Play Youtube Video on Android Auto using this app
29th Dec 2017 : v1.0 released
29th Dec 2017 : v1.0.1 released to fix install errors on Android API level < 21
30th Dec 2017 : v1.0.2 released with safety disabled. Safety was showing blank screen when fullscreen. Controller support for nontouch screen still pending.
30th Dec 2017 : v1.1.0 Controller support for non touch devices done. Includes fullscreen and back nav support as well.
1st Jan 2018 : v1.1.1 Fix for app not installed on Marshmallow and lower Android phones. Install this version if you face “App not installed” error
1st Jan 2018 : v1.1.2 Stability fixes and support to resume video if was playing before app was minimized.
2nd Jan 2018 : v1.1.3 Ability to open any website via “Google search” option. Also send any custom url from the phone app. The car app remembers the last url visited and loads it automatically.
2nd Jan 2018 : v1.2.0 Speech to text for youtube searches. Minor fix to controller inputs.
2nd Jan 2018 : v1.2.1 Possible first fix for audio volume not controllable.
3rd Jan 2018 : v1.2.2 Full screen videos can be toggled more easily due to floating toolbar. Speech recognising view not hiding bug fixed. Its clickable just in case it doesnt hide. Progressbar to show page load progress.
3rd Jan 2018 : v1.2.3 Possible second fix for audio volume not controllable on some cars
5th Jan 2018 : v1.2.4 Fixed black screen which appears sometimes. Possible third fix for volume control in some systems.
6th Jan 2018 : v1.3.0Night mode support for Youtube added. Switch on your headlights to see the magic.
9th Jan 2018 : v1.3.1 Full screen mode now persists across videos. No need to switch fullscreen mode for each video on a playlist. It also stays on across app launches. You also should see a slight page speed boost.
9th Jan 2018: v1.3.2 Initial implementation of playing local offline videos/music/images. To enable, open phone app, grant “external storage” permission, then long press on the home icon (to the right of back button) on the car to open the SDcard folders. Now you can select a file and play it fullscreen. (Demo)
12th Jan 2018: v1.4.0 Now you should be able to use steering mounted controls (for next and previous video). This update also allows a “somewhat” background playback which allows you to listen to the audio without the video, but the catch is that you have to select the video first using the UI and then switch to background mode. This update should fix any volume control issues you have been facing in the past. (Watch the Demo)
12th Jan 2018: v1.4.1 If you have crashed when accessing youtube purchased videos, this build will fix it.
13th Jan 2018: v1.4.2 Please uninstall all previous builds and install this one if “youtube auto” has suddenly disappeared from Android auto (from last 1-2 days). If you dont uninstall previous builds, there is a chance that 2 similar looking apps show up.
This is possible because Google has blocked my previous app. Still not 100% sure.
13th Jan 2018: v1.4.3 About link redirecting to 404 page fixed.
14th Jan 2018: v1.4.4 Safety Warning popup added which pops up everytime you start driving. This warning will disappear if you use handbrake/parking mode.
15th Jan 2018: v1.5.0Aspect ratio support to remove black bars. You can toggle between aspect ratios in full screen mode. Also irritating notifications have been removed.
15th Jan 2018: v1.5.1Fullscreen controls support for controllers, use right,left,up and center to seek, change aspect ratio and play/pause.
15th Jan 2018: v1.5.2Bug fixes for “I understand the risk” not clickable for some users. Fixed steering mounted controls not working the first time.
15th Jan 2018: v1.5.4Fix for “I understand the risk” button not clickable. Irritating notifications are back because without them there is no way to make steering controls work reliably. Will be fixed soon
18th Jan 2018: v1.6.0Youtube auto renamed to CarStream with new logo. Looks like google bannned again. So if previous app is not showing up, use this app.
19th Jan 2018: v1.6.1Youtube auto renamed to CarStream with new logo. Looks like google bannned again. So if previous app is not showing up, use this app.
25th Jan 2018: v1.7.0Bookmarks support added. Click on last icon on the top toolbar. Long press on a bookmark to delete. Demo
25th Jan 2018: v1.7.1 Italian and chinese translations added. Check the credits section for how to add more languages. Thanks to everyone (mentioend in credits) for translating.
26th Jan 2018: v1.7.2 External SD card support works with most devices. Look for the ‘external storage’ bookmark. French translation added.
