Do you and your significant other want to go for a jog while listening to the same tracks but don’t have the right means? Or do you want to do things together but can’t because you live apart? While there are premium apps that allow users to share tracks and listen to music together, they are not free. However, we found one solution. This is how you can listen to music together, watch Netflix, and more for free.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Login and Sign Up
Finding things to do with your significant other can be a task if you live over long distances. That’s where Rave comes in. It is a free app that is available on both Android and iPhones, so regardless of what phone you use, they will sync together and work like it’s second nature.
Rave lets you use YouTube together, watch Netflix, do karaoke, and more. The best part is that it’ll work even when the screens of both phones are turned off, which is useful in cases where both of you’ve planned an exercise or jogging session. While there are ads in the app, we found them to be non-intrusive while playing a video or audio.
1. Download Rave for Android or iPhone from the respective app stores and open the app. You’ll be greeted with a welcome screen along with a glimpse of what you can do with the app. Swipe towards the left multiple times, and you’ll see the log-in/sign-up page.
2. You can sign in using Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), etc., or your email ID. We went ahead and used Google to sign in to the platform because it is much easier that way, and it also picks up your Google account’s profile photo as your avatar for the platform.
3. Flick the switch for Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, then tap Continue to proceed.
4. Now enter your username and handle which will be used to search for you and your friend later on, so choose something easy to enter. Once username, handle, and avatar are set, you’ll see the option that says looks good. Tap on it.
5. This is how the app looks after the initial sign-in is completed.
Note: Your friend will also have to download the Rave app and create a free account if they haven’t already. The steps will be the same as above for your friend as well. Once they are done, ask them to send their username or handle. You will need that to add them as friends in the next step.
Step 2: Adding a Friend
1. To add each other as friends on Rave, tap on the Friends icon on the top right of the screen on any of your phones.
2. Now enter your friend’s handle in the search bar and search. If the handle entered is correct, you should see your friend as the first result in the global search list.
3. Tap on the Add friend icon beside the avatar of your friend to send him a friend invite.
4. Your friend’s phone will receive a prompt asking them to accept, decline, or decide later. Ask your friend to tap on Accept.
5. Once your friend accepts your invite, both of you will be added as each other’s friends on Rave, and the same can be seen in the Friends tab.
Step 3: Create and Join a Rave Party
1. To create a party, tap on the + icon you see on the home screen of the app. Then select your preferred media from the given list. Because we want to listen to music together, YouTube is the best option in our case. If you use any other music streaming service, like Spotify or Apple Music, then you need to select WEB and browse through the web version of these services.
Pro Tip: You can also select Netflix to watch a movie or series together, or any other service from the list. Please note that you’ll need an active subscription to watch Netflix though as it is not free.
2. Selecting YouTube will create a session for it. You can search for songs, videos, and everything else that you can do on YouTube. Search and play a song that you want to listen to together.
3. This rave is public as of now, meaning anybody using the app can join it. Tap on the Settings icon in the top bar and set the privacy to Friends only or Invite only, depending on your usage.
4. Tap on the invite friend icon in the bottom bar. Select your friend’s name and handle from the friend list.
5. Now tap on Send 1 invite.
Tip: You can also select multiple friends’ handles in one go to invite them together for a friend’s binge session.
6. Your friend will get an invite to join your Rave on the app’s home screen. Ask them to tap on the invited rave to join. You’ll also get a chat message stating that your friend has joined.
Step 4: Playing in a Rave
1. Now that your friend has joined, play the song, and the app will play it for both users. And if anyone pauses the song or video, it’ll be paused for both, so you will always be in sync.
2. You can also tap Next to switch to the next song. After which, you will see a timer of 8–10 seconds when you press Next; this is to avoid ads on YouTube while skipping songs or videos.
3. You can also lock your phones after playing music in a rave, and the music will keep playing regardless of the lock status. This way, you can enjoy a music session with friends around the world while on a jog or working elsewhere.
4. You can also chat with your friends within the app and even use a voice channel to talk through the song or video.
Special Mentions
While there are other apps available for listening to music together, in our testing, we found Rave to offer the best experience. You can still have a look at other options if Rave is not working for some reason. Here are some of them:
Groic
Groic is available on Android only. The sign-up steps and process are fairly similar to Rave, but the connection suffers, and we experienced sync issues within the app. It also cannot keep playing music when the phone’s screen is off. Not useful if some of your friends in the group have an iPhone.
Download Groic
Watch2Gether
A web implementation for the same purposes. You can join in with your friends as anonymous users, and sign-up is not even required. Since this is a web app (only browsers please), you don’t need to download any apps, and this will work on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows, macOS, or any other device that supports a browser.
Go to Watch2Gether
Listen to Music Together for Free
Listening to music is a great way to discover new tracks and songs that your friends and partner like. It also gives a sense of belonging, making us feel closer than we are. A different sort of listening experience.
We have curated a list of music players for Android that you may like. Do check. Spotify released a similar feature called Jam where you can listen to music together. However, it is only for paid subscribers. Check it out if you ever consider becoming a subscriber.
