Table of contents:
- Schedule a daily summary so you don't miss anything
- Alerts to drop the mobile
- Search and play videos without leaving traces
- Create playlists with your friends
- Set up YouTube for the little ones
- Larger, full-color subtitles
- Enable statistics for nerds
- View content from other countries
- Sets the video playback mode
If you are one of those who open YouTube on your mobile and forget about the world for a couple of hours, you will be interested in knowing some tips to take advantage of its dynamics even more. And, above all, tricks to automate those tedious options that you have to activate one and the other to view the videos as you like them.
So take a look at this selection of tips and tricks that we share to make the most of YouTube from your Android mobile.
Schedule a daily summary so you don't miss anything
If you follow a lot of channels and are very active with your comments, notifications can be a huge headache. And you will notice that with so many notifications half of the content goes unnoticed.
A simple solution so you don't feel overwhelmed every time you open YouTube because it overflows with notifications is to schedule a daily digest.
You can specify this from Settings >> Notifications >> Scheduled Summary. Just tap that option to customize the delivery time.
That way, you can configure the summary to arrive at a time that you can pay attention to without having hundreds of pending notifications waiting in the app. Of course, you can still keep certain types of notifications activated… mentions, activity on your channel, interaction in your comments, etc.
Alerts to drop the mobile
If you go to YouTube and forget that the world exists, you can configure the app to notify you that it is time to take a break.
To adjust this detail go to Settings >> Your viewing time >> Tools to manage the time that passes… and activate the first option "Remind me to take a break." You will not determine a schedule but you will establish the frequency of the reminder.
Do you want me to notify you every 15 minutes? One hour? When that period of time passes you will see a message interrupting the visualization. You can ignore it if you want, or you can put the phone down for a bit.
Search and play videos without leaving traces
YouTube also has an incognito mode that allows you to hide everything you search or play in the history of your Google account. And on the other hand, your subscriptions and personalized recommendations disappear.
It is as if you entered YouTube without logging in with your account. If you want to activate it, you just have to go to your account Settings >> Activate Incognito mode. Whenever you are viewing YouTube in this mode you will see a message at the bottom and in your profile image you will see the icon of the hat with glasses.
Create playlists with your friends
YouTube playlists are a classic. You can add as many videos as you want and organize them in different themes, styles or singers. But this can be more fun if you do it with friends.
And YouTube gives you the option to create collaborative playlists by inviting whoever you want to participate. This possibility works whether your playlist is set to public or in hidden mode.
Once you create the list, you select the Edit icon to show you all the available options. Choose the "Collaborate" button and activate the option to invite your friends.
Set up YouTube for the little ones
Although children can watch content from YouTube Kids, it is normal for them to take their parents' cell phones and look for their favorite drawings on the classic YouTube. To prevent them from seeing inappropriate content when these oversights arise, you can configure a small detail.
Go to Settings >> General >> Restricted Mode. While not a substitute for parental supervision, this filter can work as a plan B when kids sneak onto YouTube as it hides adult content.
Larger, full-color subtitles
If you do not see the automatically generated subtitles well or you have trouble distinguishing some words, you can customize their display.
To do this, go to Settings >> General >> Subtitles. You will see a series of basic options to configure the font size, language and style.
You can try different styles by combining the font and background colors to see which contrast is most comfortable for you. Don't worry, you can change it as many times as you want.
Enable statistics for nerds
If you are starting out as a youtuber and are watching your favorite channels go through the process, you may have a small option that allows you to enable YouTube: statistics for nerds.
It shows you information about the video resolution, upload data, data transfer and other technical aspects of playing the video on your device. To see these details you just have to select the three dots that you see at the top of the reproduction and activate Statistics for nerds.
All this information will be displayed about the video you are playing.
View content from other countries
If there is content on YouTube that you would like to see but it is not available in your country, or you simply want to discover new content, you can try changing this information from Settings.
For example, the new Explore tab on YouTube in Spain only shows five sections to view content on different topics, but in the United States two more are added: Learning and Fashion and Beauty, as you can see in the images:
If you are curious to know what videos are added in those sections, you just have to go to Settings >> General >> Location, and change to United States.
Note that this works for suggestions and changes within YouTube, and does not apply to geoblocked videos.
Sets the video playback mode
YouTube has many options to customize the playback of the videos and adapt them to the style we want. Some options to consider:
- Set the seconds you want to go back or forward in a video. The normal thing is to move through the video 10 seconds forward or backward, but you can define this detail from Settings >> General >> Double tap to move forward or backward. You have up to 60 seconds as a limit to jump in the video.
- Change the video quality and playback speed. This can be done from the same video by displaying the menu from the three dots
- View HD videos only when connected to WiFI. So that you do not have to be aware of the quality of the videos when you are using mobile data, you can configure HD content to be shown only with WiFi. To do this, go to Settings >> General >> Limit mobile data.
