YouTube Premium Lite upgraded with 2 important new features

YouTube is giving its lower-cost Premium Lite plan a big upgrade nearly a year after bringing it back. Subscribers will soon get two popular features that were previously only available with full YouTube Premium.

When Premium Lite returned in March 2025, it allowed users to watch “most videos” without ads. However, it did not include background play or the ability to download videos for offline viewing, which made the cheaper plan feel limited.

In the coming weeks, YouTube will roll out background play and video downloads to Premium Lite users in all markets where the plan is available. This means users can keep videos playing while using other apps and save videos to watch later without an internet connection.

YouTube notes that Premium Lite still removes ads from “most videos,” not all content. There are also some limits: the benefits mainly apply to “non-music content, excluding Shorts,” and ads may still appear when searching or browsing. So the experience is better, but not completely ad-free.

Even with these limits, the update makes Premium Lite more appealing. The plan costs less than full Premium but now includes two features many users consider essential. Background play and downloads were key reasons people chose full Premium, and now Lite offers them too, narrowing the gap between the two subscriptions.