Once there, open up the video you want to have played in the background. Simply open the Safari browser and go to YouTube. This method involves Private mode on Safari. When PiP mode is disabled in Settings, a video you are watching will automatically continue playing in the background if you navigate away from the YouTube app by swiping up or pressing the Home button. You can access controls like the play/pause button, rewind, and forward from the Lock Screen or the Control Center. You can use other apps or even lock your screen. The video will continue playing in the background. Swipe to the screen’s edge to minimize it.The video will continue playing in a smaller window.Now, when watching a video, exit the app by swiping up or pressing the Home button.Open the YouTube app and tap your profile picture at the top right.The first is when Picture-in-Picture(PiP) mode is enabled, and the second is when PiP is disabled. There are two different ways to listen to YouTube in the background on iPhone with the Picture-in-Picture(PiP) feature.
So not only will you be paying a lot more for YouTube TV than you would for YouTube Premium, but you also won’t be able to watch your shows with your phone screen turned off.īut without any further ado, let’s finally look at the few different ways that you can play YouTube content in the background on the iPhone. You can also use YouTube TV to watch live broadcasts, which is especially helpful for sports fans.ĭespite YouTube TV having plenty of great features, it does not offer its users the ability to watch their shows in the background on their mobile devices. YouTube TV is a separate service that allows you to watch cable and satellite television through YouTube, making it a great cord-cutting service for those who want to watch their favorite shows. It’s important to note that YouTube Premium is not the same as YouTube TV. However, if you don’t mind paying for YouTube Premium, then that is perhaps the easiest and best way to play YouTube in the background of your device. We know that purchasing and subscribing to YouTube Premium will allow you to have YouTube play in the background, but that will cost you some money ($11.99/month as of December 2020). YouTube Premium (Formerly Known As YouTube Red) This stopped the video from playing, but, after pressing the play button on the lock screen/in the control center, the video started playing while the phone was locked. We then locked the phone screen with Safari open and the video playing. To get it to work, we had to use the Request Desktop Website (the mobile version of the website would not work). We managed to get this to work on an iPhone 11 running iOS 14.2. Some have reported that this no longer works with Safari anymore, while others say it still does. To resume playing the video, open your Control Center and tap the play button there. The video will more than likely stop playing. On Chrome, simply tap the 3 vertical dots and select the Request Desktop site option.įrom there, play the video and return to your home screen. From those options, tap Request Desktop Website. On Safari, you simply need to tap the aA symbol to the left of the address bar, which brings up a small menu of options. The steps to do this are different depending on which browser you have. Instead of just using the standard mobile browser site of YouTube on the iPhone, requesting the desktop site seems to work for some people. Play YouTube in the background using web browsers on iPhone and iPad
If you want to experience it yourself, this article will explain how to get YouTube to play in the background on iPhone and iPad. But the convenience it adds to your daily life is well worth the price. Of course, this feature is only available for YouTube Premium users at the moment. It’s especially useful to listen to songs or longer podcast-style videos where you don’t necessarily need to see the visuals. While of course, the video can’t keep playing when the YouTube app is running in the background, it would be nice if at least the audio continued playing instead of everything just stopping. That is if you respond to a text or open any other app on your iPhone the video will stop playing. A very common annoyance that comes with watching content on YouTube on your iPhone is that it automatically turns off when the app is not in the foreground.