Use This YouTube Music App to Get More Spotify Experience on Your Desktop
YouTube Music is a worthy alternative to Spotify, especially if you’re already paying YouTube Premium to remove ads. There’s a big drawback, however: Google doesn’t offer a desktop app for YouTube Music, meaning you’ll have to run the app in your browser. This also means that you can’t customize YouTube Music the way you can with Spotify .
That’s whyYouTube Music Desktop exists, a free app not made by Google. The app, compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, puts YouTube Music in its own window, outside of your browser, and also adds extensions for things like downloading songs, skipping non-musical parts of videos, and blocking ads.
To get started, simply download the application and launch it. You can sign in to Google if you have an account, but you don’t have to—you can start searching and listening to music right away. The app is essentially a browser with several extensions, so there shouldn’t be any security issues when logging in. If you’ve used YouTube Music at all, it should look very familiar – it’s a web app, but in a dedicated window.
There are a few settings you can make in the Options menu that you should be aware of. If you want, you can set the app to launch from the system tray, meaning if you close the window, your music will continue to play. You can also choose which page you want to open when you launch the application.
However, the most interesting things can be found in the “Plugins” section. There are many settings here that you can enable. SponsorBlock automatically skips non-music parts of music videos—for example, some music videos have intros or fills that you might not want to hear if you’re just trying to listen. There is a tool to remove all Google sign-in prompts if you prefer not to sign in or are asked to sign in. There is a simple visualizer if you prefer to see dance bars instead of an album cover or music video. And there is a plugin that allows you to prevent video playback altogether. If you want to learn more, you can find the full list of pluginson Github .
All these features, as well as placing YouTube Music in a separate window, make using YouTube Music much more enjoyable. Try this app if you’re tired of forgetting which browser tab and window your music is processed in.