Get the YouTube app that was pulled by Google

By Sam Sabri
last updated

Have a developer unlocked phone? You can get the XAP for the YouTube app from Microsoft that was pulled by Google. 

Metrotube and myTube are by far some of the best options in the Windows Phone Store right now if you want to get your YouTube on. There was a brief period of time where Microsoft’s own YouTube app was killer, before Google had it killed. Now it’s a shell of its former self and not exactly an app we’d recommend to anyone. Miss that great YouTube app that Microsoft put out? There are ways to get it back. Details below.

If you don’t remember that particular version of YouTube, check out the video above to see it in action. This YouTube was highly praised by both us and you, the Windows Phone community. If you’re missing it then our friends over at the XDA Developer Forums might have a solution for you.

You’ll need either a developer unlocked device or an interop-unlock device to install the XAP they’ve prepared over there. It’ll give that YouTube from yore that had great features like:

  • Video uploading
  • Pin any video, playlist, channel, and search queries to Live Tiles
  • Manage your YouTube profile with your unique My YouTube page
  • Manage your playlists, uploads, and video lists
  • Find channels, videos, and playlists with the quick access search bar
  • Share videos to your social networks, e-mail, and text messages
  • Let your kids watch safe videos in Kid’s Corner and keep their own profile

The link below to the XDA forums will give you all the instructions you need to get the app up and running on your Windows Phone device. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’ll have to do until Microsoft and Google can work together.

