17 essential YouTube keyboard shortcuts to use while browsing and watching videos

• You can use YouTube keyboard shortcuts to easily navigate the platform and control your video playback.
• Aside from the well-known spacebar shortcut that allows you to pause or unpause a video, there are a number of other useful shortcuts.
• For instance, you can use keyboard shortcuts to speed up or slow down a video, or open a mini-player and browse the rest of YouTube while you watch.

YouTube, the premier platform for watching and sharing videos on the internet, is a well-loved part of our culture today, and has been making innovations to the online video player since its inception.

You can do a lot of things with YouTube's video player already — most people know that pressing the spacebar will pause and unpause your video, and anybody with media buttons on their keyboards likely knows what they do based on the labels alone.

However, you may not know that there are actually a multitude of keyboard shortcuts available on YouTube, some of which provide functions that are otherwise not accessible on the platform.

YouTube keyboard shortcuts

• Pause/Play the video: Spacebar or K
• Mute/Unmute the video: M
• Skip 5 seconds forward/back in a video: Left/Right arrows
• Skip 10 seconds forward in a video: J
• Skip 10 seconds back in a video: L
• Skip to the next frame when the video is paused: Comma ","
• Skip to the previous frame when the video is paused: Period "."
• Speed up/slow down video playback: < or >
• Skip to the first or last seconds of a video: Home or End key on the seekbar
• Increase/Decrease video volume by 5%: Up/Down arrows
• Skip to a different point in the video: 0-9 on the seekbar

Note: The number you press correlates to the percentage of the video that the playbar will skip to. For example, 0 will return you to the beginning of the video, and 5 will take you to the halfway point, or 50%. This will only work with the numbers on the seekbar, not the ones on the numeric keypad.

• Click in search bar: forward slash "/"
• Take the video in and out of full screen mode: F
• Turn closed captions on and off, if available: C
• While watching a playlist, return to the previous video on the list: Shift-P
• While watching a playlist, skip to the next video on the list: Shift-N

Note: If you're not watching a playlist, it will skip to YouTube's next recommended video.

• Open a YouTube mini-player in the bottom right corner of the screen: i

Note: The video will play while you continue to browse YouTube.

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to change your YouTube password, which is also the password for your Google account
  

• How to 'tag' someone on YouTube by replying to a comment on desktop or mobile

• How to merge multiple YouTube accounts by re-uploading your videos

• How to use Spotify keyboard shortcuts on your Mac or PC to manage your playback and playlists

• 101 essential Google Chrome browser keyboard shortcuts for Mac, PC, and Linux users