Background playback in YouTube now available to some All Access users

The long awaited background playback functionality is finally coming to YouTube.

Google recently announced that its new YouTube Music Key service will become available from this week, bringing uninterrupted playback, background listening, and offline playback. Early subscribers get six months of free access to Music Key, after which the service will cost $9.99/month. Play Music All Access subscribers will apparently get first dibs to the service.

You can sign up for YouTube Music Key beta here.

Several redditors and Google Plus users are now reporting that they are able to start playing music videos in YouTube and switch to different apps while the music keeps playing in the background.

The functionality is not available for everyone – some All Access subscribers from US, UK, Finland and other countries say they got it, while others subscribers don’t see the new feature. It looks like Google is enabling it server-side on a per-user basis, without the need for an app update.

Several members of our team (subscribers or not) checked for it without success. Also, background playback won’t work on all videos – it looks that the availability of the feature depends on the licensing deals that Google signed with the artists.

To check if you got the feature, simply open the YouTube app – you should be greeted by a message explaining the functionality and you should see a new option for offline playback in the app’s settings.

Have you got this new feature?

Thanks, Keith!