YouTube Music's default settings prioritise saving data over sound quality, so listeners wanting richer audio need to manually adjust the app's bitrate options. This matters because, unlike rivals such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon Music, YouTube Music doesn't offer lossless audio even to paying subscribers, but it can still be improved beyond its out-of-the-box setting and remains valued for unofficial uploads, live performances and rare tracks.

By default, the app streams at 128 kbps, but Premium subscribers can raise this to a maximum of 256 kbps via the playback settings menu, using more data in exchange for noticeably clearer sound. Accessing this "High" or "Always High" quality requires a YouTube Music Premium subscription (from $12 a month) or YouTube Premium (from $16 a month); free users remain capped at the lower bitrate. Downloaded tracks can similarly be upgraded to 256 kbps via the download settings, though existing downloads must be deleted and re-downloaded to benefit, as the change doesn't apply retroactively.