How to Listen to YouTube Audio Only on Android, iPhone & Desktop

Can you listen to YouTube audio only?

It depends on where you press play.

• In the YouTube app, only with Premium. YouTube Premium adds background play and an audio-only mode to the YouTube and YouTube Music apps. The free app pauses the moment you leave it or lock the screen. That's deliberate, and the workarounds that used to get past it are closed off every few months.
• In a desktop browser, yes. A YouTube tab keeps playing while you work in other tabs or apps. The video is still being decoded in the background, and you're limited to YouTube's own queue.
• In a phone browser, not directly. Playing YouTube's site in Chrome or Safari stops when the screen locks, the same as the app.
• Through an audio player, yes, on any device. If the video has been turned into an audio file, a browser plays it like any music site does: in the background, with the screen off, with lock-screen controls. That's what the YouTube MP3 player does, and it's the method the rest of this guide walks through.

Every way to play YouTube audio in the background, compared

Listen to YouTube audio only with the TubeMixLab player

The YouTube MP3 player is a web page, not an app. Each link you paste is converted to an MP3 on TubeMixLab's servers and then played by a normal audio player in the page. That's why it behaves like any music website rather than like the YouTube app: the browser treats it as audio, so background play and lock-screen controls come for free.

1. Copy the video link from the YouTube app's Share button or the browser address bar.
2. Open the player and paste the link into the box. A status line confirms it's been added, and the track appears in the queue with a "Preparing audio" progress bar.
3. Add more links the same way. They queue in order and play back to back.
4. Press play. The first track starts on its own once it's ready; if your browser blocks that, tap the play button once. Use previous, next and the seek bar in the player card, or tap any ready track in the queue to jump to it.
5. Switch apps or lock the screen. The audio continues, and your lock screen or notification shade shows the track title and artwork with play, pause, next and previous.

The quality toggle next to the link box defaults to 128 kbps, which is ready sooner and sounds fine on speakers and earbuds. Switch to 320 kbps before adding a track if you plan to download it.

How to listen to YouTube audio only on Android (screen off, without Premium)

1. Open the YouTube MP3 player in Chrome or Samsung Internet. Avoid the in-app browser that opens when you tap a link inside another app; it may not keep audio playing.
2. Paste the link, wait for the track to show "ready", and press play.
3. Press the power button. The audio keeps going, and the notification shade and lock screen show play, pause, next and previous.

If it stops when the screen locks, the phone is restricting the browser in the background. Check the battery or data-saver settings for Chrome or Samsung Internet, and on Samsung phones make sure the browser isn't in the "sleeping apps" list. On Android there is no YouTube audio-only mode without Premium, so this browser route is the free option that actually survives the lock screen.

How to listen to YouTube audio only on iPhone (screen off, without Premium)

1. Open the YouTube MP3 player in Safari.
2. Paste the link, wait for "ready", and press play.
3. Lock the phone. Playback continues, and the lock screen and Control Center show the track with play, pause and skip controls.

Keep the Safari tab open; closing Safari entirely stops playback, as it would for any website. Chrome on iPhone uses Safari's engine underneath, so it behaves the same way. The old "request desktop site, then resume from the lock screen" trick on the YouTube site itself still surfaces in search results; it works only intermittently, and it streams the full video while it does.

How to listen to YouTube audio only on desktop

Any browser works. The player keeps going in a background tab, and browsers with media-key support (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) let the keyboard's play and pause keys control it. If all you want is one video to keep playing while you work, a normal YouTube tab already does that. The player earns its place when you want a queue of several videos as audio, without the video decoding in the background, or when you want to download the tracks afterwards.

Keep the audio for offline listening

Every track in the queue has a download button that saves a standard MP3 named after the video. That's the route for a flight, a commute with no signal, or a car stereo. On a phone the file lands in your Downloads folder; the Android guide covers where to find it and how to move it into a music app. If you only want the file and no queue, the YouTube to MP3 converter is the shorter route, and for one section of a video the YouTube audio cutter lets you pick start and end times first.

Other methods people try

• YouTube audio-only apps and "background player" apps. Some are fine; many ask for far more permissions than a player needs, and app stores remove them regularly. A web page that only needs a link is a smaller thing to trust.
• YouTube audio-only extensions. Desktop only. They don't help on phones, which is where the problem actually is.
• Picture-in-picture. Keeps the video visible while you use other apps, but on the free app it needs Premium in most regions, and it doesn't survive the lock screen.
• YouTube Music. Background play there also needs Premium in most countries. The free tier plays only while the app is open.

Common problems

• Audio stops when the screen locks. Usually a battery or data-saver setting restricting the browser in the background. See the Android and iPhone sections above.
• No lock-screen controls. Older browser versions don't support them. Playback still works; you control it from the tab.
• "Preparing audio" takes a while. The first play of a video downloads and converts it. A typical song takes well under a minute. The same video is much faster next time because the source is cached for a week.
• The first track didn't start by itself. Browsers sometimes block automatic playback until you've tapped something on the page. Tap play once; later tracks in the queue then follow on their own.
• "That doesn't look like a YouTube link." Paste the link to a specific video, not a playlist or channel page. Shorts links and youtu.be links work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Copyright and responsible use

Only play and download material you own, have permission to use, or that's otherwise legally available to you. See the Terms of Use.

Related Guides

• YouTube to MP3 on Android
• YouTube Shorts to MP3
• How to Make a Ringtone From YouTube