Big Little Features - Now Playing History on Pixel Phones

I loved the HBO series Big Little Lies, and to honor it I am partially stealing its name for this post about a little feature that generates bigger than expected feelings. Good vibes even. It’s the Now Playing feature on Google’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 phones.

What Now Playing does is very simple. It shows what song is playing right now. It’s a little like the Shazam song identifier app, but it’s not an app. It’s a feature you just turn or off on the Pixel 6/7 phones. The feature of this feature that brings the good vibes is Now Playing History.

The history piece means not only can I see the song that is currently playing, I can see the song that played before that, and the 10 songs that played before that, and every song I listened to (intentionally or not) today. And yesterday. And this month, and last month, and so on.

I’ve had my Pixel 7 Pro since last October, and I can scroll a bit in Now Playing History and see the songs I listened to on my first couple of days with the phone.

Now Playing happily lives in the background. You don’t have to give it any of your precious home screen space - although you can add an icon for it if you like.

To view your songs history you just go to Settings > Search and type in “now” or “playing” and then tap on Now Playing History. You can also favorite a song within Now Playing - which is great for those moments when you hear a song you always love on the radio, but never know or remember the name of.

So, a little feature that - for me at least - brings big “that’s so fun” sort of vibes.