Using picture-in-picture on your mobile device

Picture-in-picture (PiP) shrinks a video into a small player so you can keep watching while using other apps on your mobile device. You can move the small player around your device’s home screen and position it over other apps.

How to use picture-in-picture on your mobile device

Using picture-in-picture

To use picture-in-picture (PiP), exit the YouTube app while a video is playing. If you have the PiP setting turned on, the video will shrink into a PiP window. The PiP window can be dragged to different parts of the screen, allowing playback to continue on top of other apps. You can pause or stop playing a video before you exit YouTube to prevent PiP from turning on.

You can use picture-in-picture (PiP) to watch content across YouTube, with a YouTube Premium membership. If you don’t have YouTube Premium and are in the United States, you can still use PiP, but you can’t watch certain content, like music videos.

Note: If you’re outside of the US, you’ll need a YouTube Premium membership to use PiP with any content on YouTube.

Turning picture-in-picture OFF

1. Go to your Android settings  Apps & notifications  Advanced  Special app access  Picture-in-picture.
2. Tap YouTube.
3. To turn off, tap Allow picture-in-picture. 

Turning picture-in-picture ON

1. Go to your Android settings  Apps & notifications  Advanced  Special app access  Picture-in-picture.
2. Tap YouTube. 
3. To turn on, tap Allow picture-in-picture.
4. Go to your YouTube app settings   General.
5. Toggle Picture-in-Picture to on .

Closing the picture-in-picture window

There are two ways to close the picture-in-picture window:

• Tap the PiP player to show controls, then tap the X in the top-right corner of the PiP player. 

or

• Drag the PiP player off to the bottom of the screen.

Note: When you dismiss a picture-in-picture window, a notification will open, allowing you to resume playback in Background Play mode.