Show menu
Home
›
News
›
How to listen to YouTube videos in the background – iOS guide

How to listen to YouTube videos in the background – iOS guide

Posted: 17 Apr 2015, 05:50 , posted by Paul K.

Share Tweet Share

Tags : T-Mobile -T-Mobile + AT&T -AT&T + Verizon -Verizon + Sprint -Sprint + iOS -iOS + Apple -Apple + Tablets -Tablets + How-to -How-to +

Google has been doing its best to limit the ability of one to listen to its music while doing something completely different than actually watching them. Now, naturally, since Google wants your eyes on its site / app (and ads), and especially since it launched the Play Music and All Access services – being able to just play tunes on your phone from the YouTube app then minimizing it / sleeping the phone and doing other stuff had to go.

Now, since Google has a firm grasp on Android, being able to play minimized YouTube vids on those handsets is actually not doable – not unless you root your phone, that is. However, you can actually have your YouTube music running in the background on an iOS device such as an iPad or iPhone. It's done in a couple of steps for each time you wish to activate it and here's how it's done:

How to listen to YouTube videos in the background – iOS guide

[optional] Delete the YouTube app

YouTube.com

[if YT app wasn't deleted] Get back to Safari

View more
+ 4 images

How to listen to YouTube videos in the background – iOS guide

For this guide to work, you need to open YouTube through Safari. Since this will result in a prompt on whether you wish to open the YouTube app instead of the website, deleting the app will just speed the process up

Now, as you can see from step 3 and 4, having the YouTube app on the device could cause some headaches as you try to use this method. If you end up deciding to ditch the app, here's an easy way to create a shortcut to the YouTube website – it will even look like an app!

Adding an app-like shortcut to YouTube.com

Open Safari and go to the website

Create shortcut

App-like shortcut

Adding an app-like shortcut to YouTube.com

Dial in youtube.com in Safari

$164.99 Apple iPhone 6 on Amazon

$283.94 Apple iPhone 6 Plus on Amazon

$179.99 Apple iPad Air on Amazon

Cheatsheet: Smartphone release schedule for the rest of 2018

Shutterbugs: The exceptional camera phones of 2018

Related phones

12 Comments

Options
Close Follow › Following
Show comments:

Display mode:

Always view all comments

posted on 17 Apr 2015, 06:04

1. kkmkk (Posts: 686; Member since: 06 May 2013)

is it possible to do the same for android ?

posted on 17 Apr 2015, 06:17

3. vincelongman (Posts: 5308; Member since: 10 Feb 2013)

The stock YouTube app has this if you have a Play Music subscription

There's some apps on the Play Store that allow this (e.g. Viral)
And there a Xposed mod which adds this to to the YouTube app