27th Jan 2018: v1.7.3 Basic keyboard input added. Translations to finnish, portuguese, danish, turkish, french added. Thank you everyone
6th Feb 2018: v1.8.0 More translations added. Revamped local offline player. Now play SD Card videos with next and previous support. Also supports formats like MKV. Also Bookmarks issues have been fixed. For a full list of supported formats read ‘Standalone container formats’ on this page
6th Feb 2018: v1.8.1 Bug fix release,
issues related to local videos not playing correctly fixed.
7th Feb 2018: v1.8.2 Bug fix release for bookmark dpad support in non touch screens
8th Feb 2018: v1.8.3 Bug fix release for audio focus issues. If carstream overwrites other players, this version fixes it. Also local audio/video continues to play in background.
21st Jun 2018 : 2.0.0 Introduces a way to unlock carstream in rooted phones. Thanks to ‘slashmax’ for figuring out the trick.
The following message is shown if handbrake is not applied. Please make sure you use this app safely.
8th Feb 2018 : For raising bugs or enhancement requests please visit https://github.com/thekirankumar/youtube-android-auto/issues
 | (1528256 hits) Youtube Auto Latest Version Download |
How to install the app
How to watch local videos of all formats on SD Card
Raising bugs, enhancement for new features
CarStream is developed and maintained by me in my free time. In order to efficiently manage my time, it would be great if you can use github for raising bugs and feature requests. I have been using this blog’s comments section till now for this, but it doesnt scale well. So if you put anything here, it will mostly get ignored. So please use github. I know its painful to create a github account, but it helps me. Before raising a github issue, check if the same issue exists, otherwise it will most likely be closed.
Use this link to reach github issues page
Debugging black screen issue
Black screen when switching on Youtube auto is usually related to Power saver mode on your phone. Some phones have it as “aggressive doze mode” or “advanced battery optimization”. For youtube auto to work seamlessly, you have to switch off power saver mode completely or disable it just for Youtube auto.
Also sometimes you can follow this trick of switching on youtube auto phone app on phone and then connecting to the car. Please try this on Xperia and Huawei phones. Also some huawei phones are not compatible with android auto in general. Even Waze doesnt work. Source
Disabling the bottom bar in fullscreen mode
Many users have requested this feature of hiding the nav bar when in fullscreen mode. Unfortunately google doesnt support this feature and we can expect google to give an API in future version of android auto. So this is not feasible.
Source code
If you want to add new features or checkout the code visit https://github.com/thekirankumar/youtube-android-auto/ Pull requests for new feature are welcome.
Donation
If you like this app, please make a donation.
My bitcoin (BTC) address 1MHUymspbm3FgJexAFcvxxq6QdHS9bJjZh
My paypal address https://paypal.me/thekirankumar2
My litecoin (LTC) address LXRkN1JDm1weqDL6WKCQRTcqqfPnSiGaCQ
Credits
Unofficial Android SDK https://github.com/martoreto/aauto-sdk Without this SDK this project wouldn’t exist. Thanks to Martoreto for reverse engineering the Waze app and coming up with a easy to use SDK and a sample app.
VideoEnabledWebview https://github.com/cprcrack/VideoEnabledWebView This webview makes fullscreen videos easy to implement.
Thanks for helping with translation :
German : Timo Neumeier
Russian : Ilja Skobelev
Italian : Gabriele Rizzo
Chinese : Nelson
French : Adil Bousfiha
Finnish : Joona Ahveninen & Raitsa
Portuguese: Daniel Stuart
Turkish: Ufuk Ata
Danish: Hayrullah Celik
Bulgarian : Boby
Polish : Krzysztof Białek
Estonian : Magnus Jaaska & Olev Kaas
Spanish : César Formica & Miceot
If you want to translate to your local language, please visit the github repository and raise a pull request or just mail me the strings.xml file at [email protected]
Note
Disclaimer :This is my personal project and I maintain it in my free time. The work here is in no way related to my Employer. It is a hobby project where I have not committed to anyone about maintaining it. With Google blocking every move, its getting more difficult to progress. You can imagine how it would be to fight as a one man army against google.
Unblocking instructions
[21st Jan 2018] Google has blocked the app multiple times till now and its becoming difficult for me to release just a new version to unblock it. Here are some tricks to do it yourself when google blocks the app.
Google blocks the app’s package name. This is how apps identify themselves and google is able to block the app easily by just identifying my app’s package name and then blocking it. As a workaround, if you are an android developer, just clone the source code and change the package name in build.gradle as well on the google-services.json file.
