Lots of people use YouTube as their main music streaming or video playing app. But unlike other music apps, if you close the app or lock your iPhone while listening, all the music will be cut off. Therefore, in today’s article we will see how to have YouTube in background on iPhone.
I have to tell you that unless you’ve signed up for the paid subscription service, YouTube Premium, you won’t have any other “official” way to make the app’s videos play in the background on your iPhone.
If you don’t want to sign up for YouTube Premium, you can also use a hack involving the Safari app from your iPhone. However, this method can be finicky and may be removed in a future update.
Here are both ways to play app videos in the background on your iPhone, so you can start listening to videos without keeping the app open. Let’s see them!
How to Play YouTube in the Background on an iPhone
The first method would be using the Premium option. First of all, you have to sign up for YouTube Premium, you can do it from here.
YouTube Premium costs 11.99 euros per month for a single account (6.99 euros per month if you are a student), or 17.99 euros per month for six accounts in a “Family Plan”.
Registration will get rid of all ads on videosit will allow you to download videos for offline viewing and will give you access to both “YouTube Original” videos and YouTube Music, the company’s music streaming service.
And of course, you’ll have the ability to play and listen to any YouTube video in the background, even while using other apps.
Let’s go over, let’s go over how to sign up for YouTube Premium step by step:
You will first need to go to the YouTube Premium home page, which can be found here.
Now click on the blue button that says “Start Test”which will open a window for you to enter your payment information.
The YouTube premium home page highlights a free trial option, which It will let us use the Premium service for a month without having to pay for it.. If I remember correctly, a while ago, they offered us three months of free trial.
You will now need to enter your payment information and your zip code. However, YouTube may charge you a fee of €1 up front to ensure that the payment information you have given them is valid; this euro should be repaid in a few days.
And it would be! The YouTube account you used to sign up for Premium will immediately be granted access to all new Premium features.
Now that you have YouTube Premium, I’m going to show you how to play videos in the background step by step:
First open the YouTube app on your iPhoneas usual.
Navigate to the video you want to listen to in the background.
Once you start watching the video or listening to the music, feel free to lock your iPhone or close the app and open another without any fear.
You can pause and play the audio of the video from the iPhone Control Centeropening it and holding your finger on the music tab for a moment.
Now as long as you are subscribed to YouTube Premium, you will be able to listen to YouTube videos without having the application open.
One tip, you can customize or disable background playback by going to Setting from the YouTube app and selecting Background playback. From there you can set it to Always On, Off, or Headphones or External Speakers.
How to do it using the Safari app on your iPhone
Since the launch of YouTube Premium, Google has worked hard to make sure it’s the only way to play YouTube in the background.. But it is true that every few months a new trick appears that allows users to bypass this control, even if they «fix” quickly.
This is the latest hack. It involves opening YouTube in the Safari app, and then using the desktop view to make your phone think it’s just a regular video, which can play in the background, just like it would on your Mac. To do this, follow these steps:
First open the browser Safari from your iPhone and go to www.youtube.com. If you do this and it automatically redirects to the YouTube app, you may need to uninstall the app from your mobile device.
Now you must search for the video that you want to play in the background and start playing it.
touch the icon aA in the lower left corner of the screen and select Request desktop website.
The page will reload and the new video player will look just like the YouTube website you would see on a computer.
Tap the video again to start playing it. It will start playing in full screen mode.
From time to time, when you hit Request Desktop Website, it will send you back to the YouTube home page. You just have to press the back arrow button and you will return to the video you were watching. This is the tricky part…
Now close the app. You will notice that the sound will stop playing, this is normal.
Open Control Center on your iPhone. In the box showing what music is currently playing, tap the play button.
And it would be!
One last tip, depending on which iPhone model you have, you can open Control Center by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen or by swiping up from the bottom edge.
Now you’ll be able to lock your phone, use other apps, and even browse other Safari pages with YouTube in the background. Just keep in mind that if you’re playing from a playlist, you’ll need to do this for each individual video.
As always, I hope this article to learn how to have YouTube in the background on the iPhone has helped you. If you do it too or know another method, please let us know in the comments.
