🙌 Google is finally adding the best feature of YouTube Premium for all users worldwide
🔜 Picture-in-picture mode is being rolled out to all users in the coming months, even to those without a Premium subscription
🙏 It allows you to close the YouTube app, but still have a video playing in the background
👍 It’ll work for long-form, non-music content for all users, and also work on musical content for YouTube Premium subscribers
Google is adding the best feature of YouTube Premium for all users worldwide, including those without a Premium subscription, in a surprise move.
It’s the picture-in-picture mode that allows you to shrink a video down and watch it even when you’re outside of the app, which has been a longstanding Premium feature, and one of the best at that.
To activate it, you’ll need to swipe up or press on the home button to close YouTube, and a video should play in a miniplayer that you can move around the screen.
Google says that the feature will make its way to folks over the coming months, so it may take some time before it appears for you, but rest assured that you should get it, eventually.
For reference, picture-in-picture mode first became available on Android and iOS for YouTube Premium subscribers in 2018 and 2021, respectively, in the USA, before everyone got access to it.
On the feature’s support page, Team YouTube has said that there won’t be any changes for folks in the USA, but everyone else will get it for long-form, non-music content on Android and iOS.
If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber, then you get the added perk of picture-in-picture working on both music and non-music content. Neat.
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Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.