While YouTube's picture-in-picture mode was previously removed on the iPhone, it has since returned bringing back a handy feature already enjoyed on some of the best Android phones. It's now available to any one on iOS 15 or above.
Head over to the Settings app on your iPhone -> General -> Picture in Picture Mode -> turn off the toggle. Next, restart your iPhone. Once your device has rebooted, head back into the same setting and then turn on the toggle for PiP mode at the end.
Clear the YouTube App Cache (Only For Android Devices)
This can be a major hurdle for YouTube's picture-in-picture feature not working as expected. Clearing the YouTube app cache regularly can help you keep these problems at bay.
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.
To use PiP mode, simply exit the YouTube app when a compatible video is playing. You can do this by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to go to the main screen on iOS devices, and by swiping from the bottom/pressing the 'home' button on Android phones.
The picture-in-picture feature is present on both Android and iOS, but it's only available to YouTube Premium subscribers. Nevertheless, you can use a few neat little tricks to watch YouTube in PiP mode on any desktop or mobile device.
Now, YouTube had rolled out support for PiP mode on Google's Android mobile operating system with the launch of Android Oreo back in 2017 but, Apple users couldn't access this feature up until now.
Possible reasons are as follows: Pip is not installed. Pip is not added to the PATH environment. Pip is installed, but it is not compatible with the current environment.
Launch the YouTube app on Android or iOS smartphone. Choose a video you want to watch and start playing it. Turn off the screen or switch to another app while the video is playing. The video will continue to play in the background, even if you're not actively using the app.
If you're using an Android phone, swipe down the notification panel and tap the "Play" button from the playback notification to resume playback in the background. If you're using an iPhone or iPad, open the control centre and tap on the Play button on the music widget to resume playback in the background.
If the video has a copyright like official music etc. will require a Premium/Red sub to use PiP even in the US.
YouTube's iPhone app has offered a Picture in Picture feature to YouTube Premium subscribers as an experiment for nearly a year now, but recently the popular video-sharing service confirmed on Twitter that the feature has been removed.