tab feels jarring to those who relied on it.
Users can still mark individual tracks as favorites directly from the lock screen or notification shade. But without the dedicated Favorites tab, accessing those liked songs now requires scrolling through the full Now Playing history and hunting for tracks marked with a filled heart icon. It's a friction point where there wasn't one before—a small inconvenience that compounds across repeated use.
Google has not updated its support documentation to explain the change, which leaves room for speculation. It could be a genuine bug introduced during the update cycle. Or it could be intentional, a deliberate simplification ahead of something larger. The company has been testing a substantial redesign of Now Playing that would replace the current minimal text display with a more prominent lock screen widget. This new version would include album art, playback controls, and buttons to mark tracks as favorites or launch them directly in your default music app. If that overhaul is coming soon, the removal of the Favorites tab might be part of preparing the ground—clearing away the old interface to make room for the new one.
Google is also experimenting with new ways to trigger Now Playing itself. A lock screen shortcut appeared in Android Canary, and developers have spotted a Quick Settings tile under development. These changes suggest the company is rethinking how users interact with the feature from the ground up. Whether the missing Favorites tab is a casualty of that rethinking or a temporary glitch remains unclear. For now, users who depended on that quick access are waiting to see if Google restores it or if the upcoming redesign will make the loss irrelevant.
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