YouMod on iPhone — Ad-Free YouTube, SponsorBlock, 1440p
YouMod is the official YouTube app with a tweak layer built into it. Same login, same subscriptions, same recommendations — with the ads gone, the video still playing after you leave the app, a download button that works, and the dislike count back where it used to be. Download the YouMod IPA for iPhone and install it in one tap: no PC, and no developer account of your own to keep alive.
What YouMod actually is
YouMod is not a separate client that reimplements YouTube. It is the real app, patched — which is why everything you already rely on behaves normally, and why it has to be rebuilt every time YouTube ships an update. The build in our catalogue tracks YouTube 21.35.3.
Its stated goal is to bring the feature set of YTLite — the tweak most people met first — into a build that stays maintained. Under the hood it bundles a stack of long-running community tweaks rather than inventing its own: YouPiP for picture-in-picture, YouSpeed for playback rate, YouLoop, YouMute, YouSlider, YouChooseQuality, YouGetCaption and Return YouTube Dislikes, all wired into one grouped settings screen instead of eight scattered panels.
No ads, and sponsor segments skipped for you
Ad blocking is the obvious half. The half people underestimate is SponsorBlock, and YouMod’s implementation is unusually good: it is native, not a bundled iSponsorBlock dylib, it covers all nine segment categories, each category gets its own action (skip silently, show a button, or ignore), and it includes the Highlight category that iSponsorBlock does not support.
The practical difference: pre-rolls disappear, and so do the ninety seconds of in-video sponsor read that no ad blocker touches, because those are part of the video file itself. On a long-form channel that is often more watch time saved than the ads.
Background play, PiP and downloads
Three of YouTube’s paywalled conveniences arrive switched on:
- Background playback — audio keeps going when you lock the phone or switch apps.
- Picture-in-Picture — native iOS PiP, including on videos where the stock app refuses.
- Downloads — save a video to the device for offline watching, not to a Premium-only cache that expires.
Quality, speed and the dislike count
YouMod unlocks the resolutions the iOS app hides — 1440p and 2160p — and lets you set a preferred quality that it applies automatically instead of asking every time. Playback speed, volume and captions get their own controls.
And Return YouTube Dislikes puts the dislike count back under every video. It is a small thing until you are deciding whether a twenty-minute tutorial is worth starting.
What’s unlocked: ad-free playback with in-video sponsor segments skipped, background and Picture-in-Picture playback, video downloads for offline watching, Return YouTube Dislikes restored, plus quality, speed and volume controls in one grouped settings screen.
How to install it
On builds.io YouMod installs like a normal App Store download — tap GET, install, sign in with your usual Google account. No PC, and no developer account of your own to keep alive. When you add a new device, Apple runs a one-time “processing” step: most devices are ready within a day, and some take up to three days while Apple works through them. It happens once, and every install after that is instant.
Because YouMod patches the real app, a YouTube update can break the build until a new one is cut — that is the trade for having the genuine app rather than a clone.
Weighing up the alternatives? We compared YouTube Plus, the OLED tweak and YouTube Music, and there is a dedicated write-up on YouTube Music without ads or a subscription. For everything else worth installing this way, see the best apps to sideload on iOS 26.