Thankfully, there's a workaround that enables you to play music from YouTube videos for free, in the background, and it's really not difficult to do. Of course, you can use the YouTube Music app, but again, you need to be a subscriber for that too. Some might remember a time when YouTube was an built-in app on iOS devices you could play YouTube videos in the background, thereby allowing you to use other apps (or turn the screen off) while still being able to listen to the audio of the YouTube clips. Now, YouTube does let you use its video app to play music in the background but there's a caveat: you need to be a Premium subscriber in order to take advantage of that feature. You can perform the same operations using. The YouTube video starts playing in background and you can work on other desired tasks or even lock the screen. Presumably this is a limitation from Apple since most other apps also do not allow background audio either, suggesting this is not a feature that Google. To resume the video, Bring up the Control Center(by swiping up) and Tap on Play button. It’s not entirely clear why the YouTube app doesn’t have native support to play audio in the background of iOS, though it first occurred when the Apple’ provided YouTube app disappeared. You can also open YouTube in Safari and use the desktop view mode to play videos in the background. The video will be paused once you are on Home screen. YouTube Premium lets you play videos when the app isn't open, but it costs 11.99 per month. YouTube's music streaming service explained To play YouTube videos in the background on your iPhone, you can use YouTube Premium or Safari.You can find podcast episodes and concerts on there too. With YouTube, the app is a sort-of two-in-one platform that offers videos and, with that, music videos which is a surprisingly popular way to consume music these days. For video apps that's not the case which - again - makes sense, since you can't watch videos with your iPhone locked and the phone in standby. After all, they'd be virtually useless if they couldn't. (Pocket-lint) - On iPhone, most music apps let you play music in the background.