Mobile YouTube is great for when you want to watch stuff on the go, but you may just want to listen to YouTube while browsing elsewhere. We’ll show you how.
You can play YouTube videos in the background on Android and iPhone devices very easily if you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber. Just start playing a video, turn off the screen or navigate away and it’ll continue playing, no trouble. But playing videos in the background is also doable even without a premium subscription. You can use picture in picture, or a specific browser.
This makes YouTube a great rival for some of the best podcast apps on iOS and on Android. Here’s how to get YouTube playing in the background on your phone, whatever device you have.
Looking for music on YouTube to listen to in the background? Take a look at our guide on how to download music from YouTube and listen on any device.How to get YouTube to play in the background with YouTube Premium
YouTube Premium is a subscription service that gets rid of ads on desktop and mobile, opens access to exclusive videos, and allows for the downloading of videos. But crucially for our purposes, it also allows you to continue watching YouTube in the background after shutting off your phone’s screen or navigating to a different app. There are no steps to turning this on as it’s on by default, so as long as you have YouTube Premium, it should work just fine.
YouTube Premium also comes with ad-free access to YouTube Music and it gives you the option to shut off the screen in that app, too. What is the catch? As you might expect, it’s money. YouTube Premium will cost you $12 a month or $23 a month for a family subscription for up to six members — but you can get a one-month free trial. YouTube’s app is available for both Android and iPhone.
While the added cost isn’t ideal, this is easily the most convenient way to play YouTube in the background on your iPhone or Android phone.How to get YouTube to play in the background (iPhone browsers)
But what if you want to play YouTube videos in the background on your iPhone without paying for Premium? That’s where web browsers come in.
