Tips And Tricks Every YouTube User Should Know

YouTube is among the most popular websites in the world, with over a billion users. The video streaming platform has one of the biggest content repositories on the world wide web and is a great place to find music, tutorials, movies etc.
We bring to you 10 tips & tricks you should know to make the most of YouTube and make your video-viewing experience more enjoyable.

Play videos on loop

The latest feature added to YouTube is the ability to play any video on loop, indefinitely. All you need to do is to open the video, hit the 'right click' button on the mouse/trackpad and select the 'Loop' option, and the video will repeat itself.

Go keyboard-only

You don't always need the mouse/trackpad when you want to play YouTube, as Google offers a keyboard-only navigation as well. Just open YouTube with the URL 'www.youtube.com/leanback' and you will get the navigation as shown in the image above. Use the keyboard to play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and even report videos; additionally you can subscribe to channels, search for any video and hit the Like/Dislike button directly from the keyboard.
If you are using YouTube in the standard model, you can use keyboard shortcuts like k (pause/play), j (rewind 10 seconds), l (fast-forward 10 seconds) and m (mute). Press 0 to go the beginning of the video, while hitting any number between 1 and 9 takes you to the respective percentage (for example hitting 7 will take you directly to the 70% spot).

Set default video resolution

If you have a slow internet connection and want to avoid the pain of waiting for the video to buffer, you can go to 'www.youtube.com/account_playback' and select the option 'I have a slow internet connection. Never play higher-quality video.'

On the other hand, if you want videos to play only in HD resolution, you need the 'Magic Actions' extension for Google Chrome and Firefox. Just select the 'Auto HD' option and the ideal streaming resolution.

Go in karaoke mode

Want to sing along your favourite track but don't want the hassle of looking for lyrics each time? Just get the Musixmatch browser extension, which will overlay the lyrics on the video as it plays. Perfect for karaoke nights.

#Artist

If you want only the music/videos of a specific artist, just type '#ArtistName' in the search bar, for example '#adele'. This will give you a collection of videos related to only Adele; this search feature works on the desktop website, mobile site.

Make your searches specific

If you want to make your searches even more specific, you can try certain keywords that will get you exactly the video you want. For example, using 'HD' after a song's title in the search bar will show you only HD videos. Similarly, if you remember the exact title of a video you once watched but can't find it now, use the phrase 'allintitle' followed by the video's title to get the exact video.

Change the video's playback speed

If you ever feel the need to slow down or speed up a video, you can hit the Settings button on the video and click the Speed option. You can then slow down the video (0.25X and 0.5X) or speed it up (1.25X, 1.5X and 2X). This feature, however, is available only for desktops and not for the app.

Keep your account private

If you don't want other YouTube users to know which videos you have liked, see your playlists or see the channels you subscribe to, you can keep all your information private. All you need to do is to log into YouTube, type 'www.youtube.com/account_privacy' in the address bar of the browser and tick the boxes shown in the screenshot above.

Save for later

Have you ever come across a video you found interesting, but didn't have time to watch it and eventually forgot about it? Well, YouTube gives you the option to save it for a later time. Just hit the Watch Later button to keep all such videos under one tab.

Hit the '+ Add To' button on the YouTube website or app and select the Watch Later option to save videos for future viewing.

Watch age-restricted video without logging in

You can also open restricted YouTube videos without logging into the website. All you need to do is to alter the URL a little.
For example, in the restricted video 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOz1Xb4u54&list=PL596583248B91B9C9&index=14', you need to remove the '/watch?v=' part with '/v/'.
This will turn the URL to 'https://www.youtube.com/v/wyOz1Xb4u54&list=PL596583248B91B9C9&index=14' and open the video without logging in.