10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About
Youtube – You know that site with videos and all. Yeah! It turns out that its quite popular and you happen to visit and use it quite often. Instead of just searching and playing here are some top Youtube URL tricks that you should know about:
1. View high quality videos
Youtube gives you the option to switch to high quality videos for some of the videos, however you can check if a video is available in high quality format by appending ‘&fmt=18′(stereo, 480 x 270 resolution) or ‘&fmt=22′(stereo, 1280 x 720 resolution) for even higher quality.
2. Embed Higher Quality Videos
While the above trick works for playback, if however you want to embed hig quality videos you need to append “&ap=%2526fmt%3D18″ and “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22″ to the embed url.
3. Cut the chase and link to the interesting part
Linking to a video where the real action starts at 3 minutes 22 seconds, wondered if you could make it start at 03:22? You are in luck. All you have to do is add #t=03m22s (#t=XXmYYs for XX mins and YY seconds) to the end of the URL.
4. Hide the search box

The search box appears when you hover over an embedded video. To hide the search box add ‘&showsearch=0′ to the embed url.
5. Embed only a part of Video

Just append ‘&start=30′ to skip first 30s of the video. In general you can modify the value after start= to the number of seconds you want to skip the video for.
6. Autoplay an embedded video
Normally when you embed a Youtube video and load the page, the player is loaded and it sits there waiting for you to hit the play button. You can make the video play automatically by adding ‘&autoplay=1′ to the url part of the embed code.
7. Loop an embedded video
Append ‘&loop=1′ to make the video start again without user intervention after it reaches the end.
8. Disable Related Videos

Publishing your content in the form of Youtube video? Don’t want people to see other people’s content that may be related but may as well be in competition to you? Just add ‘&rel=0′ to the end of the url part of the embed code and you just turned off the related video suggestions!
9. Bypass Youtube Regional Filtering
Some videos are only available in certain parts of the world. Your IP Address is used to determine your location and then allow or deny access to the video. Change the url from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<somecode> to http://www.youtube.com/v/<somecode>
10. Download Video
Although not inherently a youtube trick but useful all the same for downloading videos. Just change youtube to kickyoutube in the url of the video and it will take you to kickyoutube.com with all the options for downloading the video you were watching.
Do you know of some similar Youtube URL tricks and hacks? Fire them in comments!
(By) Varun Kashyap - Programmer, Blogger and Tech Enthusiast, who tweets @VarunKashyap and blogs about tips, tricks and latest on the web at TechCrazy Blog



I also used keephd.com
Change the url from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
to
http://www.KeepHD.com/watch?v=
Try out http://www.VidiMonkey.uni.cc to download videos – it makes it easier, batch downloading and no downloads.
KeepHD ( http://www.keephd.com/ ) offers various download formats, in fact all those available:
Quote:
“KeepHD is a sweet tool that lets you download HD videos off Youtube! Not only can you download HD copies of your movies, you can also download the mobile 3GP version for your mobile devices plus the standard MP4 and FLV format. Just enter your Youtube video URL below, and KeepHD will automatically grab each version of the video you want to download.”
the bypass regional filtering doesn’t work. It still shows “Content not available in your country”
it seems to be working fine here.
“Embeding videos on webpages disabled” :/
(Comments wont nest below this level)You can KISS youtube to download too.
If you aren’t good with kicking, that is
I have found few… Check this blog
http://racinginfinity.blogspot.com/2009/01/download-youtube-videos-httpwwwdownload.html
installing the latest internet download manager also gives the download link of youtube videos.
sry trick 9 doesnt work….
Interesting info. Can you please show me an example of the “autoplay” used in a complete url? Before and after? I was just having trouble visualizing where to put the:
‘&autoplay=1′
Thank you! Kevin
at the end is just fine. the source url for the video (in two spots) will look something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxxxxxxx&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&autoplay=1
Add &flip=1 to flip it all over. Not exactly useful but great for confusing people.
doesn’t work for me..
yeah number 9 doesnt work for me also
Thx kewwwww
Not really a trick but if you regularly post youtube vids to your weblog it would we worthwhile to cache the thumbs for performance reasons like e.g. here: http://vid.leau.net. there would no be any calls to youtube or google video.
most of your tips make it less useful rather than more. Lower quality loads faster, autoplaying makes it annoying and not letting people explore ever videos just makes you lame.
get a better connection. stop stealing from your neighbors.
