Difficulty
easy
Duration
5 minutes
What You Need
Closing the YouTube app will stop the video recording from playing, but there are a few simpleton workarounds that will allow you to listen to a television in the background. Better yet, there are ways to get a mini pop-up book YouTube player while you browse elsewhere. This is our simple steer on how to play YouTube in the background, for both io and Android devices .
Looking for music on YouTube to listen to in the background ? Take a look at our scout on how to download music from YouTube and listen on any device .
YouTube Premium (Android, iOS)
YouTube Premium is a subscription service that gets rid of ads on background and mobile, opens access to exclusive videos, and allows for the download of video. But crucially for our purposes, it besides allows you to continue listening after shutting off your earphone ’ randomness screen or navigate to a different app. There are no steps to turning this on as it ‘s on by nonpayment, therefore deoxyadenosine monophosphate long as you have YouTube Premium, it should work precisely fine .
YouTube Premium besides comes with ad-free access to YouTube Music ( the surrogate of Google Play Music ) and it gives you the option to shut off the screen in that app, excessively. What is the catch ? As you might expect, it ’ south money. YouTube Premium will cost you $ 12 a calendar month or $ 18 for a class subscription for up to six members — but you can get a one-month dislodge trial. YouTube ’ randomness app is available for both Android and io .
Playing videos in certain browsers (iOS)
While shutting off the screen and continuing 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 ’ mho restrictions. Firefox and Opera Touch are two browsers that decidedly work with this method, and we recommend testing out any early io browsers you prefer .
here ’ s how you can get this method to work .
Step 1: First, navigate to YouTube from your browser of choice .
Step 2: then, search for your choose video .
Step 3: Once you ’ ve find and opened your television, change over to the background version of the site. Note: This will vary depending on which browser you ’ rhenium using, but it ’ mho normally accessed from the Options button in the top-right, followed by a tapdance on the Desktop Site option.
Step 4: Start your television play .
Step 5: now go back to your Home screen. Your video should start playing in a picture-in-picture ( PiP ) mode .
This step seems a short buggy, though, and we had to redo this multiple times to get it to work .
Step 6: You can either leave the television meet in the PiP windowpane and use your telephone as normal, or drag it over to the border to hide it aside .
Playing videos with Firefox (Android)
Playing YouTube video recording in the background in Android can be done in Firefox in a similar manner to the one above for io. We ‘ve tested this for Firefox, and it could work on other, smaller browsers besides. however, it ‘s improbable to work on any browsers using Chrome as a base, as Chrome has removed this as an option .
Step 1: Launch Firefox as you would normally and go to the YouTube web site. Make indisputable to type “ youtube.com ” in the URL submission, as tapping YouTube in Google search results will normally cause it to open the app .
Step 2: Navigate to the television you want to play in the background .
Step 3: Go to the Settings menu by tapping the three dots in the upper-right corner of the window. Afterward, tap Request Desktop Site .
Step 4: Start playing the video, and swipe up to close your browser .
Picture-in-picture mode in Android
This one seems like a bite of a deceiver because it ’ s not an app at all. Ever since Android 8.0 Oreo, Android has enabled a “ picture-in-picture mood, ” which mechanically 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-picture on YouTube to non-subscribers, besides, a long as you ’ re in the United States. however, it won ’ thyroxine work with content classified as music, so you ’ ll still need to pay for that .
On most Android phones, finding out which interpretation you have is pretty easy. Simply go to Settings > About Phone > Android Version. You ‘ll need at least Android 8.0 Oreo for this feature of speech .
Picture-in-picture mode for iOS
After a long wait, YouTube is finally rolling out picture-in-picture mode for all premium U.S. subscribers on io. The feature will besides soon be rolled out to non-premium subscribers, so all io users in the U.S. will be able to watch YouTube videos in a pop fly window when the app is closed. There shouldn ’ metric ton be besides much longer to wait for this feature, but if you ’ re inactive waiting for the rollout, you can continue to use the workarounds we mentioned above .