YouTube Sound not Working Android? Top 7 solutions

Why does my YouTube have no sound?

There’s no bigger media streaming platform than YouTube and the majority of people who watch content on it are doing so on their mobile devices. This makes the problem we are going to talk about today quite bothersome.

Namely, some users report that YouTube sound is not working on Android. It seems that video playback is fine but that doesn’t do much if you can’t hear anything.

We might have some troubleshooting steps to suggest, though. Check them out below.

Table of contents:

1. Restart your phone and update YouTube
2. Check System sound settings
3. Clear the app’s cache and data
4. Reinstall YouTube
5. Sign out and sign in with your Google Account
6. Rollback to an older version of YouTube
7. Use YouTube on your browser

How to Fix No Sound on YouTube Android?

First, ensure that your media volume is not muted and that Do Not Disturb or Focus modes aren’t preventing media sounds. After that, if your YouTube still has no sound, restart the device and update the YouTube app. Finally, reinstall the app or try using YouTube in a browser.

1. Restart your phone and update YouTube

The first thing you should do whenever an issue arises is restarting your device. The problem might be a minor system halt and reboot often fix these. If that doesn’t help, make sure to navigate to Play Store and update YouTube.

Keeping your apps up to date is always a good idea. And, you wouldn’t believe how many users run outdated iterations of important apps on their Android handsets. If the YouTube sound is not working on Android, it might be an app issue and not a general problem.

So, open Play Store, tap on your profile at the top, and select Manage apps & device. Update all apps that require updating.

Don’t forget to do the same with the phone’s firmware. Navigate to Settings > System (or straight to Software update) > Software update and check for updates. If there are any available, make sure to download and install them as soon as possible.

2. Check System sound settings

It’s somewhat intuitive to check the sound settings if there’s no sound in a certain app. Albeit, it’s too obvious and many affected users certainly boosted the volume of their apps. However, it’s still worth inspecting.

So, here’s what you need to check:

1. Firstly, disable DND from the Quick Access tiles.
2. Secondly, navigate to Settings.
3. Open Sounds. On some Android skins, you need to open Volume.
4. Make sure that the Media sound slider is not muted.

If everything is OK here but YouTube still has no sound on your Android, try clearing the local cache and data.

3. Clear the app’s cache and data

The best way to reset an app without reinstalling it is to clear the local data from it. Although YouTube doesn’t store a lot of data, it’s still susceptible to data corruption. So, the safest way to eliminate this possibility is to clear all local data from YouTube for Android.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Open Settings.
2. Select Apps.
3. Expand the list of all apps.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the list and tap on YouTube.
5. Tap Storage.
6. Clear Data and restart your device.
7. Open YouTube from App Drawer or Home Screen and check for improvements.

4. Reinstall YouTube

If the previous step wasn’t of much use and YouTube sound is still not working on your Android phone, try reinstalling YouTube. In some instances, YouTube will come as a preinstalled app so you are limited to uninstalling its updates instead of completely removing the app.

One way or another, this should help address the problem in the majority of cases and you should get back your sound.

Here’s how to reinstall YouTube on Android via Play Store:

1. Open Play Store and search for YouTube.
2. Expand the app and tap Uninstall.
3. Now, after you restart your device and get back to Play Store, you’ll have either option to Update or to Install YouTube.
4. Tap Install/Update and look for improvements.

If that fails and YouTube playback still has no sound on Android, make sure to move to the next step.

5. Sign out and sign in with your Google Account

Even though this doesn’t have much to do with the problem at hand, it’s still worth a try. Even more peculiar things have happened with Google’s services on Android. In addition, you should probably navigate to Settings > Apps > 3-dot menu > Show system processes and locate Google Play Services and Google Services Framework. Clear data from those apps, too.

To sign out/sign in with your Google Account, you’ll need to navigate to Settings > Accounts and remove your Google Account. In the same manner, sign in again and check for improvements.

6. Rollback to an older version of YouTube

This can be a bit tricky if you are new to the fact that you can sideload apps on your device without Google Play Store. The Store doesn’t support downgrading apps and that’s exactly what we need sometimes when the actual version is exhibiting issues.

There are some red flags you should be aware of concerning apps that come from third-party sources so make sure to give it a read.

In the meanwhile, follow these instructions to safely roll back (downgrade) YouTube on your Android device:

1. Uninstall YouTube completely or uninstall updates.
2. Navigate to APK Mirror. Have in mind that this is perfectly secure and that these apps are not meddled with.
3. Download an older version of the YouTube app. Make sure to stick to recent versions to avoid compatibility issues but avoid the latest version. Alternatively, if you are on the latest Android version, try the latest Beta or even Alpha.
4. Allow installation from third-party sources and install the APK.
5. Restart your device and check if there’s audio when you try playing a clip.

7. Use YouTube on your browser

Now, if none of the previous steps worked for you, you can always go and use YouTube in Chrome or some other browser. Just make sure to disable the YouTube app or clear its link-opening preferences from Settings > Apps > YouTube.

Also, make sure to check the status of YouTube on the Down Detector. This might be just a temporary issue on their side. You can check if there’s a major problem with YouTube. Also, report the problem to Google via the Help menu in the app settings.

That should do it. We thank you for reading and encourage you to leave your thoughts or alternative solutions in the comments section below. Was this article helpful? Tell us below.

Editor’s note: This article was initially published in September 2021. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.