YouTube Shorts is testing a heart in place of the thumbs-up

YouTube is testing a heart icon in place of the thumbs-up like button on Shorts, with the dislike button disappearing entirely for some users in a limited rollout, 9to5Google reported on June 9, 2026. The change lines Shorts up with TikTok and Instagram, the two short-form video feeds that already use a heart to mark a like, and breaks with an icon YouTube has carried for decades.

The swap is showing up on Android, iOS, and web apps, 9to5Google’s report on the heart-for-thumbs-up test found. Some accounts saw it as much as a month ago, and the publication said the rollout was reaching a wider set of viewers this week. YouTube has not added the test to its public list of platform experiments, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

The Heart Now Sits Where the Thumbs-Up Was

The new icon replaces the thumbs-up that YouTube Shorts has been using. The swap appears to be a like-for-like change in function: tapping the heart still registers a like, the only difference is the icon and the animation that runs beneath the finger. According to 9to5Google, the thumbs-up icon previously used for ‘like’ on YouTube Shorts is ‘just swapped out for a heart icon and animation.’

The test is reaching viewers on phones and on the desktop web version, 9to5Google found, and the same publication traced the earliest user reports on Reddit to about a month before the story ran. The wider rollout began only in the past day or two, 9to5Google said, based on a wave of posts on the r/youtube subreddit.

• Platforms in the test: YouTube Shorts on Android, iOS, and the web app
• Earliest user reports: roughly a month ago, per Reddit threads cited by 9to5Google
• Wider rollout: the past couple of days, per 9to5Google and Android Headlines’ write-up of the limited rollout

9to5Google’s writers said they were not seeing the new heart on their own devices, and they had not found any reports of the swap reaching standard YouTube videos. The change is, for now, a Shorts-only experiment.

Where the Dislike Button Went, and for Whom

The heart is only half the story. 9to5Google also found that the dislike button is vanishing entirely from the Shorts interface for some users in the test, a change that goes further than the icon swap. The button ‘simply vanishes from the UI’ for accounts that see only the heart.

Other users in the test still see the dislike button next to the heart, a combination 9to5Google described as ‘pretty odd’ and pointed to as a possible reason Google is testing the dislike’s removal as a follow-up. As of the June 9, 2026 report, both the heart-only and the heart-plus-dislike layouts are still in the test.

The Quiet Rewiring of YouTube’s Feedback Buttons

The current test is the latest move in a feedback rewrite that began in 2021, when YouTube hid the public dislike count on every video on the platform. YouTube has been adjusting the buttons ever since.

1. 2021: YouTube hid the public dislike count on standard videos. Viewers could still tap the thumbs-down, but the total moved to creator dashboards. Tubefilter’s write-up of a later experiment on the December 2025 Not Interested rename noted that the original 2021 move was a response to coordinated dislike campaigns targeting creators, with female creators hit hardest.
2. 2024 and 2025: YouTube ran at least two earlier rounds of dislike-hiding tests inside Shorts, according to Android Police’s look at the 2024 and 2025 dislike-hiding rounds in Shorts. The look of the test changed each time, the publication said, with the dislike button shifted, renamed, or moved.
3. December 19, 2025: YouTube began an experiment that moved the dislike option off the Shorts sidebar and into a pop-up menu, with some users seeing the label ‘Dislike’ and others seeing ‘Not Interested.’ The YouTube Support thread that cataloged the test said the goal was to see whether users treated the two terms as interchangeable, per Tubefilter.
4. June 9, 2026: 9to5Google documents the heart-for-thumbs-up swap, with the dislike button vanishing for some users inside the same test.

The 2021 move was a response to coordinated dislike campaigns, with female creators hit hardest by the abuse, per Tubefilter’s recount of the era. The dislike button itself stayed visible; only the public count disappeared, and the total moved to creator dashboards. YouTube framed it as a way to protect smaller creators, though the change drew immediate criticism from viewers who wanted the count back.

