This YouTube Hack Lets You Play Music On Your Phone & Still Use Other Apps

Sometimes you want to just listen to a YouTube video and still use your phone's other apps. Unfortunately, unless you have YouTube Premium, the app doesn't let you listen to music in the background. The good news is, you can listen to videos in the background outside of the YouTube app with an easy hack. If you're ready to jam out while using other apps, this hack to play YouTube music on your phone is a game-changer.

There are times when you're OK keeping the YouTube App open to watch videos — like when you're checking out makeup tutorials or something that demands your attention. But sometimes, you only want to listen to music and don't want to render your phone useless while the YouTube app is open. Thankfully, there are a couple of ways around this. The first is to fork over $11.99 per month to subscribe to YouTube Premium to enable videos to play in the background and skip the ads, which, if it's not in your budget, you probably don't want to do. The second is to bypass the YouTube app and head to your phone's web browser instead.

This easy hack will let you play YouTube Music on your phone — whether you have an iPhone or an Android.

How To Play YouTube Music In The Background On iPhone:

This hack, which Instagrammer @desimariexo shared on May 4, will let you play YouTube music in the background while you use your iPhone.

1. Start by opening your Safari browser and heading to youtube.com.
2. From the top of your browser page, tap on the icon "AA" in the top-left corner.
3. After tapping the icon, you'll see an options menu. Select the option that says "Request Desktop Site."
4. Tap on an official song video from one of your favorite artists.
5. Next, minimize the browser and head to your iPhone's Home Page. Once there, tap on the play button in the Music section (where you should see the track).
6. Once it's playing in the background, start scrolling other apps and enjoy.

It's important to note that if you select a playlist of official videos using an iPhone, you will need to go back and tap play for each song because autoplay won't work.

How To Play YouTube Music In The Background On Android:

This hack from Howtosolveit on YouTube shares a similar way to play music in the background that's Android-specific.

1. Open your Google Chrome browser on your phone.
2. Go to youtube.com and find a song you want to listen to.
3. Look for the three dots icon in the top-right corner of the page and tap on it.
4. There, you'll see an options menu. Choose the "Desktop Site" option.
5. Hit play on your video and minimize your internet browser. From your Android's home page, swipe for the drop-down menu. There, you'll see the music track underneath the icon buttons. Hit play, and you're good to go.

When using this hack on Android, you don't need to select each song if you don't want to. To keep the music coming, find a playlist of official tracks by an artist of your choice on the YouTube website and tap "Play All." After choosing a playlist, the videos will be on autoplay (with ads). You can also choose to skip a song and go to the next track by tapping the skip (right arrow) button.

For both iPhone and Android phones, avoid using apps that require sound while you're listening to YouTube because that will halt the track.

Now that you know how to listen to your fave bops on YouTube while you do other things on your phone, you just ~might~ use the hack on the reg.