Mobile Watch

This is my favourite way to earn SB. You can easily earn 34 SB or more a day just by playing videos on your phone or tablet.

Swagbucks has seven video apps:

• SBTV (currently not available for iOS)
• EntertaiNow
• Lifestylz
• MovieCli.ps
• IndyMusic
• Sportly
• Swagbucks

Each of the first six has a cap of 4 SB per day (the day resets at midnight Pacific time): two payouts of 2 SB. The "Swagbucks" app gives five payouts of 2 SB, for a total of 10 SB. (The “Swagbucks” app needs 6 videos per 2 SB payout, and the others need 15.) When you hit the cap, the screen between each video will change from “You're [X] videos away from earning SB” to “You've hit your SB earnings limit” (or “Done for the day!” on the “Swagbucks” app). You can still watch videos, but you won't get any more SB from it.

Sometimes, instead of hitting the cap, an app will go into bonus mode and let you continue to earn SB. Sometimes a bonus payout needs the same number of videos as the normal payout for that app, and sometimes more. There might be one bonus, or a few, or dozens. You'll know you've run out of bonuses when the between-videos screen changes to “You've hit your SB earnings limit”.

Between each video is a banner ad (on the screen telling you how far to your next payout), and there are sometimes video ads between the main videos as well. (Some of these video ads get stuck at the end, and you'll need to press the X in the corner to continue.) Since it's the ads that give Swagbucks the money, they don't mind if you watch the same video over and over, so that's what we're going to do.

If you have an Android device, long-press on the shortest video to mark it as a “favourite”. You can then go into the Favourites section of the menu, play it, and it will loop automatically.

iOS doesn't have a Favourites section, so if you're using an Apple device, set it to the section whose videos are shortest on average instead: in this case, it will run through the whole section before looping.

Each app has a few different versions of its video playlists, which it cycles between at irregular but fairly frequent intervals (every few days or so). If the very shortest video is unavailable, favourite one of the other videos on the list, and check back every few days to see if you can get the shortest video. (Videos on your favourites list are always available to you.)

(There might be even shorter videos hidden in a version I haven't checked: if you come across one of these, let me know in the comments.)

Here are the shortest videos for each app (and the shortest sections, for iOS users):

SBTV:

1. Enhanced titles: gears of war 4 (00:09) [Short Clips]

2. Four types of morning people (00:12) [Short Clips]

3. Democrat shelly simonds celebrates outside after winning 94th district recount by one vote (00:14) [Short Clips]

4. Girl raises $7,672 for 'people who lost their daddies in the fire' (00:18) [Short Clips]

5. Great dane chills 'like a human' (00:23) [Cute Animals]

Overall shortest section: Short Clips

EntertaiNow:

1. E.d.i. mean is rapping on the red carpet about 'all eyez on me' (00:20) [Music News]

2. Dominic l santana talks suge knight at 'all eyez on me' premiere (00:23) [Music News]

3. Emeli Sande wants Bond theme job (00:28) [Entertainment News]

4. Kris wu talks music and acting at 'valerian and the city of a thousand planets' (00:30) [Music News]

5. Mother's day exclusive clip featuring jennifer aniston (00:34) [Television News]

Overall shortest section: Music News

Lifestylz:

1. Adorable toddler goes on paint soaked rampage in family home (00:29) [Decorations]

2. Man Drives Candy Cane Car Around Rhode Island (00:30) [Decorations]

3. Jennifer hudson is obsessed with christmas (00:32) [Decorations]

4. Trump donates third-quarter salary to fight opioid crisis (00:37) [Salary News]

5. Hot property | kim kardashian west, kris jenner quietly close on new condos in calabasas (00:39) [Hot Property]

Overall shortest section: Decorations

MovieCli.ps:

1. Thor ragnarok (00:15) [Box Office Top 10]

2. Geoff johns interview - justice league trailer (00:19) [The Justice League]

3. Jamie foxx on 'baby driver' cast (00:24) [not sure, out of rotation; might have been Short Clips]

4. Jigsaw (2017) tv-spot (00:30) [Box Office Top 10]

5. Explore the galaxy in star wars battlefront ii (00:30) [100% Star Wars]

Overall shortest section: 100% Star Wars

IndyMusic:

1. E.d.i. mean is rapping on the red carpet about 'all eyez on me' (00:20) [Red Carpet News]

2. Kris wu talks music and acting at 'valerian and the city of a thousand planets' (00:30) [Red Carpet News]

3. Rita ora's new album inspired by exes (00:35) [Ed Sheeran]

4. Ed sheeran keeps pub private (00:36) [Ed Sheeran]

5. Man accused of urinating on family during metallica concert (00:37) [Heavy Metal]

Overall shortest section: Heavy Metal

Sportly:

1. Soccer teams join forces to push ambulance stuck in the mud (00:33) [Soccer]
2. Serena williams engaged to reddit co-founder alexis ohanian (00:40) [Tennis News]
3. Watch: via basketball clinic for athletes with special needs (00:40) [Basketball]
4. Uconn recruits (00:42) [Basketball]
5. Mike clark analyzes fordham recruit charlie gross (00:45) [Football]
Overall shortest: Soccer

Swagbucks:

Doesn't have favourites, even on Android.

Overall shortest section: Short Clips

Mobile videos are so profitable that when Swagbucks stopped supporting Android v4.2 (the version my smartphone runs), I bought a tablet just so I could keep running them. At about $80 (and bought with discount Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks!), it's long since paid for itself. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't already have a mobile device they can use for these videos, or iOS users looking to maximize their earnings.

Tip: Never use mobile data to run these videos. Mobile data is almost always expensive, and you'd spend a lot more for the data than you'd get back in SB. Leave the “use mobile data” option in the apps turned off, and be careful when around mobile hotspots. Similarly, if your home Internet plan doesn't have unlimited data, make sure the videos don't cause you to go into overage, and consider upgrading to an unlimited plan. (My household has three Swagbucks users in it, and for us upgrading to an unlimited home-Internet plan was worth it for that alone.)

New versions of the apps are often buggy, so once you've got a version that works well, try to avoid updating them if you don't have to.