How to play songs in YouTube Music in higher quality

YouTube Music listening quality is set to “Normal” on default. So, you may not be listening to the highest quality of audio on the streaming app like you use to do on Spotify. All you need to do is to manually change the audio streaming settings to “High” or “Always High” to stream music at higher quality bitrate.

However, it's important to note that streaming music at a higher bitrate on YouTube Music will consume more data than streaming at a normal bitrate. The platform caps its maximum audio fidelity at 256kbps AAC and OPUS which burns through roughly 115 MB per hour.

The default "Normal" setting streams audio at up to 128 kbps . So, if you're capped on a mobile plan, it's advisable to keep mobile data on “Normal/High” settings, and save the “Always High” settings for Wi-Fi. Follow these steps to change your streaming audio quality on YouTube Music.

How to stream higher bitrate music on YouTube Music

Open the “YouTube Music” app and tap your “profile image” at the top of the page.

Next, tap “Settings” and go-to “Download & Storage”. Next, click “Audio Quality” and select “High”.

What you should know

First of all, it's important to let you know that the “Always High” is limited to premium users and the regular "High" will still automatically drop bitrate if the network fluctuates to avoid buffering. However, the "Always High" forces it to prioritize fidelity over smooth loading, so pick that one if quality matters more than occasional buffering.

YouTube Music caps its maximum audio fidelity at 256kbps AAC and OPUS, meaning true lossless streaming remains unavailable on the platform. So there's no FLAC/hi-res tier to unlock, making it different from competitors like Spotify, which uses 320kbps Ogg Vorbis instead of offering a lossless tier.

In practice, most listeners won't hear a meaningful difference between the two on typical headphones or earbuds; the gap only starts to matter to critical listeners with high-end audio gear. So Spotify technically wins on the numbers, but YouTube Music isn't really “worse.” YouTube Music is a close, practically inaudible difference for the average listener, and neither offers true lossless audio anyway.

At 256kbps, you're approaching CD-quality transparency. You can also improve your audio listening experience on YouTube Music by using compatible headphones, earbuds, or speakers that support built-in equalizer settings or companion apps for additional audio tuning. Although gains beyond that setting (via EQ, external DACs, etc.) are marginal unless you're a critical listener with high-end gear.

Another thing you should know is that downloaded tracks keep whatever quality was set when they were downloaded. There's no retroactive upgrade, so if you change your quality setting later, you'll need to delete and re-download existing offline tracks to get the new bitrate. Song-only (audio) mode strips out video data so your bandwidth isn't split with a video stream. This is mostly relevant if you're comparing sound quality across playback modes.