We show you how you can listen to music on YouTube in the background on an iPhone or iPad.
YouTube is full of great videos to watch, but there’s a whole load of music and other things which you might want to listen to while using another app. Or you might want to listen to something from YouTube and turn the screen off to save power, just as you do with podcasts or music from the built-in Music app.
You can’t do this if you use the official Google YouTube app as the sound cuts off as soon you exit the app or press your phone’s sleep button. But there is a workaround using Safari which we’ll show you here. You can also download YouTube videos to your iPhone but doing this means you can’t play sound in the background, sadly.
Note: the video above shows the process in an older version of iOS, but it’s identical in later versions.
This method works in all versions of iOS back to iOS 7. We’re using an iPad here, but it’s pretty much the same on an iPhone.
Step 1. Launch Safari, the default iOS web browser.
Step 2. Search for YouTube in the address bar / search box, or simply type youtube.com and search for a video that you want to listen to.
Step 3. Let the video begin to play – wait until any advert has finished and the actual video is playing.
