Image: Brady Snyder
YouTube Music is a great music streaming service, especially if you’re already subscribed to YouTube Premium. With a subscription, you can download all of your songs and playlists to your smartphone, but the process differs slightly on iOS and Android. Plus, there are a few features that allow YouTube Music to automatically download songs to your device without any of your input, so there are plenty of options. This guide shows you all the ways that you can download your songs and playlists to your smartphone with a YouTube Premium subscription.
What you need to download songs and playlists from YouTube Music
While you can stream music from YouTube Music on your smartphone without a subscription, you can’t download music without paying a monthly fee. YouTube Music Premium costs $9.99 per month and gives you all the features available on Google’s streaming service, including the ability to download songs. However, you can also pay for YouTube Premium for $11.99 per month instead. The extra monthly fee gives you all the perks of YouTube Premium, including the ability to download videos offline while adding YouTube Music Premium as well.
You can download songs and playlists to your smartphone on both iOS and Android as long as you have an active YouTube Music Premium subscription. In order to keep your downloads, you’ll need to connect to the internet at least once every 30 days to verify you’re still subscribed to the service. Downloads can be loaded up to 10 devices at a time, and you can swap out a device four times each year. After that, you won’t be able to download songs and playlists to any new devices.
How to enable automatic downloads on iPhone
YouTube Music has a feature called offline mixtape, which will automatically download songs to your device. It’ll choose songs based on your listening habits and download them, stopping at your pre-set storage limit. By default, it’ll download 2GB of music when offline mixtape is enabled.
- Open the YouTube Music app.
- Tap your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen.
- Tap the Downloads tab.
- Adjust the toggle to select your download limit and tap the Turn On button.
- The offline mixtape will download when connected to WiFi.
How to enable automatic downloads on Android
On Android devices, the above automatic download feature is called Smart Downloads. The Android app’s default download limit is 1GB, which is half of the default iOS limit. However, you can use the same slider to adjust your download limit as you see fit.
- Open the YouTube Music app.
- Tap your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen.
- Tap the Downloads tab.
- Adjust the toggle to select your download limit and tap the Turn On button.
- Smart downloads will start when connected to WiFi.
How to download a specific song or playlist on iPhone
If you’re looking to download a specific song or playlist for offline listening on your iPhone, you can do that as well.
- Find a song or playlist you’d like to download.
- Tap and hold on the song or playlist’s title or album cover.
- Press the Download button in the menu that appears.
- Look to the Downloads tab or the song or playlist you’ve selected to view the download’s progress.
How to download a specific song or playlist on Android
The process for downloading a specific song or playlist for offline listening is similar to the Android version of the YouTube Music app.
- Find a song or playlist you’d like to download.
- Tap and hold on the song or playlist’s title or album cover.
- Press the Download button in the menu that appears.
What’s next for your download
If you’re connected to WiFi when you begin your download, it should start immediately. Automatic downloads will make sure that your favorite songs and playlists are downloaded on a recurring basis, but manual downloads will need to be done by the user periodically. At this time, there isn’t a way to download your entire music library on a recurring basis. However, you can set your automatic download limit to the maximum in order to gain similar functionality. The best smartphones in 2023 have a lot of storage available, and you can fill it up with music.