YouTube Music users can download songs and playlists to listen to offline, provided they have a Premium subscription. YouTube offers separate subscriptions for videos and music. A YouTube Premium subscription includes access to YouTube Music Premium, but not vice-versa. While the former is more of an all-in-one subscription that includes benefits for videos and music, the latter is a music streaming subscription that's an alternative to Spotify and Apple Music.
Either way, both subscriptions give users access to several benefits, including the ability to listen to ad-free music, play music in the background when using other apps on a phone, enable an audio-only mode to listen to music without loading a video, cast music to a speaker or smart display, and download music for offline playback. A standalone YouTube Music Premium subscription costs $9.99 per month for individuals, and $14.99 per month for a family plan.
YouTube Music Premium users have two methods to download music for offline playback. The first involves enabling smart downloads, while the second requires users to manually download a song or playlist. Smart downloads automatically download music based on a user's previous listening history. To enable this on Android, open the YouTube Music app and tap on the profile photo in the top right corner. Tap on Downloads, and then on the Settings (gear) icon. Turn on the toggle next to Smart downloads. Users can remove a particular album or playlist from smart downloads by clicking on the three-dot Menu button and then tapping Remove download. To manually download a song, playlist or album on Android, tap on the Menu button and then tap Download. Alternatively, click on the download arrow on an album or playlist detail page, or on the cover art of a particular track.
Enable Offline Playback On iPhone
On an iPhone or iPad, YouTube Music Premium subscribers can turn on offline mixtape, which is just another version of smart downloads. To enable offline mixtape, open the YouTube Music app and tap on the profile picture. Tap on Downloads and then the Settings icon. Turn on the toggle next to Download an offline mixtape. Like smart downloads, offline mixtape automatically downloads music based on the user's listening history. iPhone users can remove a song from their offline mixtape by swiping to the left. To download a song or playlist on YouTube Music's iPhone app, click on the Menu button and and then tap on Download. Like the Android app, iPhone users can also download music by tapping on a song's cover art, or an album or playlist's detail page and hitting the download arrow.
Whether using an iPhone or Android phone, YouTube Music refreshes offline mixtape/smart downloads every night, provided the phone is connected to Wi-Fi and has over 40 percent charge remaining. It can also do this over mobile data if this is enabled in download settings. Once downloaded, music can be listened to for up to 30 days without an internet connection. Songs, playlists and albums that are manually downloaded can also be listened to offline for 30 days, although users will need to reconnect to the internet at least once a month to maintain these. Offline downloads are dependent on the amount of storage available on a device. YouTube Music users can go to Settings and then tap on Offline settings to limit the number of songs that are automatically downloaded, and choose between audio and video downloads.
Source: Google Support