I’ve always been watching and downloading videos on youtube. But there are many things on this list I didn’t know about. I’ll have to check them out.
If you use Safari, the easiest way to download youtube videos is to do the following:
1. Go to the youtube video of your choice on youtube.com
2. Click on ‘Window’ in the menu, and select ‘Activity’
3. Under the youtube address, which will be recognisable by its name, double click on the address with the largest file listed (it should be the only one in the megabytes, but the size varies depending on length of video)
4. A new window should open and, after a few seconds, the video should begin to download to your computer
Note: You may need to use a program to convert the file into a watchable movie file. My computer used to not recognise the file at all until converted, but for some reason it’s recently started downloading them as flash video files (.flv).
If the computer does not recognize the file type, right click on it and select Properties and after the name, append .flv. Like this.
videoname
videoname.flv
and then press ok. Now they will work in a flash player and your computer will recognize them.
use VLC player it will play all most every video file format even not recognize once. It is free. and uses less cpu.
and can play HD in low machine.
Greasemonkey script “YouSable” gives you download options as well, zoom and more features. A must if you find yourself “youtubbing” often.
Excelent. One question
How embed Googlevideo in YouTube. I have some video of more than 10 minutes and I can’t upload in YouTube. Can you help me?
Thanks, from Peru.
I have used tubetv on Mac. It downloads the video and then automatically converts it to the format you set.
Also pwnyoutube.com works fine. Just add pwn infront of the video url.
Hi I am from UK. I tried viewing the new youtube shows and films categories (avail. only in US). There is no watch? part in these url? Any suggestions how to bypass this problem?
Thank you very much!
I will use this information for when I embed videos on my website Best Instrumentals.
-Manny
Hi,
A great post thank you very much.
I’ve seen these hacks used many times and always wondered how they did them but couldnt find them via normal search.
I’ll definitely put them to the test
Thanks again
what about grabandrun.com ? hd video download and mp3 made really simple ????
there is also a facebook app which allows you to download the youtube videos in mp4 format..
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?sid=d11834fdc5d8e71f163ea6668904feb1&id=30866058238
To embed without the title showing, append with &showinfo=0
Example:
http://njfrogman.blogspot.com/2009/04/video-its-in-holebill-murray-hits.html
Great tricks
The disable related video’s is very usefull. Thanks
Playback full screen with this prefix:
http://www.youtube.com/swf/cps.swf?video_id=
add ‘&flip=1′ to the end of a url to trick your friends.
If you want to download youtube vids just get atube catcher, which also converts the vids into other formats as well, and the program is free
Youtube Video Clip Downloader
My favorite tip is the number nine (Bypass Youtube Regional Filtering). I prefer to download youtube videos with DownloadHelper.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum18-2009apr18,0,7710376.column
“If Twitter were a person, it would be an emotionally unstable person. It would be that person we avoid at parties and whose calls we don’t pick up.”
I’ve been wondering if it was possible to download youtube videos. Hopefully kickyoutube will work. If not I’ll try one of the others mentioned here in the comment. Great info here! Thanks.
Here is one very useful site you could add tothis list: Just add NSFW in front of “protected” youtube video url to see videos that may contain content that is inappropriate for some users without loggin in or having youtube account.
Original:
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?&next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DAh70Y-6LJ40
Bypass login or signup:
http://www.NSFWyoutube.com/verify_age?&next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DAh70Y-6LJ40
i have one, that’s relatively simple and safe to use. it’s a script that enables you to download youtube videos without any plugins or external websites by downloading the original mp4 video file from the server. simply add
javascript:if(document.location.href.match(/http:\/\/[a-zA-Z\.]*youtube\.com\/watch/)){document.location.href='http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt=18&video_id='+swfArgs['video_id']+'&t='+swfArgs['t']}to your browser bookmarks (you might have to make a random bookmark first, then change the address). whenever you watch a video on youtube.com that you would like to save, simply click that link. for HQ use ?fmt=18 and for HD use ?fmt=22 in the script.enjoy!