If you are not a developer, I recommend you use APK Editor Pro app (Its a paid app, but the apks are available everywhere). It allows you to change package names of any app without creating the APK yourself.
- Download APK editor PRO (free version doesnt allow many features)
- Open the settings and click “sign APK with” and select “key created by APK Editor”
- Exit settings and come back to main menu
- click “Select APK from app”
- select the car stream apk
- select “Full Edit”
- click on the third tab on bottom called “manifest”
- click on the second line from top called “manifest xmlns:android….
- click on “package” and change the package name to anything you want. This is the most important step. You should use something which is unique to you. Use maybe your name or username in it. Do not use special character except “dot”. If your name is john doe, use maybe “com.johndoe.testapp” as the package name. Be creative here, because this is what google uses to block the app
- Click save button, be careful not to press cancel.
- Now click the build button on the top-right corner of the screen
- This will take a few seconds and finish the creating a new APK
- [IMPORTANT] Once it finishes, uninstall the old version of car stream. If you dont uninstall, the new APK wont install
- Now go back to APK pro and press install the new apk you created which has your custom package name
- After installation, Car Stream should work for you
If you get install issues with APK editor, try APK cloner. It doesn’t let you change package name, but it automatically chooses a package name and is easy to use and free.
If google blocks the apk again, come back here to this section for a new workaround.
8th Feb 2018 : For raising bugs or enhancement requests please visit https://github.com/thekirankumar/youtube-android-auto/issues
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Neither this (1.5.4) or the latest (1.5.3) work for me. I have a Pixel phone. The app is useable by itself on the phone with no android auto.
When I click send to phone, it says “Goto android app and click ‘Receive from Phone’ to load this page.
* There is no “Receive from phone” in the android app.
In Android auto , the Youtube Auto tells me “Click last tab in bottom bar & start playing from ….”
If I click the Settings button, , it starts spinning saying “Getting your selection…” That screen never goes away unless I hit the back button.
Pressing play, forward, or backward does nothing.
I get exactly the same and only get the background app when phone connected
Vorrei sapere gentilmente,
Se può essere risolto l’anomalia della tastiera
Che non compare quando mi dice di effettuare l’accesso alle reti tv tramite Google in streaming sia Reti Mediaset che Rai
Non parlo della tastiera in alto, cioè quella della lente Google, che funziona benissimo
Ma per l’appunto quella a metà schermo per effettuare il login a canali in streaming
Attendo Risposta grazie
E grazie ancora infinite da parte di tutti noi che sicuramente siamo in tantissimi
hi,
There is no developer setting on my adroit aouto. what can . I do. Can you help me.
basaran, yes there should be a dev setting. Do like this; open Android Auto on your phone, select hamburger menu on top left, select About, click 10 times on About Android Auto at the top. Then you will reach developer mode, click on the three dots at the top right and select Settings for developers. There you are.
Keyboard do not pop up on certain websites. Can you please fix this issue? Great job also, I’m loving this app
My steering wheel controls does not control playlist videos. Instead, it triggers play music to take over and begin playing. The audio is also lower in YouTube Auto than other AA apps.
Also, I can’t seem to figure out a background mode. If I leave the app, it stopped playing.
Additionally, when playing a playlist, the controls reappear from one video to another and don’t auto disappear.
Works great on the whole, though, and I’m sharing this!
I am having problem setting this YouTube Auto up accordingly. I did everything as instructed by you yet still it does not work. So what I did, since I am using Google Pixel 2 XL I had to run it through the Google cast on my phone …it shows but the volume was not right. please tell me what else I need to do…thanks!!!
I thought this didn’t work, but I didn’t realize, I needed to try to exit android auto (and go back to sync) to see the option to use YouTube auto. My problem now is, it steals focus from spotify and I have to select another app then go back to spotify, in order to listen to spotify.
Looks like it was user error. After messing with it, I found out that it will continue to steal focus from spotify unless, (in the youtube auto app) you exit whatever video is playing. If you just go back to android auto while the video is playing, it will stop playing but will not let the next app play. Tapping the home button seems to fix this for me. Thanks Kiran for a great app. I wish this could be released to the playstore and not end up with you playing cat and mouse with google but I fear that is what will happen. I hope I am wrong. This app is awesome!
Hey brother thank you for this! If you can do a Netflix one I would gladly donate again! This is so mind blowing!
