How to Turn Off Smart Downloads on YouTube and YouTube Music

We are quite disciplined when it comes to deleting junk files on our phones. So during our routine checks, we were shocked to see that YouTube took up about 2GB of storage. Soon after, we found the culprit was the Smart Downloads option, which is enabled by default. It is also capable of stealing your storage space. So here’s how to turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube and YouTube Music.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an app’s notorious auto-download behavior. Apple’s Podcasts app also makes this mistake. In this article, we have covered how to remove Smart Downloads on both YouTube and YouTube music. You should be able to free up some storage space on your Android or iPhone after doing this. Let’s get started.

Note: This is a YouTube Premium-only feature. So if you don’t have a paid subscription, you won’t be affected by it.

What is Smart Download on YouTube

We’ve covered this feature early enough in this article, but it’s certainly not a pointless feature. If you have a “fill it in, turn it off and forget it” attitude towards your phone storage, YouTube Smart Downloads is well worth it.

It’s the feature that automatically downloads the videos and music you might be most interested in, based on your viewing history. Thus, this way, the videos and music that you are most likely to watch next will be available offline. We also want to reiterate that this feature is only available on YouTube Premium.

Now that we know what this feature is, let’s see how to turn it off. After all, chances are you’re here because you’re not a fan of the feature.

How to turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube

Here’s how you can turn off Smart Downloads on the YouTube app on iPhone and Android.

Step 1: Open the YouTube app and tap the Avatar icon.

Step 2: Tap Settings.

Step 3: Tap ‘Background and download’.

Step 4: Turn off the toggle for Smart Downloads.

This will prevent any automatic video downloads on YouTube. Furthermore, after you disable the conversion, all existing smart downloads will also be deleted.

However, if you only want to delete videos downloaded by Smart Downloads, move on to the next section.

Delete videos downloaded by Smart Download on YouTube

Step 1: Open the YouTube app and tap Gallery.

Step 2: Now, tap on Download.

Step 3: Now you can see a section called Smart Downloads. Tap the three-dot icon next to the downloaded video.

Step 4: Tap ‘Remove from download’.

However, if you like the feature and are looking to strike a balance between using Smart Downloads and preserving storage, you can adjust the Smart Downloads settings on YouTube.

Adjust YouTube smart download settings to take up less space

Here’s how you can limit the amount of storage used by Smart Downloads or change the download quality so it doesn’t take up much of your storage space.

Step 1: Open YouTube and tap the Profile icon in the top right corner.

Step 2: Tap Settings.

Step 3: Tap ‘Background and download’.

Step 4: Now, select ‘Smart Download Adjustment’.

Step 5: You have the option to automatically adjust your memory usage based on your storage capacity. However, if you want to set the limit manually, tap Custom.

Step 6: You can use the slider to set a memory usage limit on the YouTube app.

Step 7: You can also adjust the download quality, by selecting “Smart download quality” and then selecting the download resolution.

That’s how the Smart Downloads feature on the YouTube app on your iPhone and Android devices is handled. However, we also mentioned that Smart Downloads are also available on the YouTube Music app, so here’s how to disable the feature.

How to turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube Music

YouTube’s companion music app also features Smart Downloads. However, it doesn’t seem to be enabled by default on our device. However, here’s how to turn off the same.

Step 1: Open YouTube Music and tap the Profile icon in the top right corner.

Step 2: Click Download.

Step 3: Tap the Settings icon on the top ribbon.

Step 4: Turn off the toggle for Smart Downloads.

That’s how to turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube Music. However, if you still want to use this feature and still care about storage space, you can adjust the Smart Download Settings on YouTube Music to take up less space.

Smart download settings adjustment

Step 1: Open YouTube Music and tap the Profile icon in the top right corner.

Step 2: Click Download.

Step 3: Tap the Settings icon in the top right corner.

Step 4: You can find a slider to adjust and limit the storage space that YouTube Music takes up.

Or you can also select Audio quality and Video quality options to choose a specific download resolution.

That’s it, that’s everything you need to know about how to turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube and the YouTube Music app. However, if you have any further questions, you can check out the FAQ section below.

YouTube Smart Download FAQ

1. Is YouTube Smart Downloads available on the free version of YouTube?

Are not. YouTube Smart Downloads is not available on the free version of YouTube.

2. What if Smart Download exceeds your device storage limit?

YouTube ensures that it only downloads content that matches your storage limit.

3. How many videos are downloaded in Smart Downloads?

The number of videos downloaded automatically depends on the set memory limit and the video’s resolution.

Stop downloading automatically

We hope this article helped you turn off Smart Downloads on YouTube and YouTube Music and save some storage space. However, if you are facing any other issues on YouTube and YouTube Music, check out our guide on how to fix YouTube not working on Android and iPhone.

Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/