Just tested this, and it worked like a charm! Only thing i had to do was to change the ’ to ” to get it to work here
Hey, Varun!
Thanks, for those kickin’ YouTube tricks!
Are you aware that someone is selling the equivalent to Trick #10 for cash via email? I instantly knew it wasn’t necessary to get any special widget to do this. But, I didn’t know HOW!
Dude, you rock! ;O)
Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani
I think you have missed one of watching youtube videos fullscreen in your browser, if you like to add you can refer the link given below.
http://www.technixupdate.com/watch-youtube-videos-wide-screen-in-your-browser/
Thanks for the great tips. I have bookmarked this page, and will use these often. I found this site through a Twitter post, and am glad I did. This is valuable info.
I have a YouTube channel, and will use tips 2,3,4,6, and 8 regularly.
I’ve seen comments added to YouTube videos where the comment text was flipped…does anyone know how this is done?
Go to this site: http://flipmytext.com/ type in your text, and copy and paste the flipped text.
Yeah! Very useful tricks for extreamly using YouTube!
Thanks!
Great tricks. Thanks to those that included tricks in the comments. Found this site from Diigo. MakeUseOf is a good one to bookmark. Can’t wait to read some of your other posts.
for downloading youtube url, a pythin script exists — “youtube-dl”. it is available as a downloadable package in linux distros under the same name. you can “yum install” or “apt-get install” it. it will work under cygwin also. i have been using for over 3 months now.
– fullFx
hiiiii
http://www.zamzar.com/url is a good way of downloading youtube vids because you can choose the format (ie MP3 to transer to iPod and AVI to upload yourself haha)
and so is http://www.clipnabber.com
You can change automatically the embed code to make most of this things (without any effort) using this tool:
embed code generator
The instructions for this tool are automatically translated (a little crappy),but it’s very easy to use and works perfectly .
If you use chrome, the following block, saved as a bookmark, will automatically DL a YouTube Video as a FLV file:
javascript:window.location.href = ‘http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id=’ + swfArgs['video_id'] + “&l=” + swfArgs['l'] + “&sk=” + swfArgs['sk'] + ‘&fmt_map’ + swfArgs['fmt_map'] + ‘&t=’ + swfArgs['t'];
upside down writing is just these “letters” being used zʎxʍʌnʇsɹbdouɯןʞɾɪɥɓɟəpɔqɒ — YouTube comments would mostly be better upside down.
you can watch video only without anything else by using this web site
http://quietube.com/
also u can change the url
from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyQzm9yPvs
to
http://www.youtube.com/v/xlyQzm9yPvs
so u will delete “watch?v=” and put “v/”
‘09 Could Make YouTube Could Lose $470M
A good read:
http://techunits.com/content/1555/_09_could_make_youtube_could_lose_$470m
You can simply use firefox’s built in cache viewer to download video… I made a video that shows exactly how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIPkTWlDY_Y
You don’t need to visit any external sites or use external software.
خیلی خیلی با حال بود.
ممنون
Wat the hell are u trying to say?
“خیلی خیلی با حال بود.
ممنون” >> ??
I can’t speak for the Windows and Mac viewers out there, but Firefox under Linux uses the system /tmp folder to store big files like videos. Just look for the most recent file called “FlashXXXX”, where XXXX is some random gobbledegook. It’s a .flv file, so you can just play it, copy it and rename it, etc. No external software or site needed, or even trawling through about:cache.
I would add that appending “&showinfo=0″ will remove the rating stars and title bar from an embed. I learned that here:
http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-player-info/
Nice tricks..thanks for the infos.
The most easy way to download Youtube videos directly in 3GP, MP4 and HD quality would be this handy Firefox addon :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10137/
Your videos now just a single click away.
Why worry about #1 when you can just toggle a setting in your profile to always view high quality videos if they are available?
You can watch yt vids in HQ at makeHD.com, and also mrdeleted.com allows the use of same url system (change youtube.com/watch to mrdeleted.com/watch)
ALso forgot to mention MediaConverter.org, that is where I download my yt videos if I want to download any…
Can you tell me how do I disable the link back to youtube.com
when I embed a youtube on my site.
