YouTube adds Android Auto support for background play controls

YouTube for Android is rolling out support for Android Auto but, before you get too excited, keep in mind that what you can actually do with it is rather limited.

Android Auto will always pipe through whatever audio is playing on your phone, but it doesn’t always give you additional controls for that. We’ve noticed over the past few months that more apps have been showing functionality through Android Auto’s media controls, and now it seems YouTube has been added to the list.

Through recent updates, YouTube seems to have added Android Auto support, which is now available widely. We’re seeing the functionality across multiple devices, accounts, and app versions, both in the beta and stable tracks, and users on Reddit report the same.

This is not a YouTube app on Android Auto. You can’t play videos, nor can you even see a full screen of media controls. YouTube shows up solely in the dashboard media widget with the ability to play/pause content and also skip forward to the next video – that’s a full video skip, not skipping forward within the video, and the same action applies to the steering wheel controls too as we’ve tested.

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This is sure to be handy for some – there are plenty of podcasts, clips, and even full YouTube videos that make for a great audio-only listen while driving. But this is certainly not the full “YouTube for Android Auto” release many have been hoping for.According to Google, though, that’s not off the table.

You’ll also need a YouTube Premium subscription for this to work, as background play isn’t available otherwise. As of February 2026, though, background play is included in the $7.99/month Premium Lite plan, which is a much more affordable option.

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