All YouTube users know its basic functions for watching videos, searching for our favorites or subscribing to channels. But there are other options that are often overlooked by beginner users of this service, such as the option to watch YouTube videos in the background on the PC or delete all channel subscriptions at once .
And there are also users who are unaware that there are keyboard shortcuts that can help us manage the video portal in a much more efficient way. And that you can even customize these shortcuts so that your experience when using this site is fully adapted to your needs. But if you don’t want to get into more complicated account configuration options for the moment, learning at least the most basic shortcuts will make your life much easier.
- Video playback shortcuts
- Navigation shortcuts
- Search shortcuts
- Other keyboard shortcuts for YouTube
Video playback shortcuts
If you’re playing a YouTube video and want to pause, resume, or skip forward or backward, you’ve probably just moved your mouse (or finger if you’re on a mobile device) to the playback bar below the video to move it to the desired position. However, there are keyboard shortcuts that allow us to perform all of these tasks much more easily, without ever having to let go of the keyboard to pick up the mouse.
- Space bar: Pause or resume video playback.
- Right arrow: Go forward 5 seconds in the video.
- Left arrow: Go back 5 seconds in the video.
- J: Go back 10 seconds in the video.
- L: Skip forward 10 seconds in the video.
- N: Play the next video in the playlist.
- Q: Play the previous video in the playlist.
Navigation shortcuts
Other functions we may need when we are enjoying a YouTube video are to turn the volume up or down . We may also need to mute or unmute the video, as well as turn subtitles on or off . You may even want to enter and exit full-screen mode. If you use YouTube often, you probably know how to do all of these things with the mouse, but you may not know that you can also do them using keyboard shortcuts:
- K: Pause or resume video playback.
- Up arrow: Increase video volume.
- Down arrow: Decrease video volume.
- M: Mute or unmute the video.
- C: Turn video subtitles on or off.
- F: Switch to full screen.
- Esc: Exit full screen.
- 0-9: Jump to the corresponding percentage of the video (e.g. 1 for 10% of the content, 5 for 50%).
Search shortcuts
Since YouTube is owned by Google, it was to be expected that one of the main strengths of the video portal would be its search engine .
To perform a search on YouTube, we obviously have to type the terms we are trying to search for into the search bar found both on the web portal and in the mobile app. But even though we have to do this manually, there are some keyboard shortcuts that can help us find our favorite video easier than ever.
- /: Place the cursor in the search bar.
- N: Open the next search match.
- Q: Open the previous search match.
- Enter: Opens the video selected in the search results.
If you want to make searching on YouTube as convenient as possible and you’re using your mobile phone, it’s also important to keep in mind that YouTube is a Google tool and is fully compatible with the Google Assistant . So, while we can’t really say that it’s a keyboard shortcut, simply saying OK, Google and the name of the video we’re trying to watch is another quick and convenient way to enjoy our favorite videos.
Other keyboard shortcuts for YouTube
There are other keyboard shortcuts for YouTube that, although they cannot fall into the categories we have mentioned above, can also be very practical when we are using the video portal and we want to be as efficient as possible. The most interesting ones are the following:
- Shift + N: Go to the next video. Applicable to playlists and suggested videos.
- Shift + P: Go to the previous video. This key combination only works with playlists.
- Next media key on the keyboard: Skip to the next video in a playlist.
- Up arrow: Increase volume by 5%.
- Down arrow: decrease volume by 5%.
- I: activate the mini player.
- C: Turn subtitles on or off if available.
- /: Go to YouTube search box
- Shift + 1: Move between YouTube H1 headings.
- F: Enable or disable full screen mode if it is already enabled