Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Google’s slimmed-down YouTube Go app is coming to more than 130 countries

By

Google’s latest YouTube app — YouTube Go — has been available in select countries for a few months now. Now, the company is looking to expand it massively — to more than a hefty 130 countries. The lightweight app allows users who have little internet bandwidth to watch videos offline while also being able to control their data.

The beta version was originally launched in September, and Google described it as an app “built from scratch” to bring YouTube to “the next generation of viewers” — people saddled with unstable internet connections. It’s specifically created to work with slow speeds and a small amount of storage.

Recommended Videos

“We realized that for the next generation of YouTube users to fully discover all that YouTube has to offer, we had to reimagine the YouTube mobile app from the ground up,” Johanna Wright, YouTube’s vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post. “[Indian viewers’] experience is not great on slower connections and less powerful mobile phones.”

Related

For those who want to keep track of the data being used, YouTube Go includes data-saving features. You can choose to download or watch videos, as well as preview them before committing to a download. The app also allows you to choose how many megabytes you use on videos.

With YouTube Go, you have the option to download the videos to your phone or SD card, and you can watch them even if you have slow or no internet connection. You’re able to choose between basic quality, standard quality, and high quality before pressing play or choosing to download it.

Even with limited internet, videos should play without buffering, and downloading content will have no extra data cost. If you want to share with friends and family, transferring videos also uses no data.

Not all of YouTube Go’s features are new. In 2014, Google launched YouTube Offline, a setting within the YouTube app that lets users download videos. Smart Offline, which launched last year, automatically schedules downloads on days and times when networks are least congested.

YouTube Go is available for download in the Google Play Store in more than 130 countries. We don’t have a full list of those countries yet. The app also works on Android 4.1, Jelly Bean and up.

Update: YouTube Go is expanding to more than 130 countries.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Brenda Stolyar
Brenda Stolyar
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brenda became obsessed with technology after receiving her first Dell computer from her grandpa in the second grade. While…
A new Google Pixel Tablet is coming, but it’s not what you think
Google Pixel Tablet on its charging dock.

It's been almost a year since the Google Pixel Tablet went up for preorder, leading many Android tablet fans to wonder when the inevitable Pixel Tablet 2 will arrive. A new rumor suggests that Google could release a new Pixel Tablet as early as next month, but it's probably not what you were expecting or hoping for.

According to @MysteryLupin on X (formerly Twitter), Google is planning to "relaunch" the Pixel Tablet without the charging/speaker dock included in the box. As you'll likely recall, the speaker dock is the Pixel Tablet's standout feature. You can use the Pixel Tablet on its own as a traditional Android tablet when you want, and when you're done, you throw it on the dock to transform it into a smart display. The idea of Google selling the Pixel Tablet without its claim to fame is an interesting one.

Read more
YouTube TV just got even better on iPhones and iPads
Multiview on YouTube TV on an iPad.

If you use the most popular live-streaming service on an iPhone or iPad, things just got even better. YouTube TV — which boasts more than 8 million subscribers — just pushed multiview live on Apple's mobile devices, as previously promised.

It works basically the same way it does on a television. YouTube TV picks the programs available in multiview, and you get them all at once, with audio coming from one of the shows. Tap another, and the audio switches. And just as before, you can get multiview for sports, news, business, or weather. (Though we definitely don't recommend watching four news channels at once in an election year.) It's just in time for March Madness, which is great, though we hope you'll be able to pick your own games instead of just sticking with the multiple viewing options YouTube TV gives. This will be great come fall, though, when the new season of NFL Sunday Ticket takes hold.

Read more
YouTube tells creators to start labeling ‘realistic’ AI content
YouTube on Roku.

YouTube is taking steps to try to help viewers better understand if what they’re watching has been created, whether completely or in part, by generative AI.

“Generative AI is transforming the ways creators express themselves -- from storyboarding ideas to experimenting with tools that enhance the creative process,” YouTube said in a message shared on Monday. “But viewers increasingly want more transparency about whether the content they’re seeing is altered or synthetic.”

Read more