How to Watch YouTube in Picture-in-Picture Mode on Any Android Device?

With the release of Android 8.0 Oreo in August, Google has finally added one of the most requested features to its mobile operating system. Picture-in-picture mode, which allows users to watch videos in a floating window (especially YouTube) and do other things while using other apps, is one of the highlights of Android Oreo and users love it. But thanks to the long-standing fragmentation issue, most Android users don’t even have the new Oreo update and so picture-in-picture mode is out of the question. So, if you wanted to use this feature on your device, we’ve put together a quick guide on how you can watch your YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode on any of your Android devices:

Watch YouTube in Picture-in-Picture Mode

note: I tried the apps and methods described below on Redmi Note 3 running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and Honor 7X running Android 7.0 Nougat.

• Float Tube Video Player

Using a plug-in app to emulate the picture-in-picture functionality on your Android device is probably the best option to use. this benefits of staying connected to the existing YouTube app and enjoying the videos you usually watch. You can use the Float Tube Video app for this and follow the steps described below for it to work:

1. Open the YouTube app on your Android device, play the video you want to watch in PiP mode, and tap the “share” button below the video title.

2. From the sharing screen, Tap the “Float Tube Video” icon and you will see the video start playing inside this app. Now you will have to tap on the icon in the lower right corner of the video player (which we marked) to switch the video to picture-in-picture mode.

download (Freein-app purchases starting at $3.99)

• Floating Apps (Multitasking app)

While there are dedicated apps for navigating YouTube videos on your phone screen, you can also use a universal multitasking app that lets you view any app in a popup.

1. After installing the application, grant the required permission and you will start to see a ‘Floating Apps’ icons in the top left. It will create a view just above the notification bar that you can customize according to your needs.

2. Now, tap the floating icon in the notification bar, scroll down and select the YouTube app at the bottom. This will open the YouTube mobile web app in a resizable floating window and you can search and play any video in the same window. You can search for videos you want to watch while using another app on your device.

3. As you can see below, the Youtube video plays inside the floating window without any hiccups. You can do tap the “X” in the top right to close the window in question after you finish watching the videos.

download (FreeIn-app purchases starting at $0.99)

• NewPipe YouTube Player

Now, we have already discussed two useful ways to watch YouTube videos in PiP mode, but have you ever wanted your video history to be private? Many users who are not big on Google have access to most of their private information. Thus, NewPipe YouTube Player is exactly what they need in their life.

NewPipe YouTube Player is defined as: Frontend for YouTube that doesn’t work with any of Google’s proprietary playback services or YouTube APIs. Instead, it uses information parsed from YouTube’s website to play your videos. The history of the videos you watched using NewPipe is stored offline and can be accessed at any time.

The app is still in the early stages of development but gives you options to watch any video using the picture-in-picture mode. Let’s check how the process works:

1. First, you need to download and install the NewPipe app, which you can do by downloading the APK. right here or using f-droid Android app store.

2. After installing NewPipe, you will notice that the application has a minimalist two-pane interface. But search function will be most useful For us as we can’t login to our Google account in this app. So, search for the video you want to watch while doing other things on your Android device and tap on it to play it.

3. When the video is loaded, tap the “pop up” button and the YouTube video will start playing in picture-in-picture mode on your device. That’s all well and good, but I’ve also found that NewPipe’s video player is one of the most intuitive of all the options we’ve presented here. You can resize the popup, change the video quality and speed, and double tap to search the video back and forth.

4. After you finish watching the video, you can pull down the notification shade and tap the “x” icon in the NewPipe notification to close the picture-in-picture window.

5. Another major reason why I use NewPipe to watch YouTube videos is that the app also Packs functionality that allows videos to continue playing in the background. It has been one of the most requested features for regular users, but now YouTube is charging you a fortune for Red subscription to offer you the same.

• For Android 8.0 Oreo Users

Using my previous point as a segway to talk about native picture-in-picture mode in Android Oreo, it can be used for apps that add support for the same. YouTube was one of the first video streaming apps to bring PiP mode, but limited to YouTube Red subscribers only.

While the developers had previously come up with a simple solution for the heavy YouTube Red subscription to make the picture-in-picture mode for YouTube work on any Android device, the same has been shut down by the video streaming giant. This means You still have to pay $9.99 per month to access a key feature of Android OreoIn addition to the original content and no ads.

Another important information most of you may not know about YouTube Red, currently available in five countries, namely the United States, Australia, Mexico, South Korea and New Zealand. Therefore, users living in these regions with Android Oreo-powered devices are the ones to take advantage of the native picture-in-picture (PiP) mode. Since PiP is one of the better features of Android Oreo and is now reserved only for a segment of YouTube users, this is a silly trick by Google.

However, you are free to use Chrome to watch YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode. Follow the steps mentioned below to get it working:

note: We tried this function on our Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android 8.0 Oreo Beta and it worked just fine.

1. Open youtube.com In the Chrome browser, tap the ‘three dots’ in the top left and select ‘Open on Desktop’ from the drop-down menu.

2. When the video you want to watch is opened in the desktop mode in the browser, all you have to do is play the video and switch to full screen mode.

3. Now it’s time to take the most important step. Tap the home button and the YouTube video playing in full screen in Chrome should automatically move to a popup. window on your home screen. And there you go, now you can watch YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode on your Android Oreo device without a YouTube Red subscription.

• YouTube Bot on Telegram

This is a great way To watch YouTube videos in picture-in-picture mode if your device is not running Android Oreo. Telegram is a super-secure messaging app that includes not only watching videos locally within the app, but also shooting and watching them while you work on other things. Let’s take a look at the steps on how you can do the same:

1. After creating an account and logging into Telegram, Search for “YouTube Bot” and start a conversation with him.

2. Then you need to type ‘/auth’ to connect your google account to the messaging service

note: This step is not really necessary because you can search and watch videos without doing this, but it will come in handy when you want to keep track of your history and watch a video from your subscriptions.

3. After logging in, you can: Search for video by typing “@youtube” [space] the title of the video or a Youtube star.” You will start to see suggestion cards and you can tap any of them to send the video in chat. Playing the same is pretty easy, just tap on the thumbnail of the shared video.

4. When the video starts playing in a local player, you will see two buttons at the bottom center of the player. Tap the one on the left to send the video to picture-in-picture mode (we highlighted the same in the screenshot).

5. And here are all the steps to make this work. Now you can continue using your device while enjoying your favorite YouTube video. IT not possible to resize small PiP window and you can tap the button in the upper right corner of this window to return to the app.

download (Free)

SEE ALSO: YouTube App Will Get A Dark Mode Soon

Enjoy YouTube Videos Without Stuck on YouTube App

Although Android Oreo has integrated the ability to watch videos in picture-in-picture (PiP) mode, it is quite possible that you do not have the latest features of the software. Therefore, the methods mentioned above will come in handy for you to watch YouTube videos in minimal picture-in-picture mode on any of your Android devices. What method do you plan to adopt? Or do you have any better suggestions for PiP to work? Let us know in the comments below.