YouTube Music is Google's dedicated music streaming service. It combines official albums and singles with YouTube's wider catalogue of live performances, remixes and music videos. This guide covers what the service offers in September 2026, what you get for free, what Premium adds, and how to make it work better for you.
What YouTube Music is
YouTube Music is available as a mobile app and on the web at music.youtube.com, and you sign in with your Google account to get recommendations based on what you have listened to or watched on YouTube. Alongside official releases, YouTube says its catalogue includes live performances, remixes and hard-to-find music that you often cannot get anywhere else.
Free versus Premium
You can use YouTube Music without paying. According to YouTube's own help pages, the free version gives you on-demand playback of songs, music videos and podcasts, with features such as queuing, repeat and unlimited skipping. It is supported by adverts, and YouTube notes that features can differ in some countries.
YouTube Music Premium adds four main things:
- Music without adverts (Premium members may still hear adverts on podcasts).
- Background play, so music keeps playing while you use other apps or your screen is locked.
- Downloads of songs, videos and podcasts to listen to offline.
- Audio-only playback, which plays the song without the video.
If you already pay for YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium is included at no extra cost. Both memberships are available in the United Kingdom. YouTube also offers family and student options, among others, but prices and plan types vary by country and change from time to time, so check the current offer in the app or on YouTube's website before you sign up.
Getting better recommendations
YouTube Music personalises what it suggests based on how you use it. A few simple habits help:
- Like the songs you enjoy. Liked songs and albums go into your Liked music playlist and, according to YouTube, influence your recommendations.
- Manage your history. Recommendations can be based on what you have watched or liked and the artists you subscribe to, and you can remove items from your history to change them. Some features, such as Recap, need your history switched on.
- Save what you enjoy to your library. It keeps your favourites in one place and easy to come back to.
Personal and custom mixes
YouTube Music creates a personal mix from your recent top artists and songs, and it updates daily. In the mobile app you can also build a custom mix: choose a set of artists, then set how much variety you want between them and how familiar the music should be. Filters such as BPM, popularity and mood let you shape the result further, and you can tap Tune at any time to change the settings. For dance music fans, a BPM filter is a useful way to keep a mix at the right energy for a workout, a drive or getting ready for a night out.
Your Recap
Recap is YouTube Music's round-up of your listening. There are seasonal and end-of-year Recaps, with personalised playlists and statistics on your top songs, artists and podcasts. To qualify you need your history switched on and enough listening time: YouTube's help page currently asks for at least four hours of music listening per season, and ten hours between 1 January and 15 November for the end-of-year version, plus at least five songs with repeat listens.
Listening offline
Downloads are a Premium feature for music, although podcasts can be downloaded whatever your membership. Two points are worth knowing:
- Smart downloads can automatically download up to 200 of your recently played songs, so you have something to listen to without planning ahead.
- Reconnect at least once every 30 days. YouTube says you need to do this to keep your downloads.
Uploading your own music
If you own a collection of digital files, you can upload up to 100,000 songs to your YouTube Music library. Supported formats are FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG and WMA. Uploads have to be done from a computer rather than the mobile app. Once uploaded, those songs play in the background, without adverts and offline, even if you do not have Premium. Only you can play your uploads, and they do not influence your recommendations, but for DJs and collectors with tracks that are not on streaming services it is a useful feature.
Creating and sharing playlists
You can create playlists in the YouTube Music app and on YouTube, and share them with friends. Sharing playlists is a good way to swap new finds with the people you go out with. Bear in mind that anyone you share with will not be able to play songs you uploaded yourself.
Streaming apps and radio work best together
Algorithms are good at giving you more of what you already like. What they are less good at is surprising you. That is where radio still earns its place: a DJ choosing the next record, reading the mood of the hour and playing a track you would never have searched for.
LDC Radio is dance music radio for West Yorkshire. You can listen on 97.8 FM, DAB, our app or online, and check the schedule to find the shows that suit you. When you hear something you love, find it on YouTube Music and like it so it can shape your recommendations.
If you run a business and want to reach people in Leeds and West Yorkshire who love music, find out about advertising with LDC Radio.