10 useful YouTube features you might not have guessed (Topic)

Videos with cats, bloggers for all tastes and educational programs explaining the Heisenberg uncertainty principle - YouTube offers content on all sorts of topics, so it's not surprising that the service has already become an integral part of our life. But it's also hard to argue that YouTube has certain problems with inconvenient controls and interface. Enough tolerating this! No, we are not asking you to abandon the popular video hosting service, but just tell you about 10 YouTube features that can make your life easier.

Say goodbye to your browsing history

YouTube has a habit of recommending content to you based on the videos you watch. And this is a useful feature, only when every second video in the feed spoils you with the events from Game of Thrones and the ending of Avengers start to hate YouTube. But there is a way out - delete your browsing history. To do this, go to "Settings" and from the bottom of the heart press the button "Delete browsing history". There is also another option, in order to protect yourself from new content and receive videos only on the topics that you have devoted the most time to in recent months - activate the "Do not record browsing history" function.

There is also a third option - go to the "History" tab on PC (or "Library" on mobile devices) and selectively delete those watched videos for which you do not want to see recommendations.

Speed up video rewind

If you use YouTube on mobile devices, you probably noticed the fast rewind function, when double tapping on the screen rewinds the video for 10 seconds forward or backward. If desired, you can speed up the rewind, up to 1 minute per double tap. To do this, go to "Settings" and in the "General" tab we find the function we need.

Control video viewing with hotkeys

In the computer version of the service, do not try to press the screen, but you will get nothing but leaked pixels and a broken monitor. But we have at hand another tool - the keyboard, which, using a series of hot keys, allows you to conveniently control the viewing of videos:

• J and L to fast forward or rewind the video 10 seconds. Additional option - keys "right", "left", rewinding the video for 5 seconds
• K - pause key
• M - mute sound
• F - open video in full screen
• Link Shift + F and Shift + N - start playing the next or previous video from the included playlist

Activate Night Mode

If you, too, have a habit of falling asleep with your phone in hand while watching YouTube videos, then it makes sense to turn on "Night mode" to protect your eyes from the overly bright interface. To enable it on a PC, open the tab under your avatar and click "Night mode", in applications the dark theme of the interface is enabled in the "General" settings.

Listen to videos like podcasts

YouTube, frankly, strongly discourages your desire to listen to videos in the background from smartphones. When you are not going to waste time watching a video and, in the hope of listening to it, minimize the video, you will definitely encounter a playback stop. But there is one trick here too: open the video in a mobile browser (Opera Mini for iOS and Chrome for Android), press pause and minimize it. Then open the Application Control Center and click on the "Start" button opposite the video. Done - you are amazing and can listen to YouTube videos as podcasts even with the display backlight turned off. The only problem is that over time, the smartphone's OS will turn off playback anyway and you will have to carry out the procedure in the second round.

Customize your search

Of course, no one wants to spend an extra few minutes setting up the search bar, but believe me, as soon as you decide to set more precise search parameters, you will immediately sparkle with new colors.

You can customize the search function on YouTube using the "filters" tab under the search bar. There are five parameters for tuning search queries in total:

• By upload date - starting from videos downloaded in the last hour and ending with "bearded" videos a year ago
• Type - selects the category of videos: videos, channels, playlists, movies and shows
• Duration - searches for videos of the desired length: from small 4-minute clips to long videos with a duration of 20 minutes or more
• Features - the most interesting setting that allows you to serve only VR clips, panoramic videos, live broadcasts and more
• Sort - adjusts the delivery of videos on YouTube by upload date, rating, number of views and relevance (most relevant videos based on all the categories specified above)

Don't forget the TV version

YouTube took special care of the owners of Smart-TV and released a special version of the site for them with a slightly modified interface and a number of useful functions. If you wish, you can run it on a PC by simply following this link.

Disable showing likes

If your tastes are specific enough, you are not hiding on YouTube under a fake nickname and your account can be found by your dad, mom, work colleague, friend, cat or neighbor, then it makes sense to hide the block with the video you like. In the computer version, the procedure is performed according to the following algorithm: go to the account settings, the "Privacy" tab and put a checkmark in front of the items that you do not want to show to the public.

Use traffic sparingly

If the amount of traffic on your device is limited, then we can recommend not including HD video. Yes, we agree, this is still a captaincy, but YouTube just loves to automatically turn on the playback of videos in the highest possible quality. To avoid this problem, go to the Android version in the "General" item in the settings, then go to the "Save traffic" and activate the function "Play HD video only over Wi-Fi"

Turn on video transcript

Not all of us can boast of excellent knowledge of English, but what if most of the original content on YouTube is English-language videos? There is a way out, but it will not replace full knowledge of English. Turn on the video transcript (three dots under the video and the "View video transcript" button on a PC, in mobile applications - three dots in the upper right corner and the "Subtitles" button). The text shown in the transcript can be copied and translated in any online translator.

The Topic of Article: 10 useful YouTube features you might not have guessed.
Author: Jake Pinkman