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.
Important:
- Some of these steps work only on Android 10 and up. Learn how to check your Android version.
- Some of these steps require you to touch the screen.
How does Now Playing work?
On all Pixel phonesWhen 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.
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.
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.
How do I use Now Playing to find songs I heard recently?
- Open your phone's Settings app.
- Tap Sound & vibration
Now Playing
- You get a list of songs that Now Playing has recently identified.
- To share a song or listen to it in a music app, tap the song.
- On Pixel 3 and later, including Fold, you can also choose multiple songs to:
- Listen to on a music service
- Share
- Delete from your list
- On Pixel 3 and later, including Fold, you can also choose multiple songs to:
How do I get song info automatically?
- Open your phone's Settings app.
- Tap Sound & vibration
- Turn on Identify songs playing nearby.
- Make sure that your phone is charged and connected to Wi-Fi.
- Wait a few minutes while your phone downloads the song database.
- After the download, your phone automatically identifies songs playing around you and shows them on your lock screen.
- To learn more about a song:
- On your lock screen, tap the name and artist of the song shown.
- If you're using your phone, expand notifications at the top, then tap the song notification.
How do I Favorite a song?
Important: This feature is available for Pixel 3a and later, as well as Fold.
You can add a song that’s playing nearby to your Now Playing favorites list from your lock screen. If you tap the music note next to the song title, a heart is added to the music note.
To review your favorite songs:
- Open your phone's Settings app.
- Tap Sound & vibration
- Tap Now Playing history
Tip: To remove a song from the favorites list, tap the heart 
How can I get even more music?
Important: This feature is only available for Pixel 4 and later, including Fold.
Your phone can identify a lot of music automatically. If there are tracks that it doesn't have, you can search for them manually on Google with music search.
- Open your phone's Settings app.
- Tap Sound & vibration
- Turn on Show search button on lock screen.
- If your phone can’t identify a song, you can search for it. To search for a song, on your lock screen, tap music search
.
How to set a default music player?
To set your favorite music service as the default to automatically play songs:
- Open your phone’s Settings app.
- Tap on Sound & vibration
- Choose your default music player.
How can I change where notifications appear?
If you don't want to get song notifications at the top of your screen, you can turn them off.
- Open your phone's Settings app.
- Tap Sound & vibration
- Turn off Recognized Music Notifications. Song info still displays on your lock screen.