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YouTube Music is Google's streaming app for Android, built on the same catalogue as YouTube itself, so studio tracks sit beside live takes, covers and remixes, free to use with ads and with a Premium tier that removes them.
Search for a song, an artist or just a mood, and it plays.
Because the catalogue is YouTube's, the studio version sits next to the live take, the acoustic cover, the remix and the official video, which no pure music service can match.
It is free with ads, and Premium removes them along with a few limits worth knowing about before you decide.
What YouTube Music Actually Does
The library runs into tens of millions of tracks, and it carries things licensed music services simply do not have. Fan covers, rare live recordings, bootleg-quality oddities and full music videos you can flip to audio-only with one tap.
That breadth is the whole reason to pick it. If a song exists in a version you half-remember, this is the app most likely to have it.
The recommendations improve the longer you use it. Mixes like Your Mix and Discover Mix rebuild themselves around what you have been playing, so new artists turn up without you building a single playlist by hand.
How Good Does It Actually Sound
Streams use AAC and Opus, two modern codecs that get more out of each kilobit than MP3 ever did.
Here is the part almost everybody misses. Premium raises the ceiling to 256kbps, but it does not switch it on for you - the app stays on its automatic setting until you go into the audio quality menu and change it yourself.
If your music sounds flat, check this first. Plenty of people pay for Premium for months and never hear the quality they are paying for, because the setting is one menu deep and off by default. Our walkthrough shows where that setting lives.
The free tier's ceiling is lower, around 128kbps in practice, though Google does not publish exact figures. On phone speakers you will not notice; on decent headphones you will.
One hard limit worth knowing up front: 256kbps is the top of the range. There is no lossless tier and none has been announced, so anyone chasing FLAC-grade audio is in the wrong app.
Free or Premium
| Free | Premium | |
|---|---|---|
| Ads between tracks | Yes | None |
| Screen off or app switched | Playback stops | Keeps playing |
| Offline listening | No | Downloads inside the app |
| Quality ceiling | Around 128kbps | 256kbps, once you switch it on |
| Holding quality on a weak signal | Drops automatically | Always High option |
| Lossless | No | No |
The free tier is genuinely usable if you listen with the app open, which is most people at a desk. The one that pushes people to pay is the screen-off limit, not the ads.
Who It Is For - and Who Should Look Elsewhere
If you already watch a lot of YouTube and care more about finding the right version of a song than about the last few decibels of fidelity, this is the natural pick. Sign-in, library and recommendations carry across every device you use.
The tell that you are in the wrong app is wanting a specific master rather than a specific song. Spotify now streams lossless FLAC to Premium subscribers at no extra cost in most large markets, which is a real difference rather than a bitrate argument.
On the lossy side the gap is smaller than the numbers suggest, since 256kbps AAC and 320kbps Vorbis land in much the same place - our piece on how Spotify's Ogg Vorbis streaming works explains why the bigger number is not automatically the better one.
If your objection is the paywall rather than the audio, RiMusic is an open-source Android client that plays the same YouTube Music catalogue with background playback and no ads. It is worth reading whether RiMusic is the better fit before you switch, because you give up the official app's sync and recommendations.
And if what you want is to keep audio rather than rent access to it, Audials records streams to local files on a desktop. For video rather than music, the standalone YouTube for Android app is the one you want.
Pairing It With the Rest of Your Android Setup
YouTube Music streams, and it will not touch the audio and video files already sitting on your phone. For those you need a local player.
VLC for Android plays practically anything with nothing extra installed, and MX Player is the smoother option for gesture controls and hardware decoding.
When MX Player stumbles on an unusual soundtrack, the MX Player Custom Codec add-on restores DTS, AC3 and EAC3 playback, and our guide on which custom codec build to pick saves a lot of trial and error.
KMPlayer Custom Codec does the same job for KMPlayer, and Kodi for Android is the one to reach for if you want a local music library with cover art and metadata sitting alongside the streaming.
Making something rather than listening to it? CapCut for Android handles the editing for whatever you post back to YouTube, and the rest of the shelf is in our Android APK section.
Saving Tracks for Offline Listening
Premium's downloads live inside the app and cannot be moved, played elsewhere or kept once the subscription lapses. For files you actually own, yt-dlp extracts audio from a YouTube video in a range of formats, though it runs on a desktop rather than the phone.
If what comes out is in a format your player dislikes, our Online Audio Converter handles the conversion in the browser with nothing to install.
Worth saying plainly. Downloading tracks outside the app can run against YouTube's terms, and it is not a way around paying for Premium. Use it for material you have the right to keep.
Installing the APK
- Tap the download button and let the file finish.
- Open it, and allow installs from your browser or file manager if Android asks.
- Sign in with your Google account so your library, playlists and recommendations follow you between devices.
Check the Android version requirement listed at the top of this page before you start, and leave a little free space for offline downloads if you are on Premium. Streaming needs a live connection, so nothing plays without one unless it has been downloaded first.
If you want to see what is inside the file first, our APK Checker reads the package name and the real Android requirement out of the APK itself. Our walkthrough on installing an APK safely covers the rest.
Quick questions
Is YouTube Music free?
Yes, with ads, and with playback stopping when you leave the app or lock the screen. Premium removes the ads and both limits.
Do I need Premium for background play?
On the official app, yes - that is the limit that persuades most people to subscribe. Open-source clients such as RiMusic play the same catalogue in the background without it.
Does it have lossless audio?
No. The ceiling is 256kbps AAC or Opus, and Google has announced nothing beyond it, so lossless listeners are better served elsewhere.
Why does my Premium subscription still sound ordinary?
Because 256kbps is not the default. Open the audio quality settings and raise it yourself, on each device, since the setting does not travel with the account.
Can I keep the songs I download?
Not as files. Premium downloads are locked inside the app and disappear when the subscription ends.
Is it the same thing as the YouTube app?
No, they are separate installs with separate libraries, though they share an account and a catalogue. Install both if you want video as well.
Download YouTube Music and see whether the catalogue breadth outweighs the missing lossless tier for you, or tell us what you make of it if you have been using it a while.
