Here’s how to officially turn on YouTube Picture-in-Picture (PiP) for iPhone right now

Abner Li | Aug 24 2021 - 3:58 pm PT

Back in June, Google started rolling out Picture-in-Picture support in YouTube for iPhone. It’s not widely available yet, but YouTube Premium subscribers can experimentally enable PiP in the mobile app today.

One perk of being a Premium subscriber is the ability to “try experimental new features.” YouTube.com/new shows what’s available with test capabilities featuring an end date and button to manually enable. Tapping “Try it out” next to “Picture-in-picture on iOS” will turn it on.

[Update: Some users have it working on both the iPhone and iPad. Deleting the app might be needed to get it functioning.]

With Picture-in-picture (PiP), watch YouTube videos in a mini player while using other apps.
How to use: While you are watching a video, swipe up (or press home) to close the app and watch in a mini player.

Afterwards, swiping up or pressing home after starting a video in the YouTube mobile app will generate a PiP with standard play/pause and rewind/forward controls. There’s a shortcut to return to the application and close, while pinching enlarges/minimizes.

How to enable YouTube Picture-in-Picture on iPhone

Visit YouTube.com/new while signed in to your Google Account
Make sure you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber (not just Music Premium)
Find “Picture-in-picture on iOS”
It’s the second experiment on the page after “Translate comments”
Click “Try it out”
Start a video on YouTube for iPhone app
iPad does not support PiP right now
Start Picture-in-Picture by close the app (Swipe up or home button)
Video will continue playing

Google notes how “locking the screen while watching in PiP will pause the video,” but you can resume from lockscreen media controls. The company also says it’s “working on improving these, so stay tuned.”

There’s an October 31 end date to this test. That could indicate when YouTube plans to widely launch Picture-in-Picture in the iPhone and iPad app. In June, Google started rolling out the capability worldwide for paid users. It’s also bringing PiP to free users in the US with ads.