YouTube Picture in Picture feature is free to use in the USA. If you cannot find picture in picture for YouTube not working on iPhone in your region, you have come to the right place. In this article, I will show you 3 ways to enable Picture in Picture for YouTube. You can run it from the YouTube app or Safari.
YouTube PIP Shortcut
There is no need to download anything to use YouTube Picture in Picture on iPhone or iPad because you can use the stock app Shortcuts. You can run it from YouTube app or Safari.
The Shortcuts was first introduced in iOS 12 that allows you to do automation tasks. In iOS 13, Apple made it a stock app and announced Automation in Shortcuts app, but it is truly acknowledged as automation in iOS 15/16.
Make sure you have the Shortcuts app on your iPhone. In case you haven’t, you can free download it from Appstore. After that, you can refer to the steps below to see how it works:
Step 1. Open this link to get the YouTube PIP shortcut.
Note: If you cannot add Untrusted shortcuts (need in iOS14/15), you can create a new shortcut and add any action in there. Run it once and go to Settings > Shortcuts > Allow Untrusted Shortcuts. After you toggle on this option, you should be able to add any custom shortcuts.
Step 2. Within YouTube, find the video that you want to watch and tap the share button.
Step 3. Tap More and scroll down to select the YouTube PIP shortcut from the Share Sheet.
Now it will play YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode. Even if you lock the screen, it will play the YouTube video in the background. If you watch YouTube videos from Safari, you can tap the Safari share button to run this shortcut to get the same results.
X.app Picture-in-Picture Extension
If you need an even better experience playing YouTube videos in PIP mode, I highly recommend you try this X.app for iOS, completely free. You only need to enter the URL to play YouTube videos in PIP mode. You can easily change the position, size of the video.
Once the video is loaded, you can still use all the YouTube features like speed control, and quality adjustment. In addition, you can play related YouTube videos and search for new videos to play in PIP mode.
Picture In Picture on iOS 15/16
I remember Picture in picture feature has been available on iPad for a while. Finally, Apple has brought it on iPhone. You just need to open Safari and request the desktop site to play the video in picture in picture mode.
If you have no idea how to do it, you can follow the steps below:
Step 1. Open Safari and go to the youtube video page.
Step 2. Press on the AA icon on the address bar and select Request Desktop Website.
Step 3. Play the YouTube video again and drag the Youtube video to watch YouTube video in picture in picture mode.
Conclusion
YouTube has tried to block picture in picture feature on iPhone once. Maybe it has to be turned down again since it is a premium feature in YouTube Red subscription. No matter what, you can still use the shortcut to play YouTube videos in picture in picture mode.
I somehow have YouTube picture in picture and background player working without a premium subscription when I’m not signed into a youtube account on the YouTube app on my iPhone.
My iPhone 12 pro max battery was bad and swollen. Took it to the Apple store and they replaced it with a new one. I had everything backed up over the iCloud.
so after the back up downloaded everything looked exactly the same except I wasn’t signed in to some of the apps. I noticed in the YouTube app before I had signed in that the picture in picture was working and even the background player was working but when I signed into my non premium YouTube account the picture in picture and background wouldn’t work. so I signed out and the picture in picture in background would work again. I’m running 15.4 iOS on a new iphone 12 pro max