When people talk about today's almost pop social sharing websites, YouTube often gets left out of the chat in favor of sites like Facebook and Twitter.

But don't be fooled: YouTube has a lot going for information technology. Although Facebook might be the largest social networking site, YouTube has the 2nd greatest reach after Facebook in terms of full general usage. It's also the 2d biggest search engine backside its parent company, Google.

And in that location are a ton of cool things you can do with YouTube that you lot might non know about, whether you lot use YouTube to watch videos, postal service them, or both. For instance, did you know YouTube has its own virtual reality (VR) setting to view whatsoever video in 360 degrees? Or that you can create a YouTube time link that brings viewers to a specific moment in the video?  → Free Templates: How to Use YouTube for Business [Download Now]

Listen-bravado stuff, people. To aid y'all make the most out of the still very popular platform, we've put together a list of twenty of the lesser-known hacks, tips, and features YouTube has to offer.

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20 YouTube Tricks, Hacks, and Features You'll Want to Know Near

1. You lot can turn any YouTube video into a GIF using the URL.

Anybody loves GIFs, but knowing how to make them isn't common noesis. Well, it should be, because all it takes is a little YouTube URL fox.

To create a GIF from a YouTube video: Select a video to sentry on YouTube and find the URL at the top of your browser. Add the discussion "gif" right before the domain name and so it reads, "www.gifyoutube.com/[your-video-tag]."

This will bring you to gifs.com, with your video already uploaded and set for editing. Here, y'all'll detect a menu of options to the left-paw side with a timeline bar along the bottom of your video. You can set up the GIF duration, crop its frame, add together captions, and more.

YouTube trick to create a GIF from a video.

Click "Create GIF" on the acme-right and information technology'll prompt you lot for a GIF title and gear up of tags. Then click "Next," and you lot have a handy landing page from which to share your newly minted GIF. Keep in mind you can only download this GIF to an offline file by signing upwards with gifs.com.

ii. You can create a link that starts a YouTube video at a certain time.

Always wanted to ship someone a YouTube video, but bespeak them to a specific moment? Let'south say you're trying to recruit your friends to learn the trip the light fantastic in Justin Bieber's "Sad" music video with y'all.

Instead of sending your friends the general YouTube link and instructing them to fast-forward to the 0:50 infinitesimal marking, y'all tin actually transport them a specific YouTube time link that starts the video at whichever time you cull. Click hither to see what I mean.

Alright, here's how to do it:

To create a link that starts a YouTube video at a sure fourth dimension: Open the video and click "Share" to the far right of the video title. Then, in the window of options that appears, check the box next to "Start at:" and blazon in the time (in hours:minutes:seconds) y'all want. Alternatively, you can pause the video at the time you want it to first and that field volition autofill.

YouTube time link of a Justin Bieber video.

After a few moments, you'll run into a tag add itself to the end of the generic YouTube link (in this instance, ?t=50s). Simply re-create that link and paste information technology wherever you'd like.

It'south worth noting that you can't embed a video so information technology starts at a sure time; you can't merely link to it.

iii. You can hands come across the written transcripts of people's videos.

Did you know YouTube automatically generates a written transcript for every single video uploaded to its website? That's right -- and anyone has access to that transcript unless the user manually hides it from viewers.

I tin think of a number of different situations where video transcripts tin can come in handy. For case, maybe you want to write down a quote from a video, just the tedium of pausing-and-typing, pausing-and-typing would drive you up a wall. Or perhaps yous demand to find a specific section of a video, merely don't want to rewatch the whole affair to find it. With a transcript in hand, you tin find information like this without doing it all past hand.

To see a video's transcript: Open the video in YouTube and press the "More" tab underneath the video title. Choose "Transcript" from the drop-downward bill of fare.

YouTube's more tag to find the video transcript.

(If you lot aren't seeing this option, it's because the user chose to hide the transcript.)

This transcript volition appear as a new module in the same window. In many cases, the user who uploaded the video volition non have gone back and manually polished the transcript, then it won't be perfect. Simply it'll certainly salvage you some time and hurting.

Example of a YouTube transcript.

4. You tin help your video get plant in search past editing or uploading a transcript.

Both YouTube and its parent company Google look at a number of factors when ranking videos in search to determine what your video is nearly, and your transcript is one of them. (An even bigger ranking factor is your video'southward description, which is why Digital Marketing Consultant Ryan Stewart suggests that you actually paste your transcript right into the description box, besides.)