Hey
Absolutely no problems for me, everything works perfectly, with note 8 in my car AA.
Thank you, for your great work!
Night mode still not working! Also background playing not working with latest version now:(
have problem when I switch to other music player.
Will be forced back to youtube auto background player after switch to other.
on v1.5.4
v1.5.4 Not working. Repeatedly appears screen “I understand the risk”. After a few attempts jump on the main screen of Android Auto.
Solved. After update was YA installed twice. Uninstall and reinstall solved problem.
Thanks so much for your hard work, I can finally watch my Plex in the car!
I vote for “BeYoutu auto”
New name suggestions :
YTUBEAUTO
TUBERAUTO
UTUBEAUTO
YOURTUBEAUTO
Hey. Are there plans for launching other applications? For example, Yandex Navigator. It would be great. In Russia this is a very popular application. Thank you for the wonderful work!
Name suggestion,
Autotube
Hello there,
Just wanted to thank you for this great app.
Background sound does not seem to work but a minor issue.
Keep up the great work.
Smart tube
Name suggestion – AutoBrowse, AutoVid, CarVids, Stop’n'Watch (as it can load any website to play videos)
Hi, when i press Search window don’t appear the keyboard to write on the car’s display… can you help me??? I can use just vocal search…
Dear,
First let me thank you for a great job
Would it be possible to add ARABIC language to the keyboard.
Please note that there are many people who has Youtube auto now and wish they can have Arabic Keyboard
Thank you
Kiran,maybe you should rethink this comment section or just point people to XDA.
AATUBE, CARMEDIA, AAEXPLORER, CARWATCH, TUBEDRIVE
Name: AbrowsA
I’d like to suggest a name “AA VideoTube” or “AA UStream” ^^
Hi i already done perfect but don’t see youtube on screen
Hi Kiran, what you think about using this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.dvkr.screenstream&hl=en
with yours ???
Any new possibilities?
It doesnt support audio and has a delay of 1-2 second.
It should be usable for video only apps.
Is there anyway to hide android auto navigation buttons while playing videos and thus utilizing the entire screen for the video?
v1.5.4 Not working. Repeatedly appears screen “I understand the risk”. After a few attempts jump on the main screen of Android Auto. Gaalaxy s7.
Hi Kiran, superb app. Thank you!!
It will be awesome to be able to access sd card contents.
To integrate steering control for playback contents will be appreciated.
Keep the updates coming.
Great job!
Thank you guys for the name suggestions, they were very creative ones. I could not reply to each comment, but the poll shows “CarStream” as a clear winner with 56% votes. In the coming few updates, I’ll move all parts of the app to the new name and a new logo.
Very Good Job. I suggest you to create a web Browser starting from this project. I’m actually using it and it looks very very good.
Hy. I instaled your app and it work on my Mercedes GLE but i have a question. is there a posibility to integrate the Mercedes Benz comand online touch pad to work with this app. To make it control a pointer on the screen. it would be a great thing….
By the way… This is the best thing for Android Auto after Waze app. Thank u….
Hey Kiran, great app and thank you for the continued support. Is there a way to launch Kodi through your app?
‘CarTube’
Hello, Kiran! Skoda Octavia 2017 and Huawei Nova. There about the risk on the touch screen. Always on the screen about the warning.
Version B1.5.4
This program works great with one issue. It seems to take control of all media controls. If I use the head unit to play spotify it won’t work goes right back to youtubeauto. I have even gone the the very right button on the head unit and selected android auto there but still overrides spotify. Please fix. Love it other than that
Cartube sounds good
AA-Xplorer, AA-Viator, AA-Pilot, AA-NAVI any of these names would fit your app… Keep up the good work!
Autotube, sounds like a promising name.
No video “Click last tab in bottom bar & start …
I get audio only. No Video, Without Video it is no good as it is already very easy to get youtube audio in my Chevy.
names could be
YourTube
AutoTube
CarTube
and i cant get any audio only from youtube
even if i hit the play button nothing happens, i tough see the title
pls reconsider the names that are in the poll,
suggest the ones written by users :
YourTube
AutoTube
CarTube
then see what the poll shows
Hey Kiran,
Great app. Super useful. My wife and kids love it. Is possible to select resolutions of the YouTube videos? Some videos play with lower resolutions even though higher resolutions are available.
Thanks
Mark
Hi, that’s a great app.
Would it be possible to add the possibility of playing videos from internal storage?
Thank you!