Search icon

Lifestyle

08th Feb 2016

Here’s how to listen to YouTube in the background on your iPhone

This is very handy.

Ben Kenyon

How annoying is it when you’re using the YouTube app on your iPhone and you can’t do anything else?

Our ephemeral attention spans demand that we play a YouTube video, message our pals and check the football scores all at the same time.

But as soon as you go to use another app, whatever you’re listening to on YouTube stops dead. It’s pretty irritating.

So if you’ve finally found that one obscure recording of your favourite song, you end up resenting it because you can’t listen to it while using your phone for any other purpose.

But don’t fret. Like with most things in tech, there’s a fairly simple work-around.

Sadly it’s not in the app itself – you have to do it through Safari. But if it lets us keep listening to that album on YouTube or playing our favourite video in the background, we don’t care.

Here goes…

Step 1: Open Safari

Safari

Step 2: Go to http://youtube.com/ and select the video you want to play.

big

Step 3: Once it’s playing, click the home button on your device (and the video will stop playing).

Step 4: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up the Control Centre

Control

Step 5: Press the ‘Play’ button which is in the media panel and voila!

Step 6: Do whatever it is you like.

You’re welcome.

Read more:

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required