YouTube Tests a More Prominent ‘Save’ Button While Deprioritizing the ‘Dislike’ Button

YouTube / YouTube Shorts

YouTube is testing a more prominent 'Save' button for Shorts with a small group of mobile viewers. Those in the test group will see a 'Save' icon, which allows them to save a Short to a new or existing playlist.

With the addition of the 'Save' button, it replaces the 'Dislike' button, which will now be housed in the three-dot menu. To dislike a Short, viewers can tap the three dots at the top of the video and select 'Dislike' from the menu.

Why It Matters: The addition of a more prominent 'Save' button makes it easier for viewers to bookmark Shorts they want to revisit or watch later.

Replacing the 'Dislike' button with 'Save' also fosters a more positive environment on the platform. This change may reduce accidental dislikes and make feedback more intentional, while de-emphasizing negative interactions.

With this, YouTube continues to add more TikTok-like features, as it competes more directly with the ByteDance-owned platform. Based on TikTok’s Favorites feature, there’s a chance that YouTube may also decide to add a public save count for videos, which could provide additional signals to viewers about a video's popularity and give creators more insights into what kind of content resonates most with their audience.

Over the past couple of weeks, YouTube has announced, experimented with, or launched a number of features that mirror capabilities across TikTok as well as Instagram. These include longer Shorts, templates for Shorts, and more recently, comment-based search shortcuts.