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I need any Android app or Android-based solution that would allow me to listen to audio only from any YouTube recording, just like an audio-book, with my mobile phone's screen off.

So far I tested only:

  • YouTube original app,
  • playing YT stream in mobile Chrome.

This doesn't work. A second after I turn-off my screen, audio is cut off and playback stops.

Can you suggest any alternative?

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    You can find a list of YT apps here on my site. Not using YT myself, I haven't tried them – but e.g. YiB (Youtube in Background) seems to offer exactly that.
    – Izzy ♦
    Sep 28, 2020 at 21:55
  • I haven't tried YiB as well, and it seems that I won't try it, because mobile Firefox-based solution suits me 100%. But that really sounds like a good suggestion, so why don't you turn your comment into an answer?
    – trejder
    Sep 29, 2020 at 7:46
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    Well, I didn't because I haven't tried it myself and hence cannot tell for sure how well it fits. Being a mod on this site, I should live by example and not post "please check if this works" as answer unless I know it does :) But why don't you answer your own question, maybe including the parts you've skipped at ASE for good reasons (quote: "since this is not a software recommendations site")? You seem to have tried some.
    – Izzy ♦
    Sep 29, 2020 at 12:19

2 Answers 2

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Another easy way to accomplish this task, which will also work for things like podcasts, is to use FakeStandby.

FakeStandby is available via F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/android.jonas.fakestandby/

It is open-source software and is gratis.

I have personally used it, and found it to work very well.

FakeStandby will turn off your Android device's screen while keeping it from sleeping.

Just be sure to remember to turn it off when you are done!

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You can consider another app:

though I haven't tested any of these.

Or you can consider another browser, namely mobile Firefox. Based on solution given here for iOS:

  1. Navigate to youtube.com (in Firefox)
  2. Find and play your video
  3. Hit the three-dot menu button
  4. Tap the Request desktop site
  5. When the page reloads, play the video again

You're done. Slide down the notification center to find video controlling buttons there:

enter image description here

Replicating the same steps in mobile Chrome turned out to be ineffective.

There's one important note here. Depending on how you're watching given video:

  1. Using suggested Firefox Mobile or trying some other browser.
  2. Watching in mobile mode or requesting desktop site.
  3. Turning off screen immediately or waiting until it gets turned of by itself etc.

your wideo (or actually audio from YouTube) will:

  • play forever,
  • stop immediately,
  • stop after 5-8 minutes.

And you will be able to enjoy interrupted experience for long time or you will be forced to turn on and off screen after each 5-8 minutes (like in my case).

Because, no matter what I did, I failed to achieve interrupted, few hours long experience, I was forced to use additional solution (provided above) and install Fake Standby app.

Keep in mind that in current version (November 2020) Fake Standby is causing some weird interference to Google Calendar.

This answer is based on this answer at Software Recommendations and my own blog post.

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