Top 10 YouTube tips and tricks
According to Alexa, YouTube is the third most visited page on the Internet which means you have probably visited the page in the past. These tips and tricks help make your experience more enjoyable and if possible, productive.
YouTube keyboard shortcuts
YouTube has several keyboard shortcuts that can be used while watching YouTube. Keyboard shortcuts like pressing the spacebar to play and pause or using the arrow keys to fast forward and rewind can make a big difference while on YouTube.
Share a video at any point
Not everyone wants to watch a full video, link to the exact location you found most entertaining instead of making your friends or family watch the full video. To do this, get to the location you want and pause the video. Once paused, right-click the video and select Get video URL at current time and then copy the link created.
Alternatively, you can manually add the time by adding "#t=XXmXXs" at the end of the URL, where XXm is the minutes, and XXs is the seconds into the video you want to start. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKVWBUwoV4o
would become
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKVWBUwoV4o#t=33s
to link to the video 33 seconds into the video. If you wanted to link 4 minutes and 20 seconds into a video add #t4m20s to the end of the URL (uniform resource locator). Alternatively, you can use only seconds, so 4 * 60 (seconds in a minute) = 240 + 20 = 260 seconds for 4 minutes and 20 seconds into the video.
Find out what is popular on YouTube
YouTube is a great place to find popular videos because of its popularity. Visit the Popular on YouTube to find the most recent popular videos, recently released music videos, top cute videos, latest trailers, events, and more.
Add videos to Watch Later
Sometimes you may not have the time to watch a video or maybe don't feel like watching an hour long video at this time. In the bottom right corner of every video is a Watch Later button that add the video to your watch later list. Once you are ready to watch the video, or if you saved a video to share with someone else, you can find the video in your Watch Later Playlist.
Each of the thumbnails of videos on YouTube also shows the Watch Later icon when hovering over the thumbnail of the video.
Take advantage of search filters
YouTube usually does a great job giving you search results but is not always perfect. Take full advantage of their search filters by clicking the Filters button to get a list like that shown below. In the filters list you can refine the searches to when the video was uploaded, length of the video, view count, and features like HD (High definition) and 3D.
Watch live videos on YouTube
YouTube not only features pre-recorded videos, but they now also feature YouTube Live, including live events, sports, news, gaming, music, education, and more.
Take full advantage of YouTube tools
Not many people know that YouTube also has several helpful tools available in YouTube Studio that are extremely helpful when creating new content. For example, you can edit uploaded videos, create videos, and adjust settings like the brightness and contrast, pan and zoom, stabilize, slow motion, and rotation. Other tools include captions and YouTube analytics.
Bypass regional restrictions and other blocks
Some videos may have restrictions that prevent them from playing on a certain device, playing in a certain region, or other restrictions that prevent you from playing the video. You can bypass some restrictions by changing how the URL is entered into your address bar.
For example, copy the id of the video (shown in red) in the URL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=dD40VXFkusw
Once the id of the video is copied, erase everything after the .com/ and add "v/<id>" where id is what was copied earlier. Once this is done, your URL should resemble the example shown below.
https://www.youtube.com/v/dD40VXFkusw
Loading this URL opens the video in a full screen, but because of how it is loaded many of the restrictions YouTube may have on the video are ignored.
Set the default video quality
Watch all videos at the highest quality by adjusting your settings to use the best quality. To adjust your settings click your profile icon in the top-right corner of the window and click the YouTube gear icon, as shown in the picture here. In the YouTube Account Settings, select Playback and then "Always choose the best quality for my connection and player size." If you have a slow Internet connection or YouTube videos frequently need to buffer, select the "I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video" option.
Alternative ways to watch YouTube
There are several ways to watch YouTube today. Most Smart TVs already have an app that lets you watch YouTube videos on your TV using your remote. For those who do not have Smart TV or have a Smart TV but do not like the interface (it is not easy typing on a remote), there are also other solutions.
Our current favorite method of watching YouTube on the TV is with the Google Chromecast. The Chromecast lets you or anyone else with a smartphone or computer to stream YouTube videos to your TV with a click of a button. The Chromecast is the easiest solution to stream videos to your TV, and you can type on your phone or computer or use your voice to search for videos instead of using your TV remote.
Other popular alternatives of watching YouTube
- Apple TV - The Apple TV is another great solution for watching YouTube and other content.
- Consoles - Consoles like Xbox, PlayStation 3, and Wii all have a YouTube player.
- Roku - The Roku is another great device that connects to your TV to watch YouTube and other content.
- TiVo - The TiVo DVR (digital video recorder) is another fantastic method of watching YouTube, your shows, and other content.