It's late, you can't sleep, and you keep refreshing your YouTube feed, hunting for something original to watch. Alas, the feed keeps giving you recommendations of videos you have already watched, or ancient videos.
We've all been there. To help out, YouTube has launched a feature called "New to You", which offers fresh videos that you've never seen before. Here's what you need to know.
What Is "New to You" on YouTube?
New to You is a section of YouTube that will give you fresh video recommendations, beyond what your feed would usually give you. It only includes videos you haven't seen and unlike those you usually watch.
While it won't recommend videos from channels you subscribe to, it will respect your general tastes and interests. Thus, though it will recommend fresh stuff, it won't be too wild for your liking.
New to You is the opposite of YouTube’s Explore, which helps users discover videos in specific topics, such as music and gaming, without referring to your watch history or subscriptions. Basically, Explore is not personalized, unlike New to You.
New to You appears to be YouTube's answer to TikTok's "For You" page, which works similarly; a curated feed of videos from creators you might not follow, but which TikTok's algorithm thinks you will like based on your interests and past interactions.
How to Use New to You on Mobile
To use New to You on YouTube mobile, you first need to be signed in. When you are, it automatically appears as a tab at the top; it's on the Explore row and you may need to scroll across to see it. You can also bring up this menu by pulling down to refresh, or by tapping the Home button in the bottom-left corner of your screen.
To begin browsing, tap the New to You button and your personalized feed will pop up. When you have a new recommendation, the New to You tab will have a colorful glow around it and it appears prominently as the first tab.
If there's nothing new to recommend, the New to You section won't automatically appear as your first tab. Instead, it'll be demoted to the last position, next to the Send Feedback button.
How to Use New to You on Desktop
When using YouTube in a desktop browser, and when signed in to your YouTube account, the New to You tab automatically shows up alongside other tabs at the top.
On desktop, it behaves a little differently, as it won't bring itself to the front of the row as it does in YouTube mobile, even if it has new content. As such, click the next arrow until it comes into view. Once you find it, select it and it'll change color, and the feed below will reload and show you new recommendations.
If you think the recommendations aren't right, click the three horizontal dots beneath a video's thumbnail and click Not interested or Don't recommend channel. This will improve your YouTube recommendation algorithm.
YouTube's New to You Should Be a Boost for Creators
New to You should help creators gain additional exposure among viewers who would not have found them otherwise. However, it all depends on how good YouTube is at understanding the audience and matching them with creators accordingly.
If New to You excels at recommending videos that you'd never have thought to look for but end up loving, this new feature will be a success. But if the recommendations are too vague and poorly targeted, few viewers will be tapping that button.