Just about everyone can remember a time when they heard a great song and couldn’t figure out the name, but Google Pixel smartphones’ artificial intelligence-based features can help. The Google Pixel 4 and newer’s Now Playing feature identifies songs automatically, and this guide shows you how to set it up.

This cuts out the need to use Shazam or other third-party services to name songs playing in your surroundings. After setting up the feature, you’ll be able to quickly glance at a Pixel smartphone’s lock screen and find out the name of the song playing around you. Pixel devices are some of the best Android smartphones available because of their exclusive features, like Now Playing.

How to enable Now Playing on Pixel devices

Now Playing is turned off by default, but you can enable the feature with a quick trip to the settings menu.

1. Open the Settings app, which looks like a gear and can be found in the App Drawer.
2. Tap Sound & Vibration.
3. Scroll down and press Now Playing.
4. Tap the Identify songs playing nearby toggle.

Start recognizing songs

After you enable this feature, the name and artist of songs detected in your surroundings will appear on a Pixel smartphone’s lock screen. This works when the display is activated and when the always-on display is in use, so you don’t have to wake the phone in order to see the name of a song playing nearby. Here’s how to get started.

1. Start playing a song, or bring your Pixel phone near a speaker.
2. Look at the bottom of the lock screen for the name of the song.
3. Tap on the name of the song to share with friends or listen on a music streaming service.

Search for a song that isn’t identified by Now Playing

To manually search for the name of a song that isn’t automatically recognized by a Pixel smartphone, you can turn on a separate setting. Normally, Now Playing uses on-device recognition via a downloaded music database to name songs. When that doesn’t work, you can allow a Pixel smartphone to use cloud recognition to identify it.

1. Open the Settings app and tap Sound & Vibration.
2. Scroll down and press Now Playing.
3. Tap the Show search button on lock screen toggle.
4. When a song isn’t recognized on the lock screen, tap the search icon in the bottom center of the screen.
5. Look at the bottom of the lock screen for the name of the song.
6. Tap on the name of the song to share with friends or listen on a music streaming service.

View Now Playing history in settings

If you don’t want to reach for your phone every time you hear a catchy song, Pixel smartphones with Now Playing enabled will store a complete list of songs detected in the Settings app.

1. Open the Settings app and tap Sound & Vibration.
2. Scroll down and press Now Playing.
3. Tap Now Playing history.
4. Press the heart next to a track to like the song.
5. Press the name of the track to listen on a streaming service or share with friends.

Now Playing history will show each track identified and the date that it was recognized for the last month in a collapsed view. However, you can view older recognized songs by tapping the latest song recognized in a given month or year. This will collapse the month or year, showing every song identified during that time.

Now Playing: privacy & compatibility

Like many of the flagships features Google offers on its Pixel lineup of smartphones, Now Playing is backed by artificial intelligence and is always listening. Song recognition happens on-device using a song database that is downloaded when the feature is enabled. Google says that recordings are never shared with the company and are secured with Android’s Private Compute Core, which might help quell your privacy concerns.

When manually searching for a song, “relevant audio information” may be shared with Google and not kept on the device, according to the company.

The feature was introduced with the Pixel 4 in 2019 and is available on that model and newer. People with older Pixel devices are unfortunately out of luck, but they can make use of third-party music identifiers, like Shazam. The Now Playing experience generally works the same across supported devices, but later models can make use of Google’s in-house Tensor chips with improved artificial intelligence-based features. The feature should also make its way to the Pixel 7a, the much-anticipated budget smartphone from Google.

Now Playing is a great feature for music lovers backed by Google’s sound recognition tech. Pixel owners can also use this impressive tech with the Google Recorder app to recognize speech in real time.