Source: XDA Developer Forums

130 Comments
  • No thanks, google can kick rocks
  • Agreed. I've completely quit Google and it is fantastic. Boycott YouTube. Get Vimeo instead.
  • Yupp. They've monopolized everything they can get their greedy hands on. They're trying to "unify" the google experience (similar to MS) but instead of being an open platform, they shun out anything that doesn't have google stamped on it, and have made it so hard for anyone else to use their services. So screw Google.
    And people call Microsoft a monopoly?
  • You could always use YouTube with Adblock. Be a such on their server's
  • Yes, I think WPcentral should move their vids to vimeo since they have an official app for WP.
  • They need the exposure they get from Youtube I guess. Although... They could post videos on youtube that are merely a black screen with the messege "Youtube crashed, click here to restart video", and that link takes you to the video on Vimeo. Hehehe... Very childish, but funny.
  • Agree
  • Agree wholeheartedly
  • Well in a way this is a nice move to take on google, get the YouTube app that was freaking awesome. Im getting it coz i do watch YouTube and not ready to go for vimeo yet, if ever will. But this is awesome, i might even keeps the app even if official app comes out again. :)
  • Google has become evil. I agree, I don't care about youtube.
  • Does developer unlocked mean like having a dev account and having stuff on it, like gdr3 on my 920?
  • I think you can do 1 app via that. I was a student dev before and I could load 3 apps
  • I have the GDR3 on and neither will install.
  • You will need to be developer unlocked; that means using Visual Studio to register the device as a developer device, and then using the sister tool to side load the app.
  • To add to that, your MS account has to be registered as a developer account, not just the phone.
  • I spent the 19 bucks a few weeks ago and have a developers account but I didn't register my phone, yet.
  • I only have the free dev account needed to install GDR3. I downloaded the Windows 8 SDK and used it to unlock my phone and then used Windows Phone Power Tools to load the XAP.
  • Actually, MS allows one phone to be unlocked and one app to be sideloaded for free, no dev account.
  • Do you by chance have a link to do that?
  • http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/wpdev/archive/2013/08/06/making...   "Now, any developer can unlock and register 1 phone to load up to 2 apps. Registered developers with Dev Center accounts continue to have the option to unlock up to 3 phones and upload up to 10 apps on each."   all you do is download the WP8 SDK and run the developer unlock tool.
  • Gonna go download it now. Thanks for this article Sam.
  • This is a $20 app just register to be a developer. I registered. It was better then the $99 before. That is if you really want to. I miss this app.
  • How do I convert the files from the .zip to a .xap? Anyone?
  • rename it
  • I tried to rename it with a .xap at the end but it did not change the file type only the name. Any other suggestions?
  • You didn't rename it correctly. Maybe your file explorer is hiding the file extension?
    Anyway, if you are not able to rename a file, you shouldn't deploy xap files...
  • LOL
  • you probably dont have "hide extenstions for known filetypes" unchecked open control panel -> find folder options -> click View tab -> uncheck "hide extenstions for known filetypes" if not that i dunno
  • Do you have file extensions showing or just the filename?  You probably just named it filename.xap.zip because you can't see the .zip extension on it.
  • configure your Explore (view/options) and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file type"
  • Just use WinZip or winrar to extract "YouTube.xap" (WinZip is for PC)
  • Who gives a crap between this stupid battle between the Google and MS. I want my damn Youtube app and am really tired of waiting. Every other phone out there has it but us. Ridiculous of you ask me.
  • Apparently you care about the battle, because it's stopping you having the app you want ;-)
  • hehehe,!!!
  • Provide me link where can i download this app
  • I used google less and less but they have me cornered with youtube. I need it. I love mytube tho. Official app is needed tho
  • My tube is tha best
  • Google deserve a big ass lawsuit.
  • Based on the grounds of...?
  • For their stupid treatment of the consumers, I guess. It must be something in the books, anything that prohibits this kind of crap. Microsoft were fined €500 million for a mistake they immediately fixed.
  • Yeah...I'm afraid there isn't. Nothing in any European or American Law prohibits a company from refusing to provide a service. Not even private hospitals (except in extreme cases in which they are forced to provide the service).
  • Same way Microsoft was sued for the whole Netscape ish
  • Not the same I'm affraid. What courts rulled was against Microsoft's building of IE into Windows, not provinding users with the chance of having an alternative. That could be applied to Bing if Microsoft hadn't allowed you to chose Google too in WP7 days. Or Google on Android (assuming you can't replace Google as the search engine. I don't know, I never tried). In this case all that's happening is a company refusing to offer its services on a platform instead of being prevented from doing so.
  • You can't even on google-less versions of Android 2.2+ :'( I tried because I have a shitty Android tablet and my Dad has an Android phone.
  • Wasn't the grounds on the MS lawsuit that they used their monopoly in one market to unfairly help another market? I guess this is similar in that google is using their YouTube monopoly to hinder a competitor.
  • Yeah, if being rat bastards was illegal almost everyone in the USA would be in jail.
  • Shitstorm imminent
  • Along with 99% of the politicians in Europe. lol
  • Hell yeah. As soon as I have a USB cable I'm doing this stat.
  • Yay.. Suck it up google bitch!
  • Yea I have gdr3 and this app no longer works.... I never updated the original app because of what google was trying to do and now I get ..... Something has happened error
  • Now that I have tried myTube idk if I want to use any other YouTube app. It's awesome! But I wish there was a way to get YouTube links to open the app instead of the browser :(
  • Man, I love myTube. I thought I wouldnt use anything but Metrotube until myTube came along. The app is just amazingly designed. Also, I would really like the option for this app to be used while opening browser links. Is it even possible?
  • Tip: if you want to open a video in myTube via link, just copy the link and paste it into the search box. MyTube will pick up the video automatically ;)
  • Why wasn't this posted earlier when I was at a computer? Darn.
  • Im glad im older and don't care too much about YouTube. Metrotube works just fine for my needs.
  • Why do you feel your age is a factor here...? :-S
  • Any idea folks about temple run2
  • YouTube HD app is neat too and free.
  • Can someone do a complete step-by-step to get it on to a phone? I'm not sure how...
  • For me, there is no perfect Youtube app yet if it can't display captions and annotations.
  • Google has been banished from my household. Well, with the exception of YouTube that my teenage daughter refuses to let go of. Other than that, I really cant see what Google has for me that other services can't offer.
  • No thanks, f*** google
  • 100% Google Free in this household and it feels GRRRREAT!!! No more Scroogled for this WinPhan
  • ...and for the rare times I want to view a YouTube video, there's MyTube. Best YouTube app for Windows Phone.
  • I thought metrotube was better
