Features
UI enhancements
Client plugins that fix YouTube Music UI quirks and improve playback UX
YTMDesktop2 injects small renderer plugins into the YouTube Music page. Some fix UI quirks; others improve playback. Most run automatically - a few have settings under Settings > Player.
Always on
These plugins load with the music view. No toggle.
| Plugin | What it does |
|---|---|
Toast auto-close (toast-autoclose) | YouTube Music "Saved to liked music" (and similar) paper toasts stay open until you dismiss them. The plugin closes open tp-yt-paper-toast toasts after 3 seconds. |
Performance fixes (perf-fixes) | Lowers background CPU use in the embedded player (CPU tamer + related patches; same idea as community YouTube Music clients). |
| Cast button | Hidden by default. Enable Settings > Player > Enable Chromecast and restart to use YouTube Music Cast on the LAN. |
Settings > Player
| Setting | Plugin / behavior |
|---|---|
| Skip disliked songs | track-like auto-skips tracks you have disliked (experimental). |
| Enable Chromecast | Shows the YTM Cast button and shims chrome.cast in the isolated YouTube view. mDNS and Cast TCP (castv2) run in the main process so YTM Trusted Types / CSP cannot block protobuf encode (experimental, restart required). |
| Exponential volume ratio | volume-ratio exponential volume curve instead of linear. |
| Customize player video settings | player-quality preferred resolution (720p-4K) when available. |
| Replace share links with ytmd:// | share-links rewrites the YTM share dialog URL - see Shared links. |
Plugin authors
YouTube view runs with contextIsolation: true.
- Preload plugins use
PluginContext(ytmd,api,domUtils,onSettingsChange). Do not touch ElectronipcRendererfrom plugin code. - Page-world hooks live in
*.renderer.ts(default export withid) and run via the world-0 host IIFE (built by electron-vite sidecar). Prefer this forplayerApilisteners and DOM that must see page prototypes. Declare the same object ondefinePlugin({ renderer })for docs/meta. - Page world only sees
window.ytmd(narrow allowlisted bridge). Do not expectwindow.api,window.ipcRenderer, orelectronTRPCin the YouTube Music DevTools page console. - One-off main-world scripts must use
domUtils.createAndRunScript(YTM Trusted Types block pagescript.textContent/ bare eval). - Main process services call
YtmClient.cmd/YtmClient.push/YtmClient.isReadyinstead of rawplugins:...channel strings.
Tips
- Toast auto-dismiss applies to all open paper toasts (liked music, library saves, and similar), not only the like confirmation.
- Skip disliked songs runs on track change only - disliking the song that is already playing does not skip it mid-track. Like/dislike for tray and media controls comes from
track-like(track:like-state). - Performance fixes run in the YouTube Music webview only; they do not change app chrome or tray view.
- Plugin source lives under
apps/ytmdesktop2/src/renderer-plugins/youtube/.