10 YouTube Music Life Hacks Every User Should Know
YouTube Music isn’t the most feature-rich of all the music streaming services, but it’s a great option for those who enjoy music videos, user-generated content, and the YouTube ecosystem in general. If you already have YouTube Music or are considering switching from another platform, here are the best tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your listening experience.
Use these tools to transfer your playlists from another streaming service.
If you’re transferring your playlists from another app to YouTube Music, you don’t have to start from scratch. YouTube has direct integration with Apple Music for transferring playlists. For other streaming services, like Spotify, you can import data using third-party apps like TuneMyMusic or Soundiiz for a fee (for a one-time transfer, you’ll only need a monthly subscription). To transfer data from Apple Music to YouTube Music, sign in to Apple Music and select “Request a copy of your data transfer” > “Apple Music playlists” > “Continue.” You’ll need to select your Google account and click “Confirm export.”
Upload your music to your library.
If YouTube Music doesn’t have what you want to listen to, or if you want to add your personal library to the platform, you can upload up to 100,000 songs from your computer. However, there are some limitations when uploading music. Other users won’t be able to play these songs in shared playlists, and they won’t count toward your YouTube Music recommendations. To upload your own content, drag and drop files to music.youtube.com on your computer or click your profile photo and select “Upload Music.” Files must be in FLAC, m4a, mp3, OGG, or WMA format.
Pause your browsing history to prevent content from influencing your recommendations.
Spotify has an “Exclude from Taste Profile” option , which allows you to exclude specific tracks or playlists from personalized recommendations or from appearing in your year-end review. The YouTube Music equivalent isn’t as feature-rich; instead, you can pause your entire watch history, which means videos won’t appear in your history and won’t be used for recommendations. Note that this setting applies to both YouTube and YouTube Music if you’re logged in with the same account. To pause your watch history, go to Settings > Privacy & Location or Privacy & Data and toggle the switch next to “Pause Watch History.”
Another option is to exclude YouTube videos you like from YouTube Music recommendations. To do this, go to Settings > Recommendations or Playback & Restrictions and disable the “Show Liked Music from YouTube” option.
Improve your streaming quality with equalizer, playback, and normalization.
For the best listening experience, you can adjust several audio quality settings in YouTube Music. First, go to Settings > Data Saver (on Android) or Playback & Restrictions (on iOS) > Wi-Fi Audio Quality and select “High” or “Always High.” You can also adjust your mobile data streaming settings from this menu, as well as downloads via Settings > Background Downloads or Downloads & Storage . YouTube Music users on Android have an equalizer that allows you to adjust bass and treble levels across nine bands or choose from preset music genres. You’ll find it in Settings > Playback > Equalizer . YouTube Music also recently introduced an audio normalization feature to ensure consistent volume across all tracks, although it doesn’t appear to be available to all users.
Save data with audio-only streaming.
When listening to YouTube Music on a mobile device, you may not want to waste data on video playback, especially if you have a poor connection. You can disable audio-only video playback, which will switch music and podcasts containing videos to the audio version. In the app, tap your profile photo and go to Settings > Data Saver or Playback & Restrictions . Toggle the ” Don’t Play Music Videos” and “Don’t Play Podcasts” toggle. Please note that this feature is only available to Premium subscribers .
Use Smart Download to manage your device’s storage space.
YouTube Premium subscribers also have access to a mobile feature called Smart Downloads. When enabled, YouTube will automatically download recommended videos to your device for offline viewing. This setting is disabled by default, but if you enable it, you can choose how much space you want to allocate for downloaded content. Go to Settings > Background Downloads or Downloads & Storage and toggle the switch next to Smart Downloads . You can then adjust the slider to your desired storage amount. You can also set up automatic downloads of up to 20 recently played songs to YouTube Music. Please note that downloads will only occur when connected to Wi-Fi and will pause when your device runs out of storage.
Use hashtags to search playlists.
One way to find relevant content on YouTube Music is by searching hashtags, which creators can add to the titles and descriptions of videos and playlists. Simply enter the # symbol followed by a keyword, which can be anything from an artist or genre to #newmusic or #live. YouTube Music also supports search operators (similar to standard Google search) and has a sound search feature that uses your mobile device’s microphone to identify songs being played, sung, or hummed, which you can then save to your library.
Invite collaborators to share playlists.
The most popular music streaming services have collaboration features, from live playlists on Spotify to shared playlists on Apple Music . On YouTube Music, collaboration allows multiple users to add songs and videos to a playlist. To invite participants, tap the pencil icon in a playlist, tap Collaboration , turn on Collaboration , and tap Invite Participants to share a link. Playlists must be either public or private for collaboration. A newer feature called Taste Match will automatically create a new playlist every day based on participants’ listening history. Up to 10 users can participate in a Taste Match. In the YouTube Music app, go to the Library tab and tap New > Taste Match > Invite to share a link.
Use this feature to create playlists using AI.
Like most other music streaming platforms, YouTube Music now has an AI-powered playlist generator that uses Google Gemini to transform natural language queries into custom playlists. In the Library tab, click Create > AI Playlist and enter a query like “soft rock with emotional depth” or “artists similar to [favorite artist].” I got decent results with these simple queries, but some Reddit users note that more specific and detailed data tends to yield better results.
Use these workarounds to block ads on the free plan.
If you don’t have a paid YouTube Music subscription, you’ll see ads while listening. The obvious solution is to upgrade to a paid plan (though some Premium subscribers still see ads ), or you can try a workaround. One option is listening through the Brave browser , which blocks ads on computers and mobile devices without the need for third-party extensions. I’ve also often seen recommendations to install an ad blocker, such as uBlock Origin in Firefox or DuckDuckGo.