To add a transcript to your video: Open the video on YouTube, and you'll see a row of icons only below the play push. Click the icon on the far right for "Subtitles/CC." (CC stands for "Closed Captions.)

YouTube closed captioning (CC).

Set your linguistic communication if you haven't already. And so, you'll and so be prompted to cull among three different means to add together subtitles or closed captions to your video ...

  1. Upload a pre-written text transcript or a timed subtitles file. (Learn more about the file types you tin upload and more here.)
  2. Paste in a full transcript of the video, wherein subtitle timings will be ready automatically.
  3. Type them in as you watch the video.

The folks at YouTube have washed some swell things to make that third choice (typing equally you watch) as painless every bit possible. For case, if you lot cheque a box next to "Intermission video while typing," it'll make the whole process a lot faster. Hither's a GIF showing that in action:

YouTube transcribe page.

Learn more about optimizing your YouTube videos for search in the below video.

5. You can utilize YouTube to easily go gratis transcriptions of your videos and audio files.

This is the last one about transcripts, I promise -- but I'll bet you lot never thought about them this fashion. Every bit yous know from #3, YouTube automatically adds a transcript to every video. Only if you're looking for a one-off transcription of an sound or video file and don't want to pay for a service, YouTube'due south built-in captioning system isn't a bad place to starting time. You tin can always clean it upward later.

To get an automatic transcription for a video: Simply upload your video to YouTube, open up it on YouTube'south website, press the "More than" tab underneath the video championship, and choose "Transcript" from the drop-downward bill of fare. The transcript will appear equally a new module in the aforementioned window. If you lot want to clean it up, follow the steps outlined in #3 for a user-friendly experience.

To go an automated transcription for an audio file: You lot'll demand to upload your audio recording to YouTube using a service like TunesToTube. It'll take anywhere between 2–30 minutes for YouTube to upload it. Then, follow the instructions for getting an automated transcription for a video, outlined above.

6. You tin can create, share, and collaborate on video playlists.

Just like on your other favorite media sharing sites like Spotify and iTunes, you lot can create a "playlist" on YouTube -- which is actually but a place to store and organize the videos (your own and others'). You can go along playlists private, brand them public, or even share them directly with others.

Playlists are useful for many different types of users, from an individual collecting cooking videos for their upcoming dinner party to a make that's segmenting its YouTube video content by topic. For case, Tasty's YouTube playlists break upwards recipes by repast type, making it easier for people to scan and find what they're looking for:

Tasty playlists example.

To create a playlist on desktop: Go to your Playlists page by clicking here or clicking your business relationship icon in the top correct, choosing "Creator Studio," clicking "Video Manager" on the left, and choosing "Playlists." Then, click "New Playlist" on the top right and cull whether you'd similar to keep it private or make it public.

YouTube create new playlist page.

To create a playlist on mobile: Click here for instructions explaining how to create new playlists using your iOS or Android mobile devices.

To add a video to a playlist: If you lot're calculation a video to a playlist while you lot're watching it, click the "Add to" icon below the video title and check the box side by side to the playlist to which you'd like to add it.

Add to button for creating YouTube playlists.

If you desire to add a video to a playlist right from your Playlists page, merely click "Add together Video" and either paste in a video URL, choose a video from your uploads, or search for a video on YouTube. Once y'all find the video yous want to add, select the "Add together to" card from that video and add information technology to the playlist.

Your friends can contribute to your playlists, likewise. All you have to do is plough on the ability to interact on playlists. Once you plough it on, anyone you lot share a playlist link with tin add together videos to that playlist. (They can also remove whatever videos they've added, likewise.)

To add together friends to a playlist: Get to your Playlists folio again and open the playlist you want to collaborate on. Click "Playlist Settings" and choose the "Collaborate" tag. Toggle on the setting that allows collaborators to add together videos to the playlist, and from at that place, yous can send them a link where they tin can add videos to the playlist.

YouTube collaborate playlist setting.

Once your friend'southward been invited to a playlist, they'll be able to add new videos to information technology and remove videos they've added in the by. They just take to follow some on-screen instructions offset to confirm they want to exist a contributor and to save the playlist to their own account.

