Metrolist, a third-party app, reworks YouTube Music so it opens straight to your library and tucks videos away. It also has a catch: you install it outside the Play Store.
A reviewer who could never get comfortable with YouTube Music says a free third-party app changed his mind. Metrolist is an Android app that connects to YouTube Music but looks and behaves differently. Its biggest trick is letting you skip the busy home screen and open right to your music.
The reviewer, Jon Gilbert of Android Police, says YouTube Music pushes video and podcasts to the front. It has a tab of short music video clips. Podcasts is the first filter on the home screen. Video recommendations take up a lot of room, and his YouTube playlists get mixed in with his music playlists.
Metrolist still shows music videos, YouTube playlists, video recommendations and podcasts. It just does so less intrusively. You can shrink all videos down to a small box on the home screen.
The feature that won him over is the option to skip the home screen entirely. You can choose what appears there and which library tab the app opens to. Gilbert mostly listens to albums, so he set the app to open on a filtered list of his albums.
Metrolist also lets you download songs for offline listening without a YouTube Music subscription. Offline playback is a common reason people pay, so this could matter. It is not smooth, though. Downloads freeze often. Refreshing the app or switching Wi-Fi gets them going again.
The look is another mixed point. The app uses Google's Material You design from top to bottom, so it is easy to understand if you have used Google apps. The downside is that it feels flat and generic, like a low-budget utility app.
Metrolist is not on the Play Store. It is only available as an APK, which is a download file you install by hand. Gilbert guesses the app breaks Play Store rules, but says he could not find a reference confirming that.
Gilbert says Metrolist makes a YouTube Music subscription feel irrelevant, but he is not switching. He pays for Tidal and prefers sending his money there rather than to Google. He is considering YouTube Premium Lite, which he describes as YouTube Premium without the YouTube Music perks. His point is that picking a music app is about more than features.
Metrolist can make YouTube Music cleaner and skip a subscription, but install it only from its official GitHub links, since APK files carry real risk.
A modified Gboard called GboardWu Privacy keeps the features of Google's keyboard but stops it from sending usage data back to Google.
Read more: A modded Google keyboard keeps its features but blocks trackingEA has re-released 25 classic PC games at a discount until November 19, and Bethesda has finally given The Elder Scrolls VI a subtitle: Sentinel.
Read more: EA brings 25 classic PC games back, and Elder Scrolls VI gets a nameA user says Anthropic's Claude Code put his email in web requests, then scam messages arrived. The link is unproven, but it shows what AI tools can share.
Read more: User says Claude Code sent his email address to websites
