YouTube Music is flipping the switch on its 2025 Recap, the personalized year-in-review that takes your listening and lightens it up as shareable stats, playlists, or bite-sized stories. Industry observers are reporting first sightings now, which indicates that a phased rollout is in progress and more users will get access as distribution progresses.
Smart analysis driven by Gemini is the new marquee upgrade this year. In addition to its typical surfacing of top songs and artists, YouTube Music now cues up questions about your habits, letting you ask questions and get story-like answers — we’re talking playful summaries and context that you wouldn’t get from an immovable card. It’s end-of-the-year nostalgia with a data brain.
What’s new in this year’s YouTube Music Recap features
The Gemini layer turns Recap from a slideshow into an interactive report. You can ask it to compare weekdays and weekends, reveal the month in which you leaned into a genre most heavily, or turn your listening into an experimentally silly “forecast.” It’s a user-friendly means of surfacing patterns hidden in hours and days of playback.
YouTube Music still delivers the hits: a playlist of your most-played songs that you can save to enjoy again and again, your top artists and genres all in one place so you can jump straight into the music you love, and snackable stats designed for social sharing. Many users will also encounter a day-by-day timeline of when some artists rule, and a “passport” view that maps out the places where your favorite artists are — a nice geographical twist that brings home how global your queue has become.
According to 9to5Google, some users are already seeing Recap cards. In the past, YouTube Music has launched Recap in staggered releases, so it’s entirely possible that it appears for a subset of accounts before reaching everybody in short order. If you don’t already see it, my guess is you won’t have to wait long.
How to find and view your YouTube Music 2025 Recap
Open YouTube Music, and tap your profile avatar to find the 2025 Recap card.
Inside there will be your highlights (your auto-generated “Top Songs” playlist) and the ability to share specific cards out to your socials. If the card hasn’t yet appeared, force-close and restart the app, turn on your playback history, then return later as rollout continues.
Pro tip: If you’ve done a lot of your listening split across two Google accounts or also mixed in lots of private listening sessions, your Recap may feel like it’s missing something. Centralize playback to your primary account and keep history ON for richer trends and more accurate AI summaries.
Why this year’s YouTube Music Recap actually matters
Year-end roundups are now cultural events. They ignite friendly arguments, fuel social media feeds for days, and prompt listeners to rediscover music we thought we had long forgotten. For YouTube Music, which has some 100 million combined subscribers to Music and Premium according to company disclosures, the feature is a retention tool and an advantage as the service focuses on video-native sharing and Shorts.
Especially notable is the AI angle. YouTube Music isn’t just feeding listeners stats; it’s also allowing them to ask questions about their own listening data. That interactivity may encourage longer time spent and give the shares a more personal feel — your listening converted into a story rather than just a scoreboard.
How YouTube Music’s Recap compares to Spotify Wrapped
We’re due for Spotify’s annual Wrapped in the weeks ahead, and comparison is inevitable. Wrapped is known for glossy card designs and viral templates. YouTube Music hits back with AI-driven insights and seamless integration with video features, ensuring quick creative shares. The common denominator: kooky packaging wins if it tells us something surprising about your habits.
For power users splitting time between platforms, YouTube Music’s “passport” and day-by-day views provide a different angle on listening habits, while Gemini Q&A can answer questions you might otherwise have been left to crunch yourself.
Bottom line for listeners waiting on their 2025 Recap
If you’ve already started to see 2025 Recap, jump in and save your top playlist or try out some creative Gemini prompts to find patterns in your year that even you wouldn’t have anticipated.
If not, keep an eye on your profile tab — rollouts happen in phases, and access should be coming soon.
In any event, this is a great time to catch up with late-year favorites. They might still wheedle their way into your final count — and that last-minute fixation could be the sound your Recap remembers.