When you add a video to a playlist yous're collaborating on, your name volition announced side by side to the video in the playlist, and anybody who'due south been invited to collaborate on that playlist will go a notification that a new video has been added.

(To learn more about how to manage contributors, cease accepting contributions to a playlist, and so on, read this YouTube Support page.)

7. You can save videos to picket later.

E'er seen YouTube videos you wished y'all could bookmark for later? Mayhap you aren't able to turn the sound on at the moment, or perhaps yous just don't accept time to lookout it. Well, YouTube took a folio out of Facebook's ... book ... by adding something very similar to Facebook's "Save for Later" characteristic. On YouTube, you tin can relieve videos to a "Sentinel Later" playlist to access whenever you want.

The "Watch Subsequently" playlist operates just like a normal playlist, and then the instructions are identical to the previous step (except you can't invite others to collaborate on your "Watch Later" playlist).

To add a video to your "Watch Afterwards" playlist: Open the video on YouTube and click the "Add together to" icon beneath the video championship and cheque the box next to the playlist you'd like to add it to, just like you did in the previous step. The steps are very similar on mobile, simply click here if you want the full instructions from YouTube's Back up page.

To admission those videos: Simply get to your YouTube homepage and choose "Watch Later" from the menu on the upper left-hand side of your screen.

YouTube watch later option.

From there, you can sentinel the videos y'all were saving, as well as hands remove videos from that list that you've already watched.

8. You can create your own custom YouTube URL.

Desire to give people an easy-to-remember web address to get to your YouTube channel? You can actually create a custom URL, which you tin base on things like your display proper noun, your YouTube username, whatsoever current vanity URLs that you have, or the proper name of your linked website. HubSpot's, for example, is https://world wide web.youtube.com/hubspot.

Important Note: Earlier you practice this, brand certain you're positive this is the custom URL you desire -- because one time information technology'south approved, yous tin can't request to change it, nor can you transfer it to someone else. Keep in heed that it'll be linked to both your YouTube channel and your Google+ identity, likewise.

Unfortunately, not everyone's eligible for a custom URL. To go one, you have to have 100 or more subscribers, be at to the lowest degree thirty days quondam, have an uploaded photo every bit your channel icon, and accept uploaded channel fine art. If that sounds similar yous, proceed reading.

To claim your custom URL: Open up up your YouTube account settings and click "Advanced" in your proper name section.

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If yous're eligible for a custom URL, yous'll exist prompted to merits yours by clicking a link.

advanced_youtube_settings.png

Select the box side by side to "I hold to the Terms of Service." Then, once you're admittedly sure it's the URL you want (since you tin can't e'er change it), click "Change URL" to make information technology final.

9. You can add an end screen or cards to promote content.

In 2008, YouTube began allowing clickable links YouTube called "annotations" that you could insert into your videos. These annotations worked kind of like call-to-action buttons for directing people to subscribe to your aqueduct, run into merchandise or a fundraising campaign, visit another resource to learn more, then on.

In order to brand them more natural parts of the viewing experience, YouTube has replaced annotations with terminate screens, where y'all can display more visually pleasing call-to-activeness cards in the concluding xxx seconds of your content.

How to Add an End Screen

Do your favorite YouTube creators take a fancy closing screen that encourages you to keep watching their videos? For example, hither'southward i from Saturday Night Alive:

SNL_youtube_end screen.png

You can create a customized end screen, too. They help keep viewers on your channel by suggesting other videos and sites they can check out. Hither's how to exercise information technology:

Navigate to your Video Manager, tap "Edit," and select "Finish screen & Annotations" from the drib-downward carte:

YouTube end screen call to action.

From there, you're taken to the Cease screen creator studio, where yous can play around with different templates and background to determine how you lot desire your end screen to appear. So, click the "Add together element" carte to decide where you want to send viewers from your cease screen.

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Whatsoever YouTube creators tin can add an terminate screen to customize their channels. Here's an explainer article with more than details and inspirational ideas.

How to Add a Menu

You tin can use cards to advertise products used in your videos or links on your website you lot want to market on YouTube. If viewers tap the "i" in the upper-right hand corner of a video, the cards expand, every bit in the case below:

To add a menu to a YouTube video, head to your Video Director, tap "Edit," and select "Cards" from the drop-down menu.

