8 Amazing Lesser Known YouTube Features, Tips and Tricks

YouTube is one of the most popular online video-sharing website in the world. It allows users to view, upload and share videos over the Internet. It is so popular that it has become a part of our entertainment. From Music videos, tutorials to TV shows everything you can find on YouTube in few clicks. This website is third most popular website over the Internet according to Alexa ranking but, there are some tricks and features that you still don’t know about. In this tutorial, I am going to explain you some lesser known YouTube features, tips and tricks. 

Courtesy: Rego Korosi, flickr

1. Start video at specific time

If you want to skip some part of video and want to start from a specific time then just copy the video url and append #t=STARTING_POINT. For example, to start the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UMV54_OOw from 20 sec append #t=20 after the video url. The url become https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1UMV54_OOw#t=20, paste this url in your browser and the video will start from 20sec.

You can add STARTING_POINT point in seconds format #t=<number of seconds> or you can also add in <number of hours>h<number of minutes>m<number of seconds>s format. For example 1h1m8s (means 1hour 8 minutes and 8seconds)

You can also get video url at current time by right clicking on video, Get Video URL at current time.

You can also use this feature in a situation, when you are watching a long video and you need to close your browser for some reason. Click on share button and check the “Start at” check box and paste the generated url to your notepad or sticky notes. The video will start from where you left, when you enter the url (which you have saved in your notepad ) in browser.

2. Get Playlist of a Video

You can get the playlist of the video which you are watching in chronological order. Just you need to append &list=UL  after the video URL. For example, to get the playlist of the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0 add &list=UL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSOMA3QBU0&list=UL to get the playlist uploaded by user in chronological order.

This feature is really helpful when you want to watch all the videos uploaded by a channel in chronological order, you don’t need to click on each video to play. Just play the playlist and enjoy.

3. Edit your Videos

Now you don’t need to edit your videos using a video editing software. You can trim, add effects and audio tracks to your video on YouTube editor. Just go to www.youtube.com/editor and edit your videos and directly upload it to YouTube.

4. Keyboard Shortcuts for YouTube

Use shortcut and save time. Here are some popular YouTube Shortcuts.

Shortcut Key	Actions
Number 1 to 9	Seek to x% of the video. Press 1 to seek to 10%, 2 to 20% and so on.
Spacebar	Play/Pause.
Left arrow	Just back 5 seconds.
Right arrow	Jump forward 5 seconds.
Up arrow	Increase Volume.
Down arrow	Decrease Volume.
F	Full screen/Exit full screen.
Esc	Exit full screen.
0	Seek to the beginning of the video.
Home	Seek to the beginning of the video.
End	Seek to the end of the video.
J	Jump back 10 seconds.
K	Play/Pause
L	Jump forward 10 seconds.
M	Mute

5. Check Video Quality Report

Now you can check why your videos take so long to load and why you are not able to stream videos in HD quality. The report will tell you if your connection is HD verified or not. You can also find which Internet service provider offering the most YouTube friendly Internet speed in your area. Follow the link to check your video quality report https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/

6. YouTube TV

Connect your smart phone or tablets to your smart TV and enjoy watching YouTube on big screen using YouTube TV. You can connect multiple smart phones with your TV and directly control your YouTube videos through your smartphone, you just need to follow simple verification process to connect your phone to TV. To pair your phone or tablet, go to www.youtube.com/pair on your device and follow the Instructions.

7. Set Default Video Quality

Annoyed of manually changing videos quality of every video you watch on YouTube. You can avoid this by changing some setting of YouTube. YouTube automatically select the quality of the videos as per your connection speed. Just go to https://www.youtube.com/account_playback and select your desired settings.

8. YouTube Annotations

Annotation allows you to display clickable link within videos. Annotation are clickable links pops up when you’re watching videos on YouTube. It could be a link of next or previous videos of a playlist or subscribe link to a channel. You can make this feature disable if you annoyed of clickable link on the videos.

To disable this, Go to https://www.youtube.com/account_playback and uncheck Show annotations, channel promotions and interactive cards on videos under Annotations and interactivity.

 

Hope you enjoyed this article. From the above list of features, which one is your favorite? Please let me know in comments section. If you like this article please do share it with your friend and family on Facebook and Twitter. You can also use Email This feature to send this article to your friends. 

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