Youtube app is very rude and does not allow you to watch videos in the background.
There was a nice solution with shortcuts on IOS but it occasionally stops working.
There are also a lot of bots in Telegram which can help you download videos, but none of those is easy to use and offers you to save bandwidth by choosing the quality/size of the stream.
That’s why I wrote a small golang telegram bot to help me.
Here is how it works.
Install those apps on your apple mobile
- VLC – free open source app
- Telegram – a popular chat program
- Youtube app
Open Telegram and add/find the Bot with the name “Audio Helper (Youtube)”.
When you paste a link the audio helper bot will ask you about the quality of the audio and will ask offer you to open the link or to use “more options”.
Click “more options” and you can choose between “download in VLC” or “stream in VLC”
Next time you want to watch some video on a locked screen you can share the clip directly into the telegram bot.
Enjoy watching youtube videos on a locked screen.