Background play is one of the perks of having a YouTube Premium subscription. It allows users to continue playing videos on their mobile devices even when they exit the YouTube app or are locked. Without YouTube Premium , the audio of a video will stop playing as soon as the user exits the app or locks their device.
Pay to play
Best of all, a Premium subscription lets you play videos and music in the background while using other apps or even when your screen is off. It's a nice perk, but you can do it on your iPhone or Android without spending a dime.
Background play only works in the YouTube mobile apps and requires a YouTube Premium membership. Some videos aren't available for background play or to download offline, even if you have a channel membership. Review the steps below for help resolving your issue.
Buy YouTube Premium
As restrictive as it gets – you can't play music in the background unless you purchase YouTube Music or YouTube Premium membership. Therefore, using the Premium Version of YouTube also provides you access to all features of YouTube Music.
Is YouTube Music free? Your fans can enjoy their favorite tracks, albums, and artists with YouTube Music for free. They can use it with a YouTube Music Premium membership to download ad-free videos and listen to: Music offline.
What's included with YouTube Premium? With a YouTube Premium membership, you can watch ad-free videos on YouTube. Plus, you can download videos to watch offline—and you can play videos in the background while you use other apps. YouTube Music Premium is included in your YouTube Premium membership.
You can browse through artists, genres, or songs. And recommendations based on your listening habits are available if you want to discover new music. You can also upload your own tracks from your PC to YouTube Music. Basic access to YouTube Music is free, with a few different levels of paid subscriptions.
On Android, you can use the desktop version of YouTube in a Chrome browser to play videos in the background. If you have Android 8.0 or later, use Picture-in-Picture (PiP) by going to Settings > Apps > YouTube. Select Allowed under PiP.
Check Your Background Playback Settings
Ensure the option is enabled. Launch the YouTube app and go to Settings. Then go to Background & Downloads and tap Background Play. Make sure background playback is not set to Off.
If the YouTube background play feature is not enabled on your YouTube app, YouTube background playback not working will happen inevitably. You can tap your profile picture, go to Settings > Background & Downloads > Background Play to check whether the feature is enabled. If it is off, you need to turn it on.
Once the video has started to play, lock your iPhone or swipe with your multitasking gesture to choose another application. The video will pause, but you can then tap play and get all the benefits of background YouTube listening without forking out for a YouTube Premium subscription.
Play YouTube through Google Chrome Browser On Android
If you lock your phone, the audio should continue playing. However, you can control the pause and play features via your lock screen thanks to Google's integration—a nice, if not unintended, touch.
YouTube Music and YouTube Music Premium are essentially the same as the YouTube Music Premium is the ad-free version of the YouTube Music.
In the Audio Library in YouTube Studio, you can find royalty-free production music and sound effects to use in your videos. Music and sound effects from the YouTube Audio Library are copyright-safe. The Audio Library is found exclusively in YouTube Studio.
With YouTube Music Premium, you can: Enjoy millions of songs and videos in YouTube Music without ads. Download songs and videos to your mobile device for offline listening. Use background play to keep your music playing while you use other apps.
Technically speaking, Spotify offers better sound quality than YouTube Music. For their free versions, YouTube Music's maximum streaming quality is 128kbp, while Spotify's is 160kbps (it maxes out at 128kbps if using the web player).