YouTube Music: five tips for audio streaming

Florian Bodoky

26/2/2025

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

YouTube Music has experienced an increase in users in recent years. Here are five beginner features in the app to make music streaming even more fun.

We can’t say with certainty how many users YouTube Music has since the company doesn’t publish specific user figures for its service. YouTube Premium, however, currently sells around 100 million subscriptions (article in German) around the world. And since YouTube Music is part of this, its userbase is likely extremely high. The service offers a number of additional features to make using it even better.

Adjust the audio quality

YouTube Music uses the AAC (web player, iOS devices) and Opus (on most Android devices) codecs. However, you can’t choose your codec freely.

However, you can adjust the playback quality. There’s Low, Normal and High.

• 1. Click on your profile picture at the top left.
• 2. Go to Settings.
• 3. Click or tap on the Playback tab.
• 4. Select your desired option under Audio quality.

How do these levels differ?

High quality uses a bit rate of 256 kbit/s. If you listen to one minute of music this way, you’ll use about 1.92 megabytes of data. For a song lasting three minutes, that’s 5.76 megabytes.

Normal has a bit rate of 128 kbit/s. If you listen to one minute of music this way, you’ll use about 960 kilobytes of data. For a song lasting three minutes, that’s 2.8 megabytes.

Low has a bit rate of 48 kbit/s. If you listen to one minute of music this way, you’ll use about 960 kilobytes of data. For a song lasting three minutes, that’s 1.8 megabytes.

Remember, the better the playback quality, the higher the data usage. When downloading, it uses more memory on your smartphone or computer too.

Upload your own music

YouTube Music lets you upload your own files to its desktop app. It’s the coolest feature the service offers. So if you produce music yourself or still own music (which you’ve actually purchased!), you can upload it there. This is particularly useful if a particular track isn’t available on YouTube Music.

Here’s how it works:

• 1. Open the YouTube Music desktop or web app (this isn’t possible in the mobile app).
• 2. Click on your profile picture in the upper right corner.
• 3. Select Upload music.
• 4. Select your file and click Open. It has to be in one of the following formats: FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG or WMA.
• 5. The file will be uploaded and saved.

After uploading, you can also listen to these songs on your smartphone. They can be found via the drop-down menu in the media library under Uploads. You can also put them in your own playlist.

Play the radio

YouTube Music Radio can expand your musical horizons. When you hear a song you like, start the Create a radio option. YouTube Music will then constantly search for new music that matches the style and/or genre of the sound you’ve chosen as your starting point. The app doesn’t stop either – your radio station will run forever. You’ll always find new artists, albums or playlists that you might enjoy.

• 1. On the start page, tap Create a radio.
• 2. Now artists and bands will be suggested to you according to the song you just liked. You can freely pick out any of them – or you can search for artists yourself if you don’t like the selection. Suggestions are based on music that YouTube Music already finds in your media library.
• 3. Tap on Next.
• 4. Decide whether you want a Low, Medium or High variety of artists. High changes the genres up quite a bit, while Low will feature more songs by similar artists. If you wish, you can also set some filters for music characteristics further down – such as Good Mood or Chill.
• 5. Tap on Done and off you go.

You can either download tracks continuously or add them to your media library. Alternatively, turn your radio into a playlist. If you want, you can also pin it and play it again on your start page by simply tapping on it.

You can share your radio too. It’ll be customised for other users, but with your settings (artist, variety, etc.)

Look for lyrics

If there’s a tune stuck in your head but you only know a few lyric fragments, the app can find the right song for you. Alternatively, you can speak the lyrics to find them.

• 1. Tap on the home icon in the YouTube Music app.
• 2. Tap on the magnifying glass to start the search.
• 3. Enter your lyrics or tap the loudspeaker icon to search by voice. Just speak the lyric out loud and you’re good, singing often works too.
• 4. You’ll now be shown the search results.

Sleep mode timer

Nothing’s more annoying than listening to music to fall asleep and being woken up by the same music two hours later. It’s why YouTube Music features a timer that silences your sleep tunes.

• 1. Start the song.
• 2. Tap on the three vertical dots near the top right.
• 3. Select the sleep mode timer.
• 4. Select how long the music should play.

If you tap on the timer again, you’ll see a countdown. You can also cancel it if you wish.

Florian Bodoky

Editor

Florian.Bodoky@digitecgalaxus.ch

I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue. more

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