Install YouTube Player on Nintendo Switch

YouTube Player

Simple YouTube search engine, downloader and player.

  • No web browser required! Easily search for videos and play them with a double-click.
  • Extremely lightweight - just a perl script.
  • Perfect for systems with low RAM or no web browser installed.
  • Supports searches, playlist URLs, and direct YouTube links.

Right-click a search result for more options - for example downloading, adding to your watchlist, or showing yt-dlp output in a terminal in case you are having trouble getting videos to play.
NOTE: this app is a re-skin of an app called GTK+ Pipe Viewer.

To run: Menu -> Sound & Video -> YouTube Player
To run in a terminal: gtk-pipe-viewer

Fortunately, YouTube Player is very easy to install on your Nintendo Switch in just two steps.

  1. Install Pi-Apps - the best app installer for Nintendo Switch.
  2. Use Pi-Apps to install YouTube Player.

Compatibility

For the best chance of this working, we recommend using the latest version of Switchroot L4T Ubuntu Noble, which is currently version 5.1.2 Ubuntu Noble.
YouTube Player will run on L4T Ubuntu ARM64.

Install Pi-Apps

Pi-Apps is a free tool that makes it incredibly easy to install the most useful programs on your Nintendo Switch with just a few clicks.

Open a terminal and run this command to install Pi-Apps:

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Botspot/pi-apps/master/install | bash

Feel free to check out the Pi-Apps source code here: https://github.com/Botspot/pi-apps

Install YouTube Player

Now that you have Pi-Apps installed, it is time to install YouTube Player.
First launch Pi-Apps from your start menu:

Then click on the Multimedia category.

Now scroll down to find YouTube Player in the list.

Just click Install and Pi-Apps will install YouTube Player for you!

Pi-Apps is a free and open source tool made by Botspot, theofficialgman, and other contributors. Find out more at https://pi-apps.io