Then, choose where in the video y'all want cards to appear, and tap the "Add together card" drop-downwardly menu to choose what you want the carte du jour to promote. From in that location, customize the content that will appear to viewers when they tap the "i" while viewing your video:

add_card_youtube.png

ten. YouTube has a large library of loftier-quality, royalty-free sound effects and music you tin can browse and download.

Want to add some cool audio effects or music to your YouTube video (or any video)? YouTube is at that place for yous. It has a whole library of high-quality, 320kbps audio tracks and sound furnishings that y'all tin can download royalty-free and add to your videos. (Or heed to in your free time. We won't gauge.)

To add music or sound effects to your video: Open YouTube'southward Sound Library by clicking hither or opening your Creator Studio, clicking "Create" in the menu on the left-hand side, and choosing "Audio Library."

Now, the fun begins. By default, it'll commencement you on the "Sound effects" tab. Here, you tin search sounds using the search bar, like I did in the screenshot below for motorcycle sounds.

youtube-audio-library.png

You can also toggle by category (everything from human voices to weather condition sounds) or scroll through favorites that you've starred in the past. For like shooting fish in a barrel access in the future, select the star to add the track to your Favorites. The bars next to the songs show how popular a track is.

If yous switch over to the "Music" bar, you can browse through all of its royalty-complimentary music. You lot won't find the Beatles in here, but you volition observe some good stuff -- like suspenseful music, uplifting music, holiday music, jazz, and more than. Instead of toggling by category, you can toggle by genre, mood, instrument, duration, and so on.

(Note: Some of the music files in there may have additional attribution requirements you take to follow, merely those are pretty clearly laid out on a song-by-vocal-ground. You can learn more than on YouTube'due south Support folio here.)

One time you've found a runway you like, click the arrow to download it and it'll download straight to your estimator as an MP3 file. Then, you tin do whatsoever you want with it.

If you want to source sounds for your videos exterior of YouTube, you lot'll simply have to brand sure to you're following all the rules for sourcing them. Refer to this YouTube Support page for best practices for sourcing audio, and this one to learn YouTube's music policies.

xi. Add together adjustments and creative effects with YouTube Enhancements.

YouTube has faded a number of features it experimented with at 1 time -- including annotations and a not-so-popular slideshow creator -- but 1 editing tool that remains quite handy is Enhancements. Nine effects y'all'd normally find on third-party video editing software, you lot can now accept reward of natively through YouTube:

  • Auto-fix lighting and colour
  • Stabilize shaky photographic camera motions
  • Apply wearisome motion
  • Apply time lapse
  • Trim out parts of your video
  • Rotate the view
  • Utilize filters
  • Custom blurring
  • Blur faces

To brand enhancements to an existing video: Click into your Video Manager and find a video you'd like to edit. Select the drop-downwardly icon next to "Edit" to the correct of the video, and select "Enhancements."

YouTube enhancements and effects feature.

YouTube filters and other enhancements.

Images via filmora

If you're editing on a computer, this push will open all 9 tools to the right of your video, where yous tin add various fixes, filters, and blurring effects and run across how they change the terminal product in existent time.

Note that not all enhancements are bachelor on mobile devices. On Apple tree and Android smartphones and tablets, you can only trim, add together music, and use filters. Read this article to acquire more most YouTube enhancements.

12. Play YouTube videos in the background on mobile devices.

Sometimes, your own music playlist just isn't cutting it. Or maybe y'all want to listen to your favorite artist's performance at an awards show.

Either way, if you've tried listening to music on YouTube via your mobile device, you lot may accept noticed one thing: You lot tin can't navigate out of the app. You take to go on YouTube open, and you can't apply your phone for anything else, in order to listen to something on YouTube. Kind of frustrating if you're trying to multitask on your commute home, right?

Now, in that location are hacks so you tin can listen to YouTube content in the background while even so using your mobile device. Hither's what y'all exercise:

How to Lookout YouTube Videos in the Background: iOS

Open Safari on your mobile device, and navigate to a video you want to sentinel on https://world wide web.youtube.com. Commencement playing the video y'all want to heed to, so tap the Dwelling house button to close out of Safari. (I chose Katy Perry.)

youtube_katy1.png

Then, swipe up on your home screen to reveal the Action Center.

