How To Let Youtube Play In Background

YouTube is one of the most varied content platforms in the world, and it's easy to find tutorials, Television shows, and fifty-fifty the latest music videos. Merely it'due south not just well-nigh the watching — sometimes all you want to do is listen to YouTube in the background while busying yourself with something else on your phone.

Closing the YouTube app will stop the video from playing, only there are a few simple workarounds that will allow you to listen to a video in the background. Better yet, at that place are ways to get a mini pop-upward YouTube thespian while y'all browse elsewhere. This is our unproblematic guide on how to play YouTube in the background, for both iOS and Android devices.

Looking for music on YouTube to listen to in the background? Take a wait at our guide on how to download music from YouTube and mind on any device.

YouTube Premium (Android, iOS)

YouTube Premium is a subscription service that gets rid of ads on desktop and mobile, opens access to sectional videos, and allows for the downloading of videos. But crucially for our purposes, it also allows you to go along listening after shutting off your phone's screen or navigating to a different app. There are no steps to turning this on as information technology's on by default, so as long as you have YouTube Premium, it should work just fine.

YouTube Premium also comes with ad-gratuitous access to YouTube Music (the replacement of Google Play Music) and it gives you the option to shut off the screen in that app, likewise. What is the catch? Every bit you might await, it'due south coin. YouTube Premium will cost you $12 a month or $eighteen for a family unit subscription for upward to six members — but y'all can get a i-calendar month free trial. YouTube's app is available for both Android and iOS.

Playing videos in certain browsers (iOS)

While shutting off the screen and standing to listen to YouTube is a no-no in Safari and Chrome, it's possible to use Apple's Control Center with certain other browsers to bypass YouTube'south restrictions. Firefox and Opera Touch are 2 browsers that definitely work with this method, and nosotros recommend testing out any other iOS browsers you prefer.

Hither'south how yous can get this method to work.

Step 1: First, navigate to YouTube from your browser of choice.

Step 2: Then, search for your called video.

Step 3: One time you've found and opened your video, change over to the desktop version of the site. Note: This will vary depending on which browser y'all're using, but it's commonly accessed from the Options button in the top-right, followed by a tap on the Desktop Site option.

Step 4: Kickoff your video playing.

Step five: Now get dorsum to your Home screen. Your video should starting time playing in a motion picture-in-motion-picture show (PiP) mode.

This stride seems a little buggy, though, and nosotros had to redo this multiple times to get it to work.

Step 6: Yous can either leave the video playing in the PiP window and use your telephone as normal, or elevate information technology over to the edge to hibernate it abroad.

Playing videos with Firefox (Android)

Playing YouTube videos in the background in Android tin can be done in Firefox in a like way to the one above for iOS. We've tested this for Firefox, and it could piece of work on other, smaller browsers too. However, it's unlikely to work on whatever browsers using Chrome as a base, equally Chrome has removed this as an option.

Step i: Launch Firefox as you would normally and go to the YouTube website. Make sure to blazon "youtube.com" in the URL entry, equally tapping YouTube in Google search results will usually cause information technology to open the app.

Pace two: Navigate to the video yous want to play in the background.

Stride 3: Get to the Settings carte du jour by tapping the three dots in the upper-right corner of the window. Afterward, tap Request Desktop Site.

Stride 4: Start playing the video, and swipe upwards to close your browser.

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Moving picture-in-picture mode in Android

This one seems similar a flake of a crook considering information technology's not an app at all. Ever since Android 8.0 Oreo, Android has enabled a "picture-in-picture style," which automatically pops up a miniature viewing window if you navigate away from YouTube. This window can be dragged anywhere on the screen and tapped to enlarge or to access playback controls.

This used to be for Premium subscribers only, but in 2018, Google started offering picture-in-motion picture on YouTube to non-subscribers, as well, as long as yous're in the U.s.a.. However, information technology won't work with content classified every bit music, so you'll all the same need to pay for that.

On most Android phones, finding out which version you have is pretty easy. Simply go to Settings > About Telephone > Android Version. You'll demand at least Android viii.0 Oreo for this feature.

Picture-in-flick mode for iOS

After a long expect, YouTube is finally rolling out picture-in-picture fashion for all premium U.S. subscribers on iOS. The feature will too shortly be rolled out to non-premium subscribers, so all iOS users in the U.S. will be able to watch YouTube videos in a pop-up window when the app is airtight. There shouldn't exist as well much longer to await for this characteristic, but if you're all the same waiting for the rollout, you tin proceed to utilize the workarounds we mentioned above.