By kurahan.com 
The YouTube app redesign is live, and it has done something no update in years dared to do: it removed the Subscriptions tab from the bottom of the screen. The button millions of people tapped every day to catch up with the channels they follow is gone, replaced by a layout that puts Shorts and content creation front and centre. The rollout began on November 5 on Android and iOS, and the verdict from users has been swift — and brutal.
What Changed in the YouTube App Redesign
YouTube announced the change on October 22 in a TeamYouTube post in its Help Community, calling it the start of “a series of updates” to the mobile app. The wide rollout started on November 5, arriving through a server-side switch rather than an app update — which is why it can appear on your phone without any download, and why your friend may have it while you do not.
For years, the bottom navigation bar held five buttons: Home, Shorts, a central Create button, Subscriptions, and your profile picture. Now there are four: Home, Shorts, Create, and Profile. Subscriptions had held a spot in the bottom bar since 2017, according to 9to5Google, which first covered the wide rollout. The old navigation drawer is gone with it.
Where Your Subscriptions Went
Your subscriptions have not been deleted, and your channels have not unfollowed you. They have simply moved — and the move is not obvious.
Subscriptions are now called “Subs”, and they live at the top of the Home tab. Open the YouTube app, tap Home, then tap Subs in the row at the top of the screen, right after Home. The new top row also includes Music, Live, Movies & TV and Gaming, and US users can build custom feeds from the main screen. The Subs feed itself works the same way once you find it: the latest videos from the channels you follow, in reverse chronological order.
The catch is reaching it. The top navigation bar disappears a couple of seconds after the app opens, so you have to pull down on the Home feed to bring it back, then tap Subs. Android Headlines has also reported that some of the old subscription filters — Unwatched, Today and Live — are missing in the new layout, so if you relied on those to sort your feed, you may find them gone.
Why YouTube Is Doing This
The redesign is not an accident of design taste. It is a statement of priorities: Shorts and creation first, subscriptions second. The new Home page mixes recommendations with your subscribed channels, and the Shorts button now sits in prime position in the bottom bar. YouTube is betting that a feed shaped by its recommendation engine — the same kind of algorithm-first feed TikTok built its empire on — will keep people watching longer than a feed they curate themselves.
That bet is also a bet about who the app is for. A subscriptions-first app serves loyal viewers who already know what they want. An algorithm-first app serves casual scrollers and, crucially, creators: the prominent Create button and the new custom feeds are designed to get more people filming and uploading, feeding the Shorts machine that now competes directly with TikTok and Instagram Reels.
The Backlash: 92% Say They Hate It
Users are not buying it — at least not yet. In a poll run by Android Authority and published on November 11, more than 92% of 1,274 voters said they “hate” the redesign and want the Subscriptions tab returned to its rightful place. Coverage across the tech press has used words like “bewildered” and “pissed off”, with the recurring complaint that the app now makes subscribed content harder to reach while pushing Shorts that many users never asked for.
The reaction matters because it follows a familiar pattern in app design: a platform moves a beloved feature one tap further away, insists the new way is better, and discovers that its most loyal users are the ones most annoyed. The same dynamic played out when Instagram pushed algorithmic feeds over chronological ones, and the complaints then were strikingly similar.
- One extra tap, every time. Your subscriptions are now hidden behind a top bar that vanishes after two seconds.
- Filters are gone. The Unwatched, Today and Live filters that helped heavy users sort their feed are reportedly missing.
- Shorts everywhere. The Home feed now leans harder into algorithm-picked Shorts over the channels you chose.
- No opt-out. Because the change is server-side, skipping the app update will not save the old layout.
What This Means for Viewers and Creators
For viewers, the YouTube app redesign changes the daily habit that made YouTube feel personal: opening the app and seeing exactly what your channels posted. That habit is now buried, and the app’s default experience is closer to TikTok’s endless scroll than to a library you built yourself. If you watch mostly through subscriptions, the new layout will feel like a downgrade — and the poll numbers suggest most heavy users agree.
For creators, the picture is more mixed. Shorts and the Create button get more real estate, and custom feeds could help new audiences discover channels. But a subscriptions feed that is harder to reach means fewer guaranteed views from the audience a creator worked hardest to build. Small channels that depend on loyal subscribers may feel the squeeze first, while the algorithm rewards whatever keeps casual viewers scrolling. As our look at the end of the smartphone era argued, every redesign of a device or app is really a redesign of our attention — and this one moves attention from the channels we chose toward the videos YouTube chooses for us.
The Bottom Line
The YouTube app redesign is the biggest change to the app in around a decade, and it tells you exactly where YouTube thinks its future lies: short video, creation, and algorithmic discovery. The problem is that the people who use the app most — the subscribers, the loyal viewers, the 92% in that poll — wanted the opposite. YouTube has not given a schedule for when every user will see the new layout, and it is asking for feedback in the comments of its announcement post. Whether it listens may depend on whether the backlash fades, as it usually does — or whether viewers start voting with their watch time. Even giants can misread their own audience, as Tesla’s Cybertruck retreat showed this same week: the product you love is not always the product your users love. The Subscriptions tab may be gone from the bottom bar, but the argument about where it belongs is only just beginning.