And then, swipe left to reveal the second screen on your Action Middle. The details of the video yous selected on YouTube should appear, and from there, only tap Play to go on jamming.

youtube_katy2.0.png

youtube_katy2.png

How to Lookout YouTube Videos in the Groundwork: Android

Launch Firefox or Chrome on your mobile device, and navigate to a video you want to play on https://world wide web.youtube.com. So, tap the "Settings" carte du jour in the upper right-hand corner (the ellipses) and select "Request Desktop Site."

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Image via DigitalTrends

And then, beginning playing the video on YouTube, and tap the Abode push to return to your dwelling screen. The audio will keep playing in the background as you use other apps.

13. You can alive stream videos to YouTube.

Live streaming video has been a large topic of conversation for the by few years. It's seen massive growth, particularly in the by few years with the advent of Twitter's Periscope, Facebook Alive, and Instagram alive videos.

Learning how to become alive on YouTube is a little more complex (and confusing) than live streaming using similar platforms. On YouTube'southward easier streaming option, there's no simple "kickoff" button; instead, yous actually have to download encoding software and gear up it upward to use alive streaming at all. YouTube has identified xiii+ encoders that are Live Verified.

If you're streaming a alive event, though, all you lot need is a webcam. We'll get to that in a second.

Live Stream From Your Desktop Computer

Log in to YouTube and click the "Upload" button at the meridian-correct of your screen. Normally, this is where you'd upload a pre-existing video -- but instead, you'll want to detect the "Live Streaming" module on the right-manus side of your screen. Click "Go Started" in that module.

youtube_features_live_streaming.png

Before yous go live, YouTube will first ostend that your channel is verified and that you take no live stream restrictions in the last 90 days. One time that'due south all set, you take two options for streaming: "Stream now" and "Alive Events."

Stream Now

Stream Now is the simpler, quicker selection for live streaming, which is why information technology's YouTube's default for live streaming. Y'all'll see a fancy dashboard like the 1 below when you choose "Live Streaming" on the left-hand Creator Studio menu:

youtube_livestream dashboard.png

Again, you'll detect there'southward no "beginning" button on the dashboard. This is where you'll need to open your encoder and showtime and stop your streaming from there. Here'south YouTube'south Live Streaming FAQ page for more detailed information.

Live Events

Live Events gives you a lot more control over the live stream. Y'all can preview it before information technology goes live, it'll requite you backup back-up streams, and you tin can offset and stop the stream when you desire.

Choose "Live Events" from your live streaming dashboard once you lot've enabled it. Here's what the events dashboard looks like, and y'all tin can learn more about it hither.

youtube-live-event.png

When you stop streaming, we'll automatically upload an archive of your live stream to your channel. Note that your completed live stream videos are automatically made public on your channel past default every bit soon equally y'all're done recording. To brand them disappear from the public eye once you lot're done, you can select "Make annal private when complete" in the "Stream Options" section of your live dashboard.

Alive Stream From Your Mobile Device

YouTube has as well rolled out live streaming from mobile devices for YouTube creators with 10,000 or more subscribers (as of the engagement of this posting -- that will be bachelor to all creators soon, according to YouTube'south web log post).

Live streaming is more intuitive from mobile devices than on desktop computers. Qualified creators tin simply open their YouTube app on mobile, tap the camera icon at the acme of the screen, and choose "Go Alive."

From in that location, creators can enter details near the circulate before immediately recording live for their subscribers, equally shown below:

CameoFlow-1.gif

Image via YouTube

For more educational activity on how to go alive on YouTube across devices, YouTube published a Help article hither. Want to see what live videos others are recording on YouTube? Yous can scan popular YouTube videos that are live right at present by clicking here.

14. You can upload and lookout man 360-caste videos (live and pre-recorded) -- and in VR.

YouTube outset announced its support for 360-caste videos back in March 2015, and it was a total novelty -- not to mention a game-changer. Since then, brands, athletes, and other users have created some awesome 360-degree content, similar this video from Samsung:

As y'all can see, the experience every bit a viewer is actually, really cool. On desktop, you tin click around the video to run into all the unlike angles while the video plays. On mobile, it's even cooler: You lot can move your camera effectually to modify the bending. Y'all can browse the trending 360-degree and VR videos here.

