Last Updated on March 1, 2024
When wanting to watch the latest viral meme, funny video, popular song, or educational video; YouTube is the place we all gravitate to. It is no wonder that YouTube has become, arguably, the most popular and well accepted (by both young and old) video streaming website.
Although Youtube is very popular among the masses, there are few very important (and cool!) tricks that many people don’t know about. Today we will take a look at them.
1. Auto Repeat All Your Favorite Videos
What? YouTube has auto play option? Yes! Is there a catchy song you’re obsessed with? Want to listen to it over and over again? Well, we have all been there.
It’s really not worth it to constantly click replay every single time you want to hear the song again. So what do you do? There is a way to enable the looping feature. Let’s take a look.
- Head to YouTube.com and load the video you want to loop.
- In the address bar: replace YouTube with InfiniteLooper
- It should look similar to this: http://www.InfiniteLooper.com/watch?v=HvQ4OxXCa7g
- Hit enter. This will automatically load the video and begin a loop.
2. Automatic HD Video play
When you play a YouTube video, most of the time the resolution of the video is 480p or 360p. Low resolution video aren’t too fun. If there is an option for a higher resolution, you should take full advantage of it. But waiting for the video to re-buffer is quite annoying, so in order to stop this from happening, you can change the system settings permanently so that you can watch videos in HD format.
How? All you have to do is simply catch hold of the Magic Actions for YouTube extension (available for Chrome and Firefox only). In this extension, you have to activate the AutoHD option, and select the HD resolution you like.
Now, all of your videos will automatically be played in HD format.
3. Start The Video At A Specific Time
Now this is what you call, ‘the cream of the crop’. You want to share a video with your friend, but you know that the best part is somewhere in the end. What you normally do is, share the complete video with a footnote asking your friend to kindly start the video from 1 minute and 10 seconds. Is there a better way of doing this?
YouTube helps you cut to the chase easily.
Take this URL for example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvQ4OxXCa7g
After this URL, all you have to do is add the magic words – #t=01m10s. This sets the starting time of the video at 1 minute and 10 seconds. It should look something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvQ4OxXCa7g#t=01m10s
Similarly, this process works just the same even when you want to embed a small portion of the video. Simply add the same #t=01m10s in to the original video embed code and then copy paste it on your website. Every time a user hits the play button, the video will automatically start at the specified point. Voila!
4. Check Video Loading Speed
You know what; I am a sucker for speed. So is everyone I know! It’s really annoying when a video you’ve been waiting desperately to watch takes ages to load.
I am sure all YouTubers know what I am talking about. Sometimes, it helps when I know what’s causing the videos to load slowly (connection problems or video problem). To know the rate at which your video is loading, you have to simply add my_speed right next to YouTube Home Page address.
If you don’t think you’ll be able to remember ‘my_speed’, then you can simply right click on the video and click on ‘Take Speed Test’. You will be shown comprehensive readings about the speed history, average video speed based on your location, and video speed comparison on two different dates.
5. Keyword Search
YouTube has billions of videos with millions being added almost every day. Searching for a specific video can seem like an uphill task. You could definitely find yourself drowning in pages of YouTube videos just to be able to lay your hands on the one you are searching for.
This problem is time consuming and acutely annoying. Thankfully, YouTube has a solution to this.
The solution is rather very simple, just add the words allintitle: in the search bar and type in the video you are looking for. YouTube will return videos that contain these specific terms!
6. Keep Out Keywords from Search
Sometimes you want to omit specific keywords from your search. For example, you are looking for tutorials that help you create your own blog or website. Most likely, you will end with videos about using WordPress since it’s very popular. But in case you are looking for something other than WordPress, you have to type the keyword – excluded keyword in the search bar.
It would look something like this – Createablog –WordPress. This way, YouTube will show you results that don’t talk about Wordpress.
7. Watch Videos Even With Slow Internet Speed
Let’s say you have a really slow Internet connection, but still want to enjoy YouTube videos. YouTube has recently launched the ‘Feather Beta’ feature that helps you watch videos even on a slow internet connection. All this feature does is, cut down on a few bytes that reduce the speed of the video streaming.
To use this feature, you need to type in on your address bar, http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta and click on ‘Join the ‘Feather’ Beta’. Slow internet connection? Nah, not a problem anymore!
I hope the following tips will help you utilize YouTube. If you have some other neat tricks or tips for us, be sure to comment below!