YouTube is the most used video player. Every day the Google service receives millions of new videos with a huge number of visits. We are so used to browsing YouTube that we think it has no secrets for us, but we couldn’t be more wrong.
Next, we are going to leave you with a series of codes, shortcuts, button combinations or hidden functionalities to get more out of Google’s video platform and all the secrets of YouTube.
Rainbow mode
When you’re playing a particular video, if you type “awesome” while it’s in full screen, the playbar’s red hue will turn multicolor, changing hue several times per second.
It is a curious way to add an extra touch of color in the decoration of YouTube.
Robots.txt
In a nod to Terminator and Skynet, if you type youtube.com/robots.txt you’ll see a customized version of the file that tells search engine crawlers which URLs on your site they can access.
YouTube robots
“Created in the distant future (the year 2000) after the robotic uprising in the mid-90s that wiped out all humans.”
Keyboard shortcuts on YouTube
If you often use YouTube by using the mouse, you may not know that you have many shortcuts that can be accessed by pressing one or more keys . These are the most useful and frequent:
- Space bar: Play or pause the video when the seek bar is selected. Activates a button if it is selected.
- Play/pause media key on keyboard: Play or pause the video.
- K: Play or pause the video in the player.
- M: Mute or unmute the video.
- Stop media key on keyboard: Stop the video.
- Next track media key on keyboard: Skip to the next video in a playlist.
- Right or left arrow in seek bar: Go forward or backward 5 seconds in the video.
- J: Go back 10 seconds in the video.
- L: Advance 10 seconds in the video.
- Key . (period): Advance to the next frame, while the video is paused.
- , (comma) key: Go back to the previous frame, while the video is paused.
- >: Accelerate the playback speed of the video.
- <: Slow down the playback speed of the video.
- Beginning (Home) or End (End) in the search bar: Search the beginning or the last seconds of the video.
YouTube Shortcuts
- Up or down arrow on the seek bar: Increase or decrease the volume by 5%.
- Numbers 1-9 in the seek bar (not on the number pad): Go to a point between 10% and 90% of the video.
- Number 0 in the search bar (not on the number pad): Go to the beginning of the video.
- /: Go to the search box.
- F: Enable full screen mode. If it is already activated, press the F or Esc key again to exit.
- C: Enable subtitles (if available). To hide them, press the C key again.
- Plus key (+): Increases the font size of subtitles (the Minus key on the numeric keypad is not supported).
- Minus key (-): Reduces the font size of subtitles (the Minus key on the numeric keypad is not supported).
- W: Enables, increases and disables the background transparency of the subtitles (press several times to manage the intensity).
- O: Increase or decrease the brightness level of the subtitles.
- Shift + N: Go to the next video. If you use this combination in a playlist, you will go to the next video in the playlist. Otherwise, you will go to the next suggested video.
- Shift + P: Go to the previous video. This combination only works with playlists.
- I: Open mini player.
- F: Switch between full screen mode and normal mode (Works as a toggle key)
- T: Switch between cinema mode and normal mode (Works as a toggle key).