Thank you…
http://www.maverickmoneyblog.com
well the video play on makehd.com and ytexport.com have no links back to youtube. try that player.
some flash players like jwplayer can play yt videos even when provided a regular yt link like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…..
You totaly forgot the main one here:
youtube-downloads.110mb.com
It knows all native YouTube video formats: HD, MP4, FLV, 3GP videos, multiple simultaneous downloads, preview video, auto start download, skip already downloaded files, clipboard monitoring, drag & drop from IE / Firefox, proxy support, etc. Program size only 39Kb!!
I use it a lot!
I really like that tip on how to fast forward to the part of the video that you want you viewers to see. Excellent information!
I like to use Ultraget to download youtube videos, If It’s HQ then it will save the .mp4 If low quality then you can save the .flv’s
Very good article!
There’s an awesome service that does #3 for you….
http://www.splicd.com/
It’s sick.
You know how on April Fools Day 09 Youtube flipped all the videos upside down? You can do it again by adding &flip=1 to the end of the url.
I’ve tried doing the HD embedding but haven’t succeeded yet. Can anyone show me an example on how to do it.
Guter Beitrag
Viel Erfolg weiterhin wuenscht
http://www.brasil-news.de
Havaianas, Brasilien, Online Shop, Lifestyle aus Brasilien
Another good one can be found at http://www.youtuberepeat.com/
I always find songs that I want to play over and over, but I would find it annoying to have to open the window and click play again.
YouTube Repeat is a miracle. Just type repeat after ‘youtube’ and before ‘.com’
I used this code to make Mrdeleted.com, but made the videos in larger screens, and also made some of my own codes for my site.
Thanks for sharing this post.
Thanks for this useful list of tips, I put some videos on my blog but with your help, it is gonna get better.
thanks again
I changed the Mrdeleted website:
My latest video now autoplays there in large screen! Change any youtube URLs from “youtube.com” to “mrdeleted.com” to autoplay/loop them. Or if you have the video ID, just enter it on the site and play it from my website. This last part is from a special code that I made myself. I am pretty proud of this, as I am not a coder, but know a little bit oh PHP and HTML so I messed with it till I got it to work.
Feedback?
This got me to finally install greasemonkey. Badass. Thanks!
go to:
http://www.video2mp3.net to download any youtube video into an mp3!
thank you for info, nice blog
What a host of interesting tips. Thanks.
One question – answer touched on with the http://quietube.com/ suggestion where I want to be able to supply a URL link to the YouTube video but with everything else stripped away, ie. only the video and controls and no branding.
http://quietube.com/ does this in part but still brands the page for itself.
Anyone any suggestions?
plz help me to link my images ,as how can play other youtube videos through the same embeded player of my page by clicking on them.
hi guys, Can anybody tell me how youtube videos has embeded in following page.http://samiratv.com/index.php?p=teledrama&vpid=153&veid=4517 . there we can play one by one all videos on the same embeded player.plz explain me how he has done this?thanx
That page is not working, but I assuming you are talking about the Custom Video Player from YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/my_players)
example page: http://amishchurch.ning.com/video/devils-playground
thank you very much for the information.yes i want to create a page http://amishchurch.ning.com/video/devils-playground like this . i visited (http://www.youtube.com/my_players)but i was unable to create like that page.could you plz explain me how he has linked those images on right side to his player.thanks alot.
I own amishchurch.com, so I know how it was done, and I was just thinking of making a youtube video explaining how it is done. You will be able to find it on my account later. I might also link to the video after I post it.
thanx very much for your reply.of course I want to create a page like your example.but I dont know how to do it.could you plz explain me how he has done that, as how we can play videos by clicking on images.i think we cannot do it by just creating a player.thanx alot.
can you just tell me here how we can do it easily.
First, the images you see to the right of the video are there from Ning.com’s service, and 2nd, you can make any playlist, then go to the “My players” page and make any style player you choose, including one that has a set of images next to them, not that one looks a little different then the one I have on AmishChurch.com’s website.
