YouTube can give you hours of entertainment and education. When you pair its limitless store of content with the enabled-by-default Autoplay feature, binge-watching sessions are inevitable.

If YouTube surfing is a daily activity for you, it's a good idea to learn a few shortcuts and tricks that'll help you navigate YouTube faster. And you'll find the best shortcuts laid out neatly in our YouTube cheat sheet below!

The cheat sheet contains keyboard shortcuts, URL shortcuts, and search operators. For YouTube creators we've added standard dimensions specified by YouTube for creating all types of graphics and videos.

FREE DOWNLOAD: This cheat sheet is available as a downloadable PDF from our distribution partner, TradePub. You will have to complete a short form to access it for the first time only. Download The YouTube Shortcuts and Tips Cheat Sheet.

The YouTube Shortcuts and Tips Cheat Sheet

Shortcut

Action

Keyboard Shortcuts The YouTube video window must be active for these shortcuts to work.

Space

Play/pause video

k

Play/pause video

Left Arrow

Rewind 5 seconds

Right Arrow

Fast-forward 5 seconds

j

Rewind 10 seconds

l

Fast-forward 10 seconds

¹0

Restart video

¹1-9

Fast-forward in increments of 10%

Home

Restart video (Windows only)

End

Jump to end of video (Windows only)

,

Rewind by one frame when video is paused

.

Fast-forward by one frame when video is paused

>

Increase playback speed

<

Decrease playback speed

Shift + n OR ²Ctrl + Right Arrow

Jump to next video in playlist

Shift + p OR ²Ctrl + Left Arrow OR Backspace

Jump to previous video in playlist

m

Mute/unmute video

Up Arrow

Increase volume by 5%

Down Arrow

Decrease volume by 5%

f

Toggle Full Screen Mode

t

Toggle Theater Mode

i

Toggle Miniplayer

c

Toggle captions if available

o

Cycle through text opacity options for captions

w

Cycle through window opacity options for captions

=

Increase font size for captions

-

Decrease font size for captions

w

Pan up in 360° video

s

Pan down in 360° video

a

Pan left in 360° video

d

Pan right in 360° video

[

Zoom in within 360° video

]

Zoom out in 360° video

Tab

Cycle forward through onscreen elements

Shift + Tab

Cycle backward through onscreen elements

Space

Launch or open selected element

Enter

Launch or open selected element

/

Place cursor in search box

Shift + /

Open YouTube shortcuts dialog

Esc

Exit Full Screen mode, exit dialogs


URL Shortcuts Video_ID in the URLs refers to the 11-character sequence that appears in every YouTube URL.

³Link to any part of video

youtube.com/watch?v=Video_ID&t=YmXXs

³Start video from a specific point

youtube.com/watch?v=Video_ID&start=XX

Bypass age restrictions

genyoutube.com/watch?v=Video_ID

Loop video indefinitely

youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=Video_ID

View high-res thumbnail of video (if available)

img.youtube.com/vi/Video_ID/maxresdefault.jpg

Make a GIF from any part of video

gifyoutube.com/watch?v=Video_ID


Search Operators Append search operator to your query.

+keyword

Force keyword matching

-keyword

Exclude keyword

“keyword(s)”

Force exact keyword(s) match

intitle:

Look for keywords in content title

,hour

Content uploaded in the last hour only

,today

Content uploaded today

,week

Content uploaded this week

,month

Content uploaded this month

,year

Content uploaded this year

,video

Videos only

,channel

Channels only

,playlist

Playlists only

,movie

Movies only

,show

Shows only

,long

Content longer than 20 minutes

,short

Content shorter than 4 minutes

,live

Live streaming content only

,4k

4K content only

,hd

HD content only

,cc

Captioned content only

,creativecommons

Creative Commons licensed content only

,spherical

360° content only

,3d

3D content only

,hdr

HDR content only

,purchased

Purchased content only

,

Separate keywords/operators


Related Links

YouTube Trending

youtube.com/feed/trending

Your Subscriptions

youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Your YouTube History

youtube.com/feed/history

YouTube Gaming

youtube.com/gaming

YouTube Premium

youtube.com/red

YouTube TV

youtube.com/tv

YouTube Copyright Basics

YouTube TestTube

youtube.com/testtube

Recommended Dimensions (in pixels) for Creating YouTube Graphics and Videos

Profile Picture

800x800

Thumbnail

1280x720

Banner (Cover Photo or Channel Art)

2560x440

Banner Safe Area

1546x423

Mobile Display

1546x423

Tablet Display

1855x423

Desktop Display

2560x423

TV Display

2560x1440

4K (2160p)

3840x2160

2K (1440p)

2560x1440

Max. Resolution for HD (1080p)

1920x1080

Min. Resolution for HD (720p)

1280x720

Standard Definition (480p)

854x480

Traditional Website Resolution (360p)

640x360

Minimum YouTube Video Size (240p)

426x240

¹Key(s) on the numeric keypad won’t work. ²On Mac keyboards, use Cmd instead of Ctrl and Delete instead of Backspace. ³Y refers to minutes and XX refers to seconds.

Keep Your Eyes on the Screen

Once you master YouTube shortcuts, figure out how to find awesome videos, and learn to break a few of YouTube's restrictions, you have a delightful, personalized stream of video content on tap.

Not sure where to begin your next binge-watching session? Start with these YouTube channel recommendations.