How to Create a 360-degree Video on YouTube

For this, you'll need some serious equipment. Cameras with 360-degree adequacy that are uniform with YouTube are listed here on YouTube'due south Support page, along with how to create and upload a 360-degree video file.

What about alive video in 360 degrees? That announcement would come a year later the first one, in April 2016 -- the very same week Facebook appear its own design for a 360-caste camera. Luckily for the folks at YouTube, it trounce out Facebook by supporting both live video and 360-degree footage all at one time.

How to Lookout man Any YouTube Video in VR

The Verge called 360 live-streamed videos "the gateway drug to virtual reality" for YouTube. Other than the YouTube website or app, you lot don't need any fancy equipment to exist able to watch a 360-degree alive video and feel like yous're basically there.

That doesn't mean a headset isn't an choice -- and an awesome one at that, since YouTube released its Cardboard feature. Cardboard is bachelor on any YouTube video you watch or upload, and works with Google Cardboard (an actual VR headset past Google) and several other VR headsets available today.

To use Cardboard while watching a YouTube video via mobile: Select any video in your YouTube mobile app, then tap the three dots in the upper-correct hand corner of the video. In the drop-down, select "View in Cardboard." You may already see this pick visible in the lesser-right of 360-caste videos.

youtube_features_view_cardboard.png

This will prompt yous to connect your mobile device to a compatible VR device. One time yous exercise, gear up for a stellar experience, and just imagine what this could mean for the content with which yous populate your own YouTube channel.

15. YouTube ads target y'all based on an algorithm similar to Google and Facebook.

How does the YouTube algorithm make up one's mind which ads play on the videos you watch?

Turns out it works a lot like Google and Facebook ads do. Similar on other free sites, the advertisers help fund the YouTube experience in return for exposure to ads. You lot'll see sure ads over others because of your demographic groups, your interests (which is judged in function by what you search on Google and YouTube) and the content yous've viewed earlier, including whether or non y'all've interacted with the advertiser's videos, ads, or YouTube channel.

YouTube's algorithms also endeavor to brand sure people aren't overloaded with ads while watching videos -- so it actually sometimes won't show ads on monetizable videos, fifty-fifty when there's a demographic match.

Here are the v advertizing formats y'all can expect to see on YouTube, and how they work:

A. Display ads, which prove upwards next to the video and only appear only on desktop and laptop computers. The advertiser gets paid when you encounter or click on the ad, depending on their option.

youtube-display-ads.png

Image via YouTube'due south Creator Academy

B. Overlay ads, which appear beyond the bottom 20% of the video window and currently only appears only on desktop and laptop computers. Yous can Ten out of the advertising at whatever time.

youtube-overlay-ads.png

Paradigm via YouTube's Creator Academy

C. TrueView in-stream, skippable video ads, which are most common ads. These are the ones you lot can skip after watching for v seconds. Advertisers can put information technology before, during (yikes!), or after the video plays, and they get paid merely if you watch at to the lowest degree 30 seconds of the clip or to the stop of the video advertising -- whichever comes offset.

youtube-in-stream-skippable-video-ads.png

Image via YouTube's Creator Academy

D. Non-skippable video ads, which are those longer, 15-or-more-second ads you see before plays and tin can't skip after any period of time, no matter how much y'all shout at your screen.

youtube-non-skippable-video-ads-2.png

Epitome via YouTube'south Creator Academy

E. Midroll ads, which are ads that are only bachelor for videos over 15 minutes long that are spaced within the video like TV commercials. You demand to watch the advert earlier continuing through the video. How the advertiser gets paid depends on the type of ad: If the midroll is a TrueView ad, you'd accept to spotter 30 seconds of the end or the unabridged ad -- whichever is shorter. If information technology's a CPM-based ad, yous have to watch the entire advert no matter how long it is.

youtube-midroll-ads-1.png

Image Credit: YouTube's Creator Academy

F. Bumper ads, which are short, non-skippable ads up to six seconds long that play before the video the viewer has selected. Bumper ads are optimized for mobile devices and must be watched in their entirety before viewers can progress to the video they want to view.

bumperad_youtube.png

16. Y'all can remove ads from YouTube videos (and watch videos offline) for 10 bucks a month.

Video ads are the reason y'all can watch videos for costless on YouTube. It's a fact many of us have come to accept. But with YouTube'due south subscription service YouTube Scarlet, that doesn't necessarily accept to be truthful anymore.

