YouTube Music & YouTube looking for incomplete downloads (FIX)

YouTube and especially YouTube Music offer offline listening so you can store music or videos and listen to them on the move. However, users seemingly have an issue with the notification informing them about incomplete downloads. It seems that, at least for some, this notification stays in the notification shade for a long time and they want it gone. We explain how to disable notifications when YouTube is looking for incomplete downloads below.

Table of contents:

1. Disable the notification
2. Disable Smart downloads or delete downloaded videos/music 
3. Clear data from YouTube or YouTube Music

How do I stop YouTube from finding incomplete downloads?

What does YouTube is looking for incomplete downloads even means? Well, since these services, both YouTube and YouTube Music, are multi-platform, the app needs to check if you made some changes to offline tracks or videos. Which is understandable.

If you, say, added a new song to your Liked list on your PC and it happens that you have that list downloaded on your phone, the app will sync changes and download the new song.

If the notification itself is bothering you, you can disable it, stop using the features that make it appear, or reset the app and look for improvements.

Reset app preferences on Android and how to use it

1. Disable the notification

Of course, like with all other notifications, you can disable YouTube and YouTube Music notifications, as well. Including the toast or standard notification informing you about incomplete downloads check. You can disable notifications from the Notification shade but it can appear and disappear fast. So, it’s easier to disable it from system settings.

Here’s how to disable the notification about incomplete downloads:

1. Open Settings.
2. Select Apps. Expand All apps.
3. Select YouTube or YouTube Music from the list of available apps.
4. Open Notifications.
5. Tap Notification categories.
6. Disable Download notifications on YouTube.
7. Or disable Offline notifications in YouTube Music.

The app will do its thing in the background but you won’t see the notification.

Why is Background App Refresh greyed out on iPhone? Here’s why

2. Disable Smart downloads or delete downloaded videos/music

If the previous step didn’t work for some reason, you can completely eliminate the reason why YouTube Music or YouTube is looking for incomplete downloads. And that reason is, you guessed it, downloads.

YouTube Music’s Smart downloads Mixtape for offline listening will show this notification a lot because the tracks are changing and the playlist gets updated based on your listening. To avoid this, make sure to disable Smart downloads and stick to playlists and songs you manually downloaded.

Here’s how to disable Smart Downloads on YouTube Music:

1. Open YouTube Music.
2. Tap on the Account picture at the top and open Settings.
3. Choose Library & downloads.
4. Toggle off the Smart downloads feature.

In regards to YouTube (Google is testing Smart downloads on YouTube at the moment), you only have to delete downloaded videos and the message won’t appear again. You can remove YouTube videos you downloaded for offline viewing by following these steps:

1. Open YouTube.
2. Open Library from the bottom right corner.
3. Select Downloads.
4. Finally, delete all downloaded videos.

If YouTube is still looking for incomplete downloads, you can reset the app.

3. Clear data from YouTube or YouTube Music

If apps don’t work as intended, you can always reset them by clearing the local data. We might be looking at a bug of sorts and clearing local data usually deals with that. Just have in mind that you’ll need to download all your music/videos again.

Here’s how to clear data from YouTube or YouTube Music:

1. Open Settings.
2. Select Apps. Expand All apps.
3. Open YouTube or YouTube Music.
4. Tap Storage.
5. Clear data and restart your device.

You can also reinstall the app but that’s not all that different from clearing the data. Of course, make sure that YouTube (YouTube Music) is up to date. You should check for updates in Play Store from time to time.

And, with that said, we can conclude this article. If you have any questions or suggestions, make sure to share them with us in the comments section below. Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing from you.