YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode appears to be broken on Android and iOS, and Google is ‘actively investigating’

YouTube picture-in-picture on mobile is broken for some
The feature was made available to all users earlier this year
Google says it’s investigating the issue and working on a fix

YouTube’s picture-in-picture (PiP) mode on Android and iOS is one of the most useful features the app offers – available now to all users, Premium or not – but a widespread bug appears to have broken the functionality on phones.

As reported by 9to5Google, there are several reports of failure to activate PiP mode when exiting the YouTube app. The audio continues to play in the background, but there is no sign of a small video overlay.

We’ve had mixed experiences with this on the TechRadar team: for some it works fine, for others it’s broken. However, this is certainly a real problem for some users, at least, because Google has acknowledged that there is a bug.

What happens next?

Picture-in-picture mode
from r/youtube

We’ve scoured the YouTube and Reddit help forums, and so far there doesn’t seem to be a suitable solution to the problem. If this is something you’re experiencing, you’ll just have to wait until Google releases a fix.

According to Reddit threads that have popped up discussing the bug, this affects both free users and those paying for Premium, so you won’t be able to bring back PiP by trying the paid subscription.

One poster reports that the feature “has been working for several weeks” and that PiP sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. If so, it might be worth restarting your phone and trying again, although there are no guarantees.

The best place to look for updates on the PiP feature is the official thread about the issue on the YouTube Help forum. Hopefully, with Google engineers on the case, this is a bug that will be resolved sooner rather than later.

Google logo on black background next to text