Elias Pelcastre

Should you download the new YouTube Go app on your Android device?

The short answer to the question title is no. But please, allow me to elaborate.

First of all, the app is not available on the Play Store. You have to download it from APKMirror and enable the “Unknown sources” installation in your device`s settings to try it.

Second, and most important of all: it doesn´t do anything. You could guess, from the name of the app, that YouTube Go would let you download videos and take them on the go for whenever there´s no internet connection around. Well, you would be kind of wrong to assume that.

YouTube Go enables you to search for a video and select it to watch a preview. You can then either play it, as you would normally do on the mobile YouTube app, or choose the quality and save it to your device for offline consumption. (You are presented with the size of the video in MB.)

YouTube Go app for Android

But here`s the downside: tap the “Save” button and a red “The owner of this video does not allow it to be saved or shared” warning, meaning content creators have to enable offline saving for YouTube Go to be of genuine use.

I logged in with an account that didn´t have Youtube Red – YouTue`s subscription service that allows you to save videos to your smartphone or tablet – and I couldn´t switch to one that does. YouTube Go lets you save videos to the SD card, choose from one of the nine languages, and access your history, all from the Settings hamburger menu in the top right of the app.

I guess that up to this point YouTube Go is more focused in places where there are very poor mobile connections. I hope it gets a wider release soon.

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