Listening to YouTube Music on your computer is fun while you do other things. But what if you want to change the song without reaching out for the PC’s keyboard? Or during a house party, do you want to use your phone as a remote to change or queue tracks? With Spotify, I can control the music playback from my phone. However, there’s no such feature on YouTube Music. Well, the Chromecast feature only works on TVs, not computers. Here’s how I managed to control YouTube Music playback on my desktop using an Android phone. Well, it involves a third-party app.
Control YouTube Music on Desktop From Android
I found a third-party YouTube Music Desktop app to control the media playback using a phone. Adler Luiz developed this open-source app for Mac, PC, and Linux. The app is based on the YouTube Music website. However, the developer baked in additional features like media keyboard control, integration with OBS, Steam Deck, and VSCode, along with remote control from Android phones. Let’s get started.
1. Download and install the YouTube Music desktop app on your computer. Open the app and click on Sign in to enter your YouTube Music account details.
Download: YouTube Music Desktop app
2. Click on the cog icon at the top-right corner to open the app’s settings.
3. In the pop-up, select Integrations from the left sidebar and enable the toggle for the Remote control option from the right pane.
4. Make sure Protect remove control with password option is enabled and note down the password next to the toggle.
5. Close the Settings pop-up and click on the Remote Control icon at the top right corner. It will open a webpage on the default browser with several QR Codes.
6. Connect your Android phone to the same Wi-Fi as your computer. Install the YTM Desktop Remote app from the Play Store.
Download: YTM Desktop Remote app
7. Open the YTM Desktop Remote app on your phone and scan the QR code that has an IP address beside it on your computer.
8. Enter the password you saw in the YouTube Music Desktop app’s settings and click on Save. When the app connects, it will show Ready to play.
9. Start playing any song on the YouTube Music Desktop app. And try to control the playback with the mobile app on your Android phone.
Pro Tip: Have you tried the Samples feature on YouTube Music?
Other Features to Try Out:
With the YouTube Music Desktop app and YTM Desktop Remote, you can play/pause songs, check the song name, album art, and lyrics, skip a few seconds, move to the next or previous song, change volume inside YouTube Music, shuffle, loop, like, dislike, add songs your playlists/library and also can check the list of upcoming songs.
Here’s how it works:
However, you cannot search for any specific song and play it or access your playlists or library. Moreover, you can only control YouTube Music on your PC or Mac from your phone, but not vice versa.
