Find out what music is playing near you

To learn more about the music you hear around you, you can have your Pixel phone automatically identify a song.

With the Now Playing feature, you can get info about songs that play nearby. You can also get a list of songs you’ve played and share, search, or listen to them.
You can find notifications whether your phone is locked or not.

Learn how Now Playing works

When music plays nearby, your phone uses its on-device library to identify the song privately. If you’ve shared usage and diagnostics with Google, Now Playing collects some info like percentage of times it correctly recognizes music. Learn how to update your usage and diagnostic settings.

On Pixel 4 & later, including Fold, with federated analytics

In Pixel 4 and later phones, Now Playing improves with the use of federated analytics, a technology that preserves privacy. This helps the feature recognize what plays more often. When you listen to songs, Google only finds the most popular songs by region. Learn more about federated technology.

Tip: If you turn on "Show search button on lock screen," each time you tap to search, Google gets a short, digital audio fingerprint to identify what's playing.

Shared usage & diagnostics

If you've shared usage and diagnostics with Google, counts of recognized songs are shared with Google. You can adjust this setting at any time to determine what information is shared. Learn how to update your usage and diagnostic settings.

Get the Now Playing app

Important: After you download the Now Playing app, you may have to wait for up to 24 hours to start using the app.

On your phone, open the Play Store app .
Search for Now Playing.
When you find the Now Playing app by Google, tap the app Install.

Tip: Now Playing moved from Pixel settings to the Now Playing app. If you have the older version of Now Playing, you may be prompted to download the new version.

Start a song search with Now Playing

When you turn on Now Playing, info about the current song displays on your device’s lock screen. To get more details about the song, tap the name of the song or tap it again to open the Now Playing app.

To search for a song:

In the Now Playing app, tap Now Playing .
In Quick Settings, tap Now Playing .
Start a search in the widget.
Tap the Now Playing shortcut on your lock screen. Learn how to customize the lock screen on your Pixel phone.

Tip: You can also access the Now Playing app through your widgets and Quick Settings.

Connect Now Playing to a streaming service

In the Now Playing app, tap Settings .
Tap Connected music service.
Select a music service.
- If you don’t find your preferred music service, it may not be available yet.
To log in, follow the on-screen instructions.

Find recently heard songs with Now Playing

In the Now Playing app, tap History .
- You get a list of songs that Now Playing has recently identified.
To favorite, remove, or share songs, swipe left on the song or tap More .
- You can also:
  - Open the song in a connected streaming service.
  - Search for songs in History.
  - Type in the search bar.
  - Add filters like date and time.

Favorite a song

You can add a song that’s playing nearby to your Now Playing favorites list.

To add as a favorite, tap Add to Favorites on the song currently playing.
To review your favorite songs, in the Now Playing app, tap Favorites .

Tip: To remove a song from the favorites list, tap More and then Remove from Favorites .

Share a song

You can share a song from the Now Playing app home screen, Favorites, or History.

Tap a song you want to share.
Tap More Share .
Select the audience to share the song with.

Change Now Playing Settings

Enable or disable Now Playing app

In the Now Playing app, tap Settings .
Choose Enable Now Playing or Disable Now Playing.

Change connected streaming service

In the Now Playing app, tap Settings Connected music service.
Select your preferred streaming app.
To log in, follow the on-screen instructions.

Understand Now Playing data usage

Now Playing works better when you turn on all permissions to enable enhanced features like album art, manual song search, and more.

What’s sent

The app collects and sends a short digital audio fingerprint of the song to Google.
It doesn’t send raw audio or background conversations to Google.

When it’s sent

When Now Playing doesn’t recognize a song from the database on your phone, it may perform a cloud search to improve results.
When Now Playing automatically identifies a song, it may request additional song details from the cloud.

How it’s processed

To securely search the cloud database for a match, the app sends the digital fingerprint to Google. This allows Now Playing to search millions of additional songs and gather other things like album artwork.
To protect your anonymity, Now Playing uses privacy-preserving analytics.

Storage & sharing

The audio fingerprints sent to Google are only used to recognize the music. No data is stored on the server or shared with other Google or third-party services.