YouTube Premium offers ad-free videos, offline downloads in YouTube Music, new experimental features like Picture-in-Picture, unlocks exclusive videos, and more. However, if you no longer wish to continue your YouTube Premium membership, here’s how to cancel it using your iPhone or iPad.
About canceling your YouTube membership
Before you begin, please note that:
- Unsubscribing from YouTube Premium will also cancel YouTube Music.
- If you’re the organizer of the YouTube Premium Family plan, canceling it will also stop YouTube Premium for all family members.
- You can follow the same steps to cancel YouTube Premium’s free trial.
- Finally, you should know from where you subscribed to YouTube Premium: was it from the YouTube app and billed via iTunes (Apple) as an in-app purchase, or did you add your credit card to your Google account and subscribe to YouTube Premium from there. The latter is cheaper, by the way!
In any case, we show you the steps for both below.
How to unsubscribe from YouTube Premium on iPhone or iPad
1. Cancel from iPhone Settings
Follow these steps to cancel your YouTube subscription if it’s billed via Apple:
- Open the Settings app and tap your name from the top.
- Tap Subscriptions.
- Select YouTube.
- From here, tap Cancel Subscription and confirm.
You’ll notice if you’re billed via Apple, canceling YouTube Premium is just like canceling any other app subscription on your iPhone or iPad.
You can continue to enjoy YouTube Premium until the last day of your billing cycle. This is mentioned in small print on the Cancel Subscription screen.
Notes:
- If you don’t see the Cancel Subscription button, that means you have already canceled your subscription.
- If you don’t see YouTube listed on your subscription screen, that means you subscribed directly via Google. It can also mean that you don’t have a YouTube Premium subscription of your own but are a part of a YouTube Premium Family plan. In this case, ask the family organizer (person who is billed for this subscription) to cancel it or remove you as a family member.
2. Cancel YouTube Premium from Google
Here’s how to cancel your YouTube Premium subscription on iPhone if you’re billed directly via Google:
- Visit youtube.com/paid_memberships on your iPhone and make sure you’re signed in using the same Google account with which you subscribed to YouTube Premium.
- Choose Premium.
- Tap Deactivate.
- Read the alert and select Continue to Cancel.
- Finally, tap Yes, Cancel to unsubscribe from YouTube Premium.
Note: If you open the YouTube app > your profile picture > Purchases and memberships > Premium > Manage, you’re taken to a Google support page. It has a big Cancel Now button. If you tap it, it will take you back to the YouTube app’s membership screen. It doesn’t actually cancel the subscription. Plus, the steps for iPhone and iPad mentioned on the support page might not work for you. So, follow the steps we mentioned above.
What is pausing YouTube Premium membership?
Instead of canceling your membership, you can also pause your YouTube Premium Membership for 1 to 6 months. During this, you won’t be billed the monthly subscription amount and will lose access to premium privileges. However, when this paused state ends, your subscription automatically becomes active once again, and you’re charged the monthly fees from that new date which also becomes your new billing date.
So, let us say you’re going on a two-month vacation and think you won’t be using YouTube Premium during that time. So, instead of continuing the subscription and giving money unnecessarily to YouTube, you can pause your subscription and save the cost for two months.
In case you wish to resume YouTube Premium before the automatic scheduled resume date, go to youtube.com/paid memberships > Premium (or Manage Membership) > Resume > Resume.
Note that you can only pause your YouTube membership if you subscribed to it directly via YouTube (Google). If you’re billed through Apple, you can only cancel your membership (and resubscribe whenever you like).
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