This guide will show you how to use your keyboard to control YouTube videos – fast forward and rewind, play/pause, volume and more!
These keyboard tricks to control YouTube should work in most web browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge. They work whether you’re using YouTube within a browser window or playing in full screen.
To fast forward through a video you have a couple of choices.
Instead of waiting to get to a specific part, you can use the number keys (not on the number pad) and skip ahead in intervals of 10%. For example, say you want to jump ahead to the half way point of the video – just hit the number 5 on your keyboard (representing 50%) – and it will skip ahead to the middle. If you’ve played the video all the way through, this trick still works. You can go back to the beginning by typing 0.
You can also skip forwards or backwards in 5 seconds intervals by using the left and right arrow keys.
Control the volume by using the up arrow key to turn up the volume and the down arrow key to lower the volume. Each time you tap the up or down arrow key the volume will increase or decrease in 5% increments, and the volume level is displayed on-screen.
Use the spacebar to pause and unpause a video while it’s playing.
