YouTube Red is a new subscription service on the video streaming site that offers users exclusive features by paying a monthly subscription fee. However, here’s how to get YouTube Red for free.
First of all, I do not condone piracy here. This is not a way to hack YouTube app and get YouTube Red illegally for free. Instead, it’s a matter of jailbreaking your iPhone (which is perfectly legal) and downloading a Cydia tweak that gives you the same features as YouTube Red. If you don’t have a jailbroken iPhone or don’t want to jailbreak it, there is another option, but it’s not that simple.
The jailbreak tweak is called YouTube++ and it’s actually been around for a while, long before YouTube Red even existed. It just enables a few cool features and disables some features that users may find annoying, such as ads.
The tweak wasn’t specifically made to bypass YouTube Red’s subscription service in any way, but it’s funny how things work. In any case, here’s how to get YouTube Red for free.
What is YouTube Red?
Google has been talking about a subscription service for YouTube for a while, but it’s finally here for users to take advantage of.
YouTube Red costs $9.99 per month and comes with a few great features that may be worth the price for some users. First, it’s completely ad-free, so you won’t see any ads while watching YouTube. It also comes with a few special features like offline viewing of your recorded videos, and also background audio that lets you start a video and then exit the app while the audio continues to play. This is great for music and other videos where the video part isn’t entirely necessary.
YouTube Red also comes with free access to Google Music where you can listen to unlimited music for free. There is also some exclusive content for YouTube Red subscribers, of which PewDiePie has been one of the providers of some exclusive videos so far.
You won’t be able to get these last two features with the YouTube++ jailbreak tweak, but you might just be interested in other features.
How to Get YouTube Red for Free
If your iPhone is not jailbroken and you are using iOS 9.0, you can still jailbreak your device using the Pangu jailbreak tool. However, if you’ve updated to iOS 9.1 or iOS 9.2 you’re sadly out of luck.
You will need to install a tweak called YouTube++ available in Cydia. Luckily, it includes most of the features that YouTube Red has, so you can get YouTube Red for free even if you don’t actually subscribe to the service.
YouTube++ offers the core features of YouTube Red, including blocked ads, offline playback, and background audio. There’s also a ton of other features you’ll get, including dedicated forward/rewind controls, speed controls, choosing a default playback quality, and an in-app web browser.
After installing YouTube++, you can access the Settings by going to the YouTube app. From there, you will see a button below where you can access all the different settings for the jailbreak tweak.
For iPhones without jailbreak
If your iPhone isn’t jailbroken and you can’t jailbreak it because you’re on a newer version of iOS, you’re not completely out of luck.
While not as integrated and seamless as YouTube++, a Mac software called YouTube Converter is a great solution. It’s made by a really great development team called Softorino, and we’ve talked about it in the past.
To download YouTube Converter, go to: this website and click. From there, install the app as you would any other Mac app.
The app is smart enough that when you navigate to YouTube in your web browser and copy the URL, the app will automatically add the clip to the converter. From there, it’s just a matter of getting started and transferring it to your iPhone. The videos then appear in the stock Videos app.
Again, it’s not exactly the actual YouTube Red functionality, but hey, it’s a way to watch YouTube videos without ads and without the need for an internet connection.
Why Should You Pay for YouTube Red?
So while I show you easy ways to get YouTube Red for free, it also has its downsides. First of all, YouTube++ will not run on your computer and will only work on the iPhone where the tweak is installed.
Also, it doesn’t give you all From YouTube Red’s features, especially free access to Google Music. Also, YouTube converter app is a very crude solution to get YouTube Red for free.
If you tend to watch YouTube videos on different devices and not just on your jailbroken iOS device, YouTube Red might be worth paying for. This gives you an ad-free experience on all platforms you’re on.
If you watch YouTube videos a lot though, $9.99 a month isn’t a bad price to pay. I have a handful of YouTube channels that I subscribe to and watch daily, so paying three cents a day for YouTube Red is a pretty good deal.
Plus, you’ll be supporting your favorite creators. So don’t think of it as giving money to Google, but as giving money to YouTubers you enjoy watching.
