How to Play YouTube Music on Desktop With No Ads
Streamlined, ad-free listening with YouTube premium
4 min. read
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YouTube Music has become a popular way of listening to music due to its variety, but for an enjoyable experience on your desktop, seamless listening with no ads is the way to go.
YouTube ads can interrupt playback from 15 seconds up to 90 seconds, and since they appear at close range between intervals, it can be annoying to listen to a playlist that frequently disrupts.
How do I play YouTube Music on my desktop with no ads?
1. Subscribe to YouTube Premium
- Open your preferred web browser on your PC. (We’ll be using Chrome for this step).
- Go to the YouTube Music website by typing music.youtube.com in the address bar and pressing Enter.
- If prompted, sign in to your Google account. If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one.
- Navigate to the left-hand pane and select Upgrade.
- Select one plan and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the subscription.
The individual plan might be too expensive, so consider subscribing to the Family or student plans to get your money’s worth.
Another hack to get more out of your premium subscription is downloading your music playlists offline. If you reconnect to the internet before 30 days, you can keep your downloads intact and save on data.
2. Install adblocker extensions
- Launch your Chrome browser, and in a new tab, go to the following location:
chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions
- In the search bar at the top left, type Jadskip and hit Enter then click on Add to Chrome.
- Confirm by clicking Add extension.
The good thing about JadSkip is it works for both video and audio so it’s a two-in-one adblock solution. If you’ve installed an adblocker but it is not working, try refreshing your browser or try another one. It’s also possible that YouTube Music is yet to be available in your country.
Also, ensure you’ve not installed two adblockers, as they could be conflicting.
Unfortunately, Google is making it harder for adblockers to thrive. You might install it, but YouTube may flag it. Worse still, you might get locked out of your account or denied access until you uninstall it. YouTube may also fail to load captions with adblockers installed.
The best response to such is to make your adblocker undetectable.
3. Switch to unofficial apps
We’ve already discussed ways to download the YouTube Music app to your desktop and one of them involves downloading the unofficial app. If you get YouTube Music from GitHub, you don’t have to worry about ads because it comes built-in with an adblocker.
However, if you’re going for any other unofficial version, you can also download the Revanced app for an ad-free experience.
Potential issues that may arise from blocking ads on YouTube Music
- Blocking ads is a direct violation of YouTube Music’s terms of service. If your account is flagged for violating these terms, you risk getting your account suspended.
- Most of the content creators on YouTube Music depend on the platform for income, and running ads is one major way they do this. Blocking these ads means they can’t get paid, limiting their ability to produce future projects.
- Adblockers or extensions in general tend to slow down your browser and may negatively affect the functionality or performance of YouTube Music.
While blocking YouTube Music ads promises an enjoyable listening experience, you need to consider the bigger picture and the ripple effect it has on all involved parties.
If you can’t afford a premium subscription, it’s best to check out other music player apps that offer free listening with no ads, or their premium service is a little bit affordable.
That’s a wrap from us, but we’d love to hear about any other tricks you use to play YouTube Music on your desktop with no ads. Drop us a comment below.