Inside Shorts, the platform has been pushing the dislike further out of view for two years. Android Police counted earlier rounds of dislike-hiding tests in Shorts in 2024 and 2025, with the button renamed, moved, or restyled each time. By December 19, 2025, the dislike option had been relocated to a pop-up menu and was being relabeled ‘Not Interested’ for some test users, with the YouTube Support thread stating the goal was to test whether users treated the two terms as interchangeable. The pattern across those rounds is consistent: each iteration makes the dislike harder to reach and easier to confuse with a softer signal.

The June 9, 2026 heart test sits in that same direction. The thumbs-up that survived the 2021 count removal is now a heart, the same icon TikTok and Instagram use to mark a like. For some accounts, the dislike is going away entirely, in line with the December 2025 experiment that moved the option to a pop-up menu and started relabeling it ‘Not Interested.’ None of the moves have been framed by YouTube as part of a single announced project, and the company has not commented on the current heart swap. 9to5Google’s framing called the combined change a ‘huge shift in how the platform has handled video feedback.’

The Other Test Already Sitting Beside It

The heart swap is not the only YouTube interface experiment currently reaching more users. The contextual like button animations, a separate test 9to5Google has been tracking for several months, is rolling out more widely at the same time, with the standard thumbs-up turning into a topic-specific icon when a viewer presses it.

• Dog paw: appears on pet and animal videos
• Cat: appears on cat-specific content, in a callback to YouTube’s long-running cat icon
• Wheel: appears on automotive and cycling clips
• Light bulb: appears on explainer and how-to videos
• Other shapes: 9to5Google said a ‘wide variety’ of topic-specific icons now rotate through the test

That test, like the heart swap, has not been added to YouTube’s public experiments page, and the rollout is uneven across devices and accounts. The two tests share a design instinct: both move Shorts further away from the standard YouTube interface and closer to the visual language of TikTok and Instagram, where likes are anonymous, count-only, and visually weightless in a way the old YouTube thumbs-up was not.

YouTube has also been quietly reshaping its other apps’ interfaces in parallel. YouTube Music, the streaming sibling, recently moved its Search tab to the bottom navigation bar. The wider pattern is a YouTube more willing to overwrite the icons and menus its users have used for years.

What YouTube Hasn’t Confirmed Publicly

YouTube has not added the heart-for-thumbs-up test to its test features and experiments page, the public list the company uses to acknowledge its own UI tests, 9to5Google noted. The company has also not issued a statement or responded to media inquiries on the swap, and the rollout is being tracked by users and reporters rather than by the platform itself.

That leaves the user reports, the Reddit threads, and the outlet coverage as the only public record of what is changing. The earliest Reddit thread cited by 9to5Google was titled ‘THE LIKE BUTTON IS NOW A HEART,’ and a separate thread asked ‘where is my dislike button,’ both consistent with the limited rollout the publication described. For now, there is no timeline from YouTube on when, or whether, the heart and the missing dislike will reach the rest of the Shorts audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is YouTube using a heart instead of a thumbs-up in Shorts?

9to5Google’s June 9, 2026 report on the test described the change as bringing Shorts ‘more in line with other short-form video platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.’ YouTube has not confirmed the test or explained its reasoning, and the swap is currently limited to a subset of viewers on Android, iOS, and the web.

Is the dislike button being removed from YouTube Shorts?

For users in the test, the dislike button is removed entirely from the Shorts interface. 9to5Google reported the button ‘simply vanishes from the UI’ on accounts that also see the new heart icon, while other test accounts still see a dislike button sitting beside the heart. Standard YouTube videos are unaffected.

When did the heart icon start appearing in YouTube Shorts?

Some users have been seeing the heart for about a month, per the Reddit threads cited by 9to5Google. The wider rollout began in the past couple of days ahead of the outlet’s June 9, 2026 report.

Will standard YouTube videos get the heart like button too?

9to5Google said it had not found any reports of the heart reaching standard YouTube videos, and that the change is, for now, a Shorts-only test. The contextual like-button animations, which transform the standard like icon into topic-specific shapes, are also rolling out more widely, but the heart swap itself remains inside Shorts.