YouTube Music has a clutter problem. Open the official app and you get a feed stuffed with Shorts-style video clips, a podcasts filter sitting ahead of your actual library, and YouTube video recommendations crowding the same screen as your playlists. A third-party client called Metrolist is designed to fix exactly that, according to a hands-on account published by Android Police on Friday.
Metrolist is a free, open-source Android app built on Google's Material You design language. It pulls from the same YouTube Music catalog but restructures how that content is presented. By default it hides YouTube Shorts and music videos, though both can be switched back on if you want them. Android Police's writer, who said they had spent months failing to warm up to the official app, described the ability to skip YouTube Music's home screen entirely and jump straight into a filtered library view, such as albums only, as the standout feature.
The app also lets users toggle smaller details off, including subscriber counts and artist descriptions, to further strip the interface down. According to the Android Police account, the result still looks recognizably like a Google app rather than something with a distinct visual identity, a tradeoff the writer attributed to how closely Metrolist sticks to stock Material You components.
The bigger draw may be offline playback. Metrolist reportedly lets users download songs for offline listening without a YouTube Premium or YouTube Music subscription, something Google's own app gates behind a paid plan. Android Police's writer noted the downloads are not flawless, with freezes that required an app refresh or a Wi-Fi toggle to clear, but called the feature a workable substitute for anyone who only wanted YouTube Music for offline tracks in the first place.
There is a catch. Metrolist is not listed on the Google Play Store, and Android Police's writer suggested that is likely because the app's offline-download workaround runs against Google's terms of service for the platform. The app is distributed only as a direct APK download through its GitHub page, which means installing it means sideloading, a method that carries more risk than installing from the Play Store. Anyone trying Metrolist should stick to the official GitHub release and treat any other source for the APK with suspicion.
Metrolist does not replace a paid music subscription on its own. It still relies on the free, ad-supported version of YouTube Music for its catalog unless a user already pays for Premium, and Android Police's writer said they were considering a cheaper YouTube Premium Lite plan rather than switching away from Tidal entirely. But for anyone who has wanted YouTube Music's library without YouTube Music's app, Metrolist is now the workaround getting attention, and it is likely to keep circulating through Android enthusiast circles as an unofficial fix while Google's own app stays unchanged.
SDFiled by The Software Desk
Apps, platforms, operating system releases, security fixes and the features arriving in them.
More from this desk →
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.