Downloads for offline listening provide you with standard audio files. You can switch between these at any time by heading to the YouTube Music settings.

High: This sets the bit rate at 256kbps AAC.

Normal: This sets the bit rate at 128kbps AAC.

Low: This sets the bit rate at 48kbps AAC.

These tiers also dictate how much audio will download onto your device and the size of those files: YouTube Music offers three different audio tiers that you can switch between depending on how much bandwidth you are comfortable taking up. YouTube has also recommended that creators with audio-only podcasts create a video with a static image. YouTube Music has also recently started gradually adding podcasts to its offerings as of April 27, 2023, allowing “those watching podcasts on the main app to continue listening to them on YouTube Music,” as it’s meant more as a companion to YouTube’s main video podcasts. Still, that’s a boatload of music and should suit most people just fine. At one point, that might have sounded impressive, but most of the major music streaming services now boast 100 million songs in their libraries, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Spotify, Qobuz, and Tidal.

Music libraryĪs of April 2023, YouTube Music officially has 100 million tracks available to stream or download. Left to its own devices, YouTube Music will continue playing past favorites that you’ve enjoyed. All this taps into your Google account information and history, so if you’ve already been using YouTube to listen to music for a while, you’ll find a lot of prompts to add your favorite musicians and build out a profile for recommendations (a step you can skip if you prefer).

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