YouTube Music Re-Enables Repeat and Shuffle While Casting

Ethan James 28 Mar 2022

YouTube Music returns the ability to play music in Repeat or Shuffle modes while casting it to another device. A great feature if you make a YouTube playlist for a party or as the background music. You can try it if you have an Android smartphone or an iPhone and an Android/Google TV device or Chromecast.

 This feature once appeared in the app in February 2020 but then was gone, and now, in more than two years, it’s back again. Now, as you connect your phone to Chromecast, Android TV, or Google TV, you will be able to activate Shuffle or Repeat mode after a moment. As you start, the button remains gray for a moment, and then it goes full color, meaning that it’s active now.

 To start casting, you need to start your YouTube Music app on iPhone/Android and tap the Cast button. On iPhone, it’s in the upper right corner of the screen; on Android, you need to tap the artwork and see the button appear in the upper right corner of the artwork. Then choose the recipient device for casting and tap Play. On iPad, the new features are not active yet.

 It works with both your personal playlists and temporary ones based on a random track you choose. You can move the tracks within the playlists, and shuffle and repeat modes react. As for switching between audio and video modes, it also works but maybe irritatingly slow.

 This new feature is also reported to work with Nest hubs. It’s interesting, though, that while you are streaming to another device that formally supports casting from Android, the effects may differ. For example, we tried casting to an LG TV running WebOS. During this, the Repeat button remained gray, while Shuffle functioned well. This may be the case with other non-Google casting recipients.

 And if you have tried it, what are your results? Have you received this update, and if so, how well does it work? Let us know what you think by dropping a comment below!