For $9.99 a month, y'all can watch YouTube videos ... without any ads. And, in addition to ad-gratis videos, you can save videos on your mobile device and scout them in the background and/or offline, and you lot can employ YouTube's Music App (on iOS and Android) in the background, offline, and/or on sound style. This is not a drill.

You lot'd think the lure of advertizing-free videos would have caused more of an uproar since its launch in late 2015, especially given YouTube'south domination in the music space. Surprisingly, I haven't heard much dissonance nearly it. Only YouTube hasn't disclosed subscriber numbers (the service reportedly has around ane.five million subscribers) so it'due south difficult to tell how well it's doing. Either manner, it's good to know about -- specially if you like collecting songs and music videos like I do, but don't similar when they get broken up by ads.

17. You can use Google Trends to explore and compare pop YouTube search terms over time.

You might already use Google Trends to look at the popularity of specific search terms over time. (It can exist a great marketing tool for making smarter keyword choices, for instance.) Simply did yous know you can employ it to compare the popularity of YouTube search queries, specifically?

All you have to do is open Google Trends and type a search term into the "Explore topics" search bar at the top. Once that page opens up, click on "Web Search" to open a drop-down menu, and choose "YouTube Search" then it filters by YouTube searches specifically.

youtube_googletrends.png

You might find that, for some search terms, the search trends are very different on Google (above) than on YouTube (below).

youtube_googletrends_2.png

18. There'south a 'safer' version of YouTube available for your kids.

Whatsoever parent will tell you how scary it is for their kids to theoretically have access to everything public on the cyberspace. Only for your younger kids, there are ways to curb that access and have more command of what they're watching and finding -- including a kids' version of YouTube called YouTube Kids.

The folks at YouTube call YouTube Kids "a safer version of YouTube." Information technology'due south not a wide-open library of online videos like YouTube is; instead, it uses filters powered by algorithms to select videos from YouTube that are safe for kids to watch. Information technology's also totally gratuitous, cheers to ads (which are regulated as carefully equally possible).

Y'all tin can either turn the search feature on or off, depending on whether you're cool with your kids searching for videos themselves -- or if you'd rather limit them to a sure set of videos selected by the app, along with those the app recommends based on what they've watched already. Yous can set a timer to limit how much time a child spends on the app, which is music to many parents' ears.

The algorithm is darn good -- call back, Google is YouTube's parent company -- simply, as it warns in its parents' guide, "no algorithm is perfect."

nineteen. Yous tin now articulate your YouTube History.

Y'all might eventually want to delete items from your YouTube search or sentry history. YouTube lets y'all completely clear your history, pause your history and so it stops recording what you search for and watch from that signal forward, or become through your history and delete certain videos.

To delete your history on your desktop or mobile device: Navigate to the "Lookout History" carte du jour. Hither's where information technology lives on your desktop browser homepage and in your mobile app, respectively:

youtube_history.png

youtube_library.png youtube_history_mobile.png

From there, you can "clear all watch history" (permanently delete the record of everything yous've watched), "pause lookout man history" (stop recording the videos yous scout going forward), or individually remove videos from your history by tapping the X or ellipses side by side to videos. Here'south what information technology looks like on desktop and on mobile, below:

youtube_features_clear_watch_history.png

youtube_delete_history_mobile.png

YouTube published a Help commodity if y'all need more instruction for deleting items from your YouTube lookout history, also.

20. You can learn about YouTube's copyrights terms from a bandage of ridiculous puppets.

Made information technology this far? Here'due south a little reward: YouTube's "Copyrights Basics" FAQ page, which is, fittingly a YouTube video -- and features a pretty colorful cast of characters. It's actually super informative, and information technology looks like YouTube's video team had a lot of fun making it.

My favorite line is probably, "You know in that location are links on this webpage, correct? You don't have to watch this." Although the chorus of gorilla puppets was pretty great, too.

Bask.

We hope we've opened your eyes to some of the more awesome YouTube hacks, tips, and features out at that place that you may not have known about. At present log on to YouTube and practice some exploring yourself. The platform certainly isn't going anywhere.

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Originally published Oct 26, 2020 7:00:00 AM, updated July 26 2021