  • Honestly, they're both 4.5-5 star apps in my book. I like them both but found MyTube loaded quicker... And, I prefer MyTube's live tile. Bottom line, we have two fantastic apps for YouTube. :)
  • Why would I want to do that? Google's just going to find a way to stop it, so I just wish people would stop putting trust in them; haven't they shown everyone here they won't support windows phone?
  • Is this the first version where you can download videos, skip ads, and play videos blocked for mobile? That's the version I'm looking for
  • Metrotube does that
  • It doesn't let you play videos that are blocked for mobile - which is really the feature im looking for
  • Can you download videos on metrotube?
  • Yes, you can.
  • Guck Foogle!!!;
  • Can this also be done with swapchat then?
  • to answer my own question, yes i was able to load it on my l925 after downloading the XAP. was worried i'd have to use an SD card, but apparently not.
  • Google can go get bent. I've stopped using chrome on all of my PCs as well as switched to using Bing for my search engine for this reason as well as several others.
  • There are more Windows Phones than Nintendo 3DS in the world, but there is a YouTube app for the 3DS. Not written in html5 either.
  • Really?? With 3D vids too?
  • You got figures supporting that claim?
  • Google and Nintendo apparently have a good relationship, like the "Wii Street U powered by Google" app.
  • I think the google team just have to accept competence... Ah and Bing is cooler than google :P
  • Video tutorial please?? :)
  • Perfectly working.   I have lumia822 with dev account and gdr3. It seems comments is not working in youtube app, everytime i swipes to comment section, it says - "Oops! Something went wrong" Unistalled metrotube, no offence to metrotube but i like youtube by MS over metrotube.
  • Just got done installing this. Works fantastic. I used the NoInterop XAP and the Windows Phone Power Tools tpo load it. Kept getting a error using the MS SDK app.
  • Hello Narse.  Any chance you can list a step by step of how to do it and where to get the needed tools?
  • Sam sabri and Daniel Rubino,I read your articles daily and find them very useful.can both of you write an article on the new playstation one emulator "emiPsx" which is paid but has a trial version which is ad supported.thankyou.
  • Yeah. Paul's playing with that one and should have it up shortly :)
  • MyTube solves all YouTube problems...
  • +920
  • MetroTube is enough!
  • One sec i thaught a official YouTube app released
  • They are too busy dealing with their new terrible comment system. MS re-release the app when they aren't looking!
  • What!! This is one of worst YouTube app I have used because there is a major flow in the app that could brick your phone. This app caches the videos you watch into your phone and there's no way to remove it unless you do a hard reset. Uninstalling the app doesn't fix it. My other memory usage jumped from 2Gbs to 3.5Gbs. I can't believe Microsoft would release an app without testing it out for any serious bugs.
  • I had to hard reset because of this ridiculous bug. Use Internet Explorer, Speedtube, Metrotube for watching YouTube video.Not Microsoft's YouTube app unless you enjoy hard resting your phone
  • Will it work with the app studio account as I hear one unofficial app can be installed if you have a app studio account...anyone tried yet...
  • Thanks guys, I just installed it on my dev unlock 920. Works like a charm. Update. Could not play this video message. :(
  • Got all excited when I saw the picture but disappointed when I read the headline :'(
  • This is version 3.2 I want 3.0 which has downloads I have 3.0 and let xda know they can extract it from my ativ s
  • I use the supertube app! I love it! Never had a problem with it! Can't believe nobody brought it up. :-)
  • Google is so gay....
  • Yaay! Time to load up that app! Good thing my personal phone is my dev phone too. ;)
  • Why Microsoft don't supports Metrotube? This is very a good and stylish app!
  • Is there any future to doing things this way? This is the kind of thing that will make the Windows Phone platform laughable.
  • Even if you install this app it still won't work as it's blocked by the Servers at Google!!
  • can anybody help me to choose one of them and whats the difference between these two version or which is the recommended version. HELP !!!!! youtube_Interop_P2_Fixed or youtube_NoInterop_P2
  • Very simple and works like a charm.
  • No thanks. I'd rather keep my 3 slot of developer app for development and testing purpose :)
  • As far as I'm concerned google can stick YouTube up there.......!
  • Hi Sam, thanks for using Avirall. Please update it, you are using a very old version.
  • Don't worry! I have the latest version of Avirall. That was just an old image of the YouTube app I re-used. Keep up the good work!
  • Google can get lost, metro tube and Hyper for my Surface are doing just fine.
  • It´s always nice to have options. Having said that, MetroTube is more than enough to fullfil my youtube needs (which are very basic). I just use it to watch the videoclips from the sites i visit (like windows phone central, for example). I don`t upload, or comment, or watch random videos, and even the subscriptions i had keep pilling up cause i never have the time to watch them.
  • Hi Sam, Please consider doing a review of AllTube Player (ATP) Pro. This is a video app that is more than just YouTube. It also supports Dailymotion, Vimeo and Flickr. Members of wpcentral will have another great option. Windows Phone link is here http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=711c6734-28ae-4360-9fce-c9e1d9585fd1 Also available on Windows 8, link is here http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/alltube-player-pro/038366ac-00a9-432b-86f9-7a6c0139232b Let me know if you need further info.
  • How do you turn the folder into a .xap file to put on your phone?
  • Spin on it google im keeping to mytube
  • Thanks. They wont bring back the Youtube app because of lame google and google+ suck so much....
  • Until Google learn not to behave like a spoiled child.... No thanx!
  • YouTube has gone south the past few months and with the recent G+/YouTube changes along with the new comments section, it's getting worse. I have G+ so that doesn't bother me but the comments are just a mess.  Videos are slower to load it seems.  Just feels like it's hitting a critical mass in a bad way.  It's the last bastion of Google services I like and they're killing it.  If they aren't careful, another service is going to swoop in and put a dent in their business.
  • Its about time Microsoft try to get their hands on creating a youtube like site or acquire one like dailymotion or vimeo. Youtube is taking a rap for their new comment system required to have G+ account plus Windows8/WindowsPhone fans are kinda repulsed by them. Hit the iron while its HOT. You hear MS.
  • IDEA: Microsoft should intergrate addblocker for youtube and other google sites in IE :)
  • Can't install it. It says "Application of this company is not possible to install". Is there anything I can do? I realy want this THING back.
  • use this to install http://wptools.codeplex.com/releases/view/97029
  • i get errors while installing this appliication. any ideas?
  • Sorry, Google pulled comments too.
  • Please someone give me link for downloading this XAP file my e-mail ID-choudhary.upendra9695@gmail.com
  • Yes yes.. i was able to side load the application for Free. I have a app studio account which was free. Downloaded SDK 8.0 and registered my phone as Dev Phone. SDK 8.0 is giving error while installing the XAP so tried with Windows Phone Power Tools and i can see the youtube MS app is working like a charm :)
  • Does anyone have in depth step-by-step to get the app working?
  • Hello weather
  • No download feature. :(