Listen to YouTube Music on Chrome OS
If you’re dissatisfied with YouTube Music‘s Android app on Chrome OS, you might find YTMDesktop intriguing. YTMDesktop is a Linux GUI designed for YouTube Music, streamlining the process of enjoying your favorite tunes. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to utilize it on your Chromebook.
Enabling Linux on Your Chromebook
If you’re using a compatible Chrome OS device, you can run Linux apps on your Chromebook. To begin, access the Chromebook settings. You can do this by clicking on the clock in the Chrome OS dash and selecting the gear icon.
Once you’re in the Chrome OS settings, locate the “Advanced” section and click the arrow next to it. This will reveal the advanced settings of Chrome OS.
In the “Advanced” settings, find the “Developer” options. Look for the “Linux development environment” area and click the “Turn on” button. By doing this, Chrome OS will download and install a Debian LXC container for running Linux apps.
After the installation of the LXC container is complete, a terminal app will open in Chrome OS. This terminal app allows you to interact with the Linux container and install apps. Look for the “Penguin” button and select it.
Once you’ve accessed the terminal by clicking the “Penguin” button, execute the following command inside the terminal app to refresh the container’s software sources:
sudo apt update
After refreshing the software sources in your Chrome OS Linux container, you’ll need to install the software updates. To accomplish this, use the following command in the terminal:
sudo apt upgrade -y
Installing YTMDesktop on your Chromebook
To get YTMDesktop up and running on your Chromebook, you’ll need to utilize Flatpak. However, before you can install this software, you must ensure that Flatpak is installed and enabled on your Chrome OS device.
To begin, open the Chrome OS terminal. Once it’s open, search for “Penguin” and select it with the mouse to launch the Linux terminal interface. Then, use the apt install command to install the “flatpak” package.
sudo apt install flatpak
After installing the “Flatpak” package on the Chrome OS Linux container, you must enable the Flathub app store. This app store provides a wide range of apps to Linux users, including YTMDesktop. To enable it, execute the following flatpak command.
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
Once you’ve enabled the Flathub app store, you can utilize the following flatpak install command to download and install the latest version of YTMDesktop on your Chrome OS computer.
flatpak install flathub app.ytmdesktop.ytmdesktop
When the YTMDesktop application has finished installing on your Chromebook, you can launch it through the “Linux apps” folder in the Chrome OS app menu.
How to listen to YouTube Music on Chrome OS with YTMDesktop
To begin, launch YTMDesktop on your Chromebook via the Chrome OS app menu. Once opened, you’ll see the familiar YouTube Music user interface (UI). Next, locate the sign-in button and log in to your account.
After logging in, you’ll find your YouTube Music collection, including suggested mixes, “music to get you started,” and more. To listen to a song on your Chromebook, follow these steps.
First, find the search box and click on it with the mouse. Once the search box is selected, type in the name of the song you wish to listen to within the YTMDesktop application. It should appear instantly in the search results, assuming it is available on YouTube Music.
Browse through the search results for the desired song. When you’ve found it, hover over the song with the mouse. Upon hovering, you can click the play icon to start listening. Albums can be played directly from the search results as well.
Accessing your music library in YTMDesktop
If you have playlists, albums, artists, songs, and podcasts saved in your YouTube Music library, you can access them in YTMDesktop on your Chromebook. To do so, find “Library” at the top of the YTMDesktop UI. Then, locate the playlist, artist, song, or podcast you wish to listen to.
Once you’ve found what you want to listen to in your YTMDesktop library, click on it to start playback. It will begin playing on your Chromebook via the app immediately. Enjoy listening to your favorite music right from the desktop on Chrome OS!
