YouTube Music has come a long way since November 2015 when it was first launched. Tons of improvements, various refreshes in appearance, and some welcome changes in the streaming quality have done the platform wonders.
Considering that YouTube Music is as much audio streaming as it is video streaming, it’s definitely a bit different than other premium streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify.
Not to say that the world needs a YouTube Music official client, but having one would be quite nice, especially if don’t like the feeling of having one extra open tab in your browser.
Yes, really, that’s the name of the app – YouTube Music for Desktop. It’s a free and open-source, stylish, Electron-based application for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Its aim is to get your YouTube Music experience to the next level, and at least in some respects, it definitely manages that.
First off, the app is a valid client for YouTube Music, as it looks and feels very modern. In short, it does a good job of emulating YouTube Music’s appearance, but brings everything a bit closer to you, on your desktop.
The app also boasts a Mini Player feature (currently experimental, but very good nonetheless) that provides a compact GUI with some of the most basic music playback controls (rewind, play, pause, skip track).
We said that it manages to take the whole YouTube Music listening experience to the next level. The GUI is not the only reason why this app is so good. The Discord-rich presence is another benefit. While using this app, Discord’s RPC service allows you to display the currently playing status.
Another great aspect is that you can fully customize both the GUI and the app’s behavior. This is done partly from the Settings section, and party via custom CSS (SASS/SCSS supported).
If you’re not particularly against Electron apps, then there’s really not much to dislike about the app. It’s a modern, albeit unofficial interpretation of what an awesome YouTube Music client should be, and it works exactly as intended.
