YouTube’s new gray bars are ruining full-screen playback on Android (Update: Fixed in beta)
Depending on their shape, some videos now look worse.
- YouTube used to fill any blank space around videos in full-screen playback with black.
- The app recently changed that behavior to now render in a shade of gray, instead.
- That results in some oddly striped patterns for videos that already have embedded black bars.
Update, March 27, 2025 (01:51 PM ET): While we’re still seeing these gray bars when viewing content full screen in YouTube stable, with the new version 20.13.32 beta release, Google appears to have reverted this behavior. The beta now shows videos with black all around, just like we’re used to. Hopefully that just means it’s a matter of time before the fix hits stable, too. (Thanks: Shiv)
Original article, March 27, 2025 (12:38 PM ET): Between landscape and portrait orientation, widescreen and 4:3, and everything else along that spectrum, there are just about a million and one different shapes videos can come in. And since the screens we view these clips on are stuck in whatever shape they are, some of the time that’s going to mean that things aren’t a perfect fit. When that happens, you can either zoom in to fill the blank space, or choose to embrace the empty real estate at the edges of your display. YouTube users on Android going that latter route have recently begun noticing some unexpected behavior.