I tried it but that player has no full screen mode.actually I want to develop a page like your example page.not just a costumized player with play list.i think we have to do that with youtube api.am i right? you have linked those pictures to href=”http://amishchurch.ning.com/video/devils-playground-78″ not to you tube.and on player you have made some changes.
plz explain how i can do it .thanx
those pic are other videos on the Ning site, try making a ning site once to see
i used to know a trick that let you temporaly move and delete stuff on youtube pages, but idk it now. can anyone please help me on this??? =)
“delete”? the new youtube pages are a little different then the old ones, so you can go through the system and remove whatever you want… But you may have to upgrade your profile to the new one if you have not done so yet…
I am a YouTube Partner, but the only difference my profile has to yours would by the banner at top…
http://www.youtube.com/mrdeleted check it out to see how I have set mine up.
how to downloag videos in orkut……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Orkut videos are nothing but embedded Youtube videos, so you can download them like any Youtube Video. Use videodownloadhelper (firefox) or something like kickyoutube.com/kissyoutube.com
Hey , I change the URL of my videos with these things.
I it isn’t permanent!
Does exist some code that is permanent?
Thanks
hahaha check this out xrl.us/automd
thanks for the spam!
you can download the desktoptube at http://www.desktoptube.com. It is a desktop application that can be setup to play only HD videos and also download them.
thanks for the tips, i have bookmarked this page.
please post more great tips.
Sorry, but just for us beginners: What part of the code do you append eg ‘&start=30′ to? Add it like this:
?
Never mind, I got it:
You just add the code in wherever there is an “&”
Thanks
This did indeed turn out to be a very helpful post. And the comments were especially helpful. The form listed above has moved to a new address: http://tuttowebvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/generatore-codice-embedding-youtube.htm
I would like to know is there is a way to make a url that will play only 1 frame of video. or pause a video on a frame. I would like to send the user to a picture rather than a video. Just to a frame of Hdef video.
great information, even more from comments.
props
isn’t hi quality using URL is quite last year ?
Anyone know why they don’t allow links in the comments? Is there some special way to do this?
nope – not unless you reg a domain and post it as “example[.]com”
trick 10 doesnt work….
Newbie wants to be able to post an affiliate marketing link for a product in the text comments of Youtube, and it doesn’t appear to allow me to do it? Not allowed, or is there a way to do this?
nope, they don’t allow that – unless you reg a domain and post it as “example[.]com”
What is the code to retain embebbed youtube videos on my site.I mean when a user play and click the video, it will just pause and will not leave my site to go to youtube.com
http://www.makehd.com/ use his code.
Watch on MakeHD.com!
I want to put the code in my script that imitates youtube.
you have to ask my friend, he created makehd.com, I don’t have his code. I think he made his own player.
@reg
Check the source of this page. The HTML is valid.
http://truth-terror.org/revolution/
Ignore the content if you desire.
Nevermind ive read that i against youtube TOS.
I want to share a code that embed youtube vid with full screen option here is the code:
Just change the youtube vids address. Enjoy!
May I know how to enable / disable caption in youtube? What should I append at the end?
Here is an example. Help!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe4B3WvTif0&hd=1
While &fmt=22 does allow for a higher resolution video, it only works if there’s an option to view the video in HD (such as when there’s an HD button in the video). Otherwise, it doesn’t give you any better quality on regular videos. The &fmt=18 works for all videos. It may not give a better video throughput (depending on the bit-rate at which it was uploaded), but the audio quality is almost always better than average.
Please help me how to post the hyperlink on youtube comment. I am so new to you tube.
It can’t be done. I have already said so in the comments above. If you post a link, it will have to be typed into the browser later, so it is not even effective to use as a marketing method. Unless you mass spam a lot of videos.
(And for that you would need a software like tubetoolbox or similar. I don’t want you to even try that, cause I get enough spam on my videos!)
Anyway, you can post a simple “example[.]com” post on videos though and get around the YouTube filters.
I am a Partner, so I have a few extra tools that others do not get.
10 youtube URL tricks are very useful! Thx!
Go to youtube.com. Pick any video to watch. In the URL, replace ‘watch’ with ‘warp.swf’. Hit enter.
Thanks for the tips. Is there a way of adding more than one url to the about me page?