Using picture-in-picture on your mobile device

Picture-in-picture (PiP) allows you to watch a video in 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 the exception of music content (such as official music videos, Art Tracks, children’s songs, or user-generated song covers), which is only available to YouTube Premium members.

Note: Make sure your device is on iOS 15.0 or later to use picture-in-picture on your device.

Turning picture-in-picture OFF

1. Go to your YouTube app settings Playback.
2. To turn off, toggle Picture-in-Picture to off.

Turning picture-in-picture ON

Picture-in-picture is turned on by default for devices running iOS 15.0 and above that have not turned off background play in the YouTube app.

1. Go to your iOS device settings General Picture-in-picture.
2. To turn on, toggle Start PiP Automatically to on.
3. Go to your YouTube app settings Playback.
4. To turn on, toggle Picture-in-Picture to on.

Closing the picture-in-picture window

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