10 Hacks Every YouTube Music User Should Know
YouTube Music isn’t the most feature-rich music streaming service, but it’s a great option for those who love music videos, user-generated content, and the YouTube ecosystem as a whole. If you have YouTube Music or are considering switching from another platform, here are the best tips and tricks to get the most out of your listening experience.
If you’re switching to YouTube Music from another app, you don’t have to start from scratch. YouTube has direct integration with Apple Music for playlist transfers. For other streaming services like Spotify, you can import using third-party apps like TuneMyMusic or Soundiiz for a fee (for a one-time transfer, just subscribe for a month). To move data from Apple Music to YouTube Music, sign in to Apple Music and choose Request to transfer a copy of your data > Apple Music playlists > Continue. You will need to select your Google account and tap Confirm export.
Upload your own music to your library
If YouTube Music doesn’t have something you want to listen to, or if you want to add your personal library to the platform, you can download up to 100,000 songs from your computer. That said, there are some limitations when downloading music. Other users won’t be able to listen to these songs in shared playlists, and they won’t be included in your YouTube Music recommendations. To upload your own content, drag the files to music.youtube.com on the desktop or click on your profile picture and select Download music. Files must be FLAC, m4a, mp3, OGG or WMA.
Pause your watch history to prevent content from influencing your recommendations
Spotify offers an “exclude from taste profile” option that lets you prevent specific tracks or playlists from influencing your personalized recommendations or appearing in your end-of-year Wrapped. YouTube Music’s analog isn’t as nuanced; Instead, you can pause your overall viewing history, which means videos will not appear in your history or be used for recommendations. Note that this setting applies to both YouTube and YouTube Music if you’re signed in with the same account. To pause your watch history, go to Settings > Privacy & Location Or Privacy and data and flip the seesaw next to Pause watched video history.
Another option is to exclude videos you liked on YouTube from your YouTube Music recommendations. Go to Settings > Recommendations Or Reading and restrictions and deactivate Show off your favorite music on YouTube.
Improve streaming quality with equalization, playback and normalization
For the best listening experience, you can adjust a handful of YouTube Music audio quality settings. First, go to Settings > Data backup (on Android) or Reading and restrictions (on iOS) > Audio quality over Wi-Fi and select High Or Always high. You can do the same for mobile data streaming from this menu and for downloads via Settings > Background & Downloads Or Downloads and storage. YouTube Music listeners on Android get an equalizer that lets you customize bass and treble levels across nine bands or choose from music genre presets. You will find this below Settings > Playback > Equalizer. YouTube Music also recently introduced an audio normalization feature for consistent volume across all tracks, although it doesn’t appear to be available to all users.
Record data with audio-only streaming
When you listen to YouTube Music on mobile, you may not always want to lose video data, especially if your connection is poor. You can turn off video playback with audio-only mode, which will switch music and podcasts containing video to audio-only versions. On the app, tap your profile picture and go to Settings > Data backup Or Reading and restrictions. Press the buttons to Don’t stream music videos And Don’t play podcast videos. Note that this feature is only available to Premium subscribers.
Use Smart Downloads to manage device storage
YouTube Premium subscribers also get a mobile feature called Smart Downloads. When enabled, YouTube will automatically download recommended videos to your device for offline viewing. The setting is off by default, but if you enable it, you can select the amount of storage space you want to allocate to downloaded content. Go to Settings > Background & Downloads Or Downloads and storage and flip the seesaw next to Smart Downloads. You can then set the slider to the chosen storage capacity. There’s also an option for YouTube Music to automatically download up to 20 of your recently listened to songs. Note that downloads will only happen when you are connected to Wi-Fi and will stop when your device storage is low.
What do you think of it so far?
One way to find relevant content on YouTube Music is to search with hashtags, which creators can add to titles and descriptions of videos and playlists. Just type the # symbol followed by the keyword, which can range from an artist or genre to #newmusic or #live. YouTube Music also allows search operators (like a standard Google search) and has a sound search feature that uses your microphone on mobile to identify a song that’s playing, singing, or humming, which you can then save to your library.
Invite collaborators to shared playlists
The most popular music streaming services all have some type of collaborative feature, from Spotify’s Real-Time Jams to Apple Music’s shared playlists. Collaboration on YouTube Music allows multiple users to contribute to a playlist and add songs and videos. To invite collaborators, tap the pencil icon on a playlist, tap Collaborateswitch it Collaborate function activated, then press Invite collaborators to share the link. Playlists must be public or unlisted for collaboration. A newer addition called Taste Match will automatically generate a new playlist each day based on participants’ listening history. Taste Match can include up to 10 users. In the YouTube Music app, go to Library tab and press New > Taste the meeting > Invite to share the link.
Use this feature to generate playlists with AI
Like most other music streaming platforms, YouTube Music now has an AI-powered playlist generator, which uses Google’s Gemini to translate natural language queries into personalized playlists. In the Library tab, tap New > AI Playlist and enter a prompt, like “gentle rock with emotional depth” or “artists like [favorite artist]. “I’ve had decent results with these simple prompts, but some Reddit users note that more specific and detailed inputs tend to yield better results.
Use these workarounds to block ads on the free tier
If you do not pay for a premium YouTube Music subscription, your listening will contain advertisements. An obvious solution is to upgrade to a paid plan (although some Premium subscribers still received ads) or you can try a workaround. One option is to listen through Brave Browser, which blocks ads on desktop and mobile without the need for a third-party extension. I’ve also seen users frequently recommend installing an ad blocker like the open source uBlock Origin in Firefox or DuckDuckGo.
