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Make your next stay at YouTube a more pleasant one. And if not more pleasant, then at least a bit more efficient by employing a few keyboard shortcuts.
1. Tab for control
Hit the tab key to gain control of the video player. Tab lets you cycle through the various controls on the video player, cycling through play/pause, next video, mute, volume, settings, theater-mode and full-screen buttons before jumping down to the elements below the video player, including the add-to, share and like buttons.
2. Play/pause
Hit the spacebar or K key to pause a video. The K key works no matter where you are on the page, but you must have the video player selected by clicking on it or using the tab key for the spacebar to pause or play a video instead of paging down.
3. Skip forward or back 10 seconds
Conveniently located on either side of the K key: hit the J key to skip back 10 seconds and the L key to skip forward 10 seconds.
4. Skip forward or back 5 seconds
For 5-seconds skips, use the left and right arrow keys.
5. Jump to specific point in video
The number keys let you cut the video timeline into tenths. Hit 1 to jump the video playhead to 10 percent on the timeline; 9 to jump 90 percent of the way through a video; 5 places you at the midway point…you get the idea.
6. Restart video
Hit 0 (zero) to restart your video. On a Windows keyboard, you can also use the Home key.
7. Super slow-mo
With a video paused, hit the period key to move forward one frame at a time. Hit comma to move back a frame.
8. Turn it up
Or down. Use the up and down arrows to adjust the volume. The M key mutes the sound.
9. Fullscreen
Hit the F key to go fullscreen and Esc to exit out.
10. C for closed captioning
Hit the C key to turn on closed captioning. You can use the plus and minus keys change the font size.
