Hi everyone! Today, I want to share a simple way to get YouTube on your home screen using the Brave browser. This allows you to watch videos without ads and even play them in the background with the screen locked.
Steps:
- Open YouTube link in Safari (e.g.,
https://m.youtube.com). - Tap the square arrow in the bottom center and tap “Add to Home Screen” option. An icon will appear on your home screen.
- Go to Settings and set Brave as your default browser.
Now, when you tap the icon, it will open in Brave, giving you an ad-free experience and more!
I also want to add that I decided to do it this way—meaning, by creating a home screen icon through Safari and setting Brave as my default browser—instead of using the old shortcut method, because I discovered some problems with that approach.
Basically, if you create a shortcut using the Shortcuts app on iPhone (or by following some of the typical Brave community suggestions), it works at first. But if you close the Brave tab and then later tap the shortcut icon, it won’t open the link. I tried this many times, restarted the phone, checked for updates—nothing changed. So I think there’s some kind of bug or limitation there.
By experimenting, I found that doing it this way—creating the icon with Safari and just letting Brave handle the opening because it’s your default browser—is actually a better solution. This way, you can create as many home screen shortcuts as you want for different links, and they will always open properly in Brave.
So basically, with this method, you avoid using the iOS Shortcuts app altogether (which in my opinion isn’t that reliable for this case), and instead you use the “old style” home screen shortcut. And let’s be honest… old is often still the best!
Enjoy