YouTube is used for entertainment, news, and education these days. However simply clicking or tabbing your way through you tube is slow and inefficient. Today I hope to help you to use YouTube better via some powerful keyboard shortcuts!

Remember: some of these keyboard shortcuts will only work when the YouTube player is in focus. If you are navigating other parts of the video page, then these shortcuts may not work. You can click on the YouTube player to gain back focus.

Also if you  are using a screen reader such as NVDA, Narrator, or Jaws there is one keyboard command you will need to know before these commands will work as expected, but these keyboard commands will work regardless of what screen reader you are using, or even if you are not using a screen reader.

Jaws users will need to press Insert+Z to get out of the virtual mode so that these keys will work as YouTube intended.

NVDA and Narrator users will need to press INSERT+SPACE BAR, or CAPS LOCK+SPACE BAR. These commands will place NVDA or narrator in a mode that allows for hotkeys that directly interact with the web page and not the screen reader. When you are done with these YouTube hotkeys you may need to toggle the use of these initial keys so that you can browse normally again.

Now here come the hotkeys.  I will describe each one for you.

• K key: Pauses or Plays video
• UP ARROW: Turns up volume by 5%
• DOWN ARROW: Turns down volume by 5%
• M key: Mutes/unmutes volume
• LEFT ARROW: Moves backward 5 seconds
• RIGHT ARROW: Moves forward 5 seconds
• L key: Moves forward 10 seconds
• J key: Moves backward 10 seconds
• 0 or Home key: Restarts the video
• :END key: Skip to the end
• Numbers 1 through 9: Moves to the respective percentage, for example pressing the number 5 will move you to fifty percent of the file.
• F key: Enter or exit full screen mode
• ESCAPE key: Exit full screen mode
• CONTROL+RIGHT ARROW: skips to next video (only in playlist)
• CONTROL+LEFT ARROW: Skips to previous video (only in a playlist)
• C key: Turn on/off CC (closed captions)
• PLUS key: Increase CC font size if it’s turned on
• MINUS Key: Decrease CC font size if it’s turned on
• B key: Change CC background color
• GREATER than key: Increase playback speed
• LESS than key: Decrease playback speed
• SHIFT+P: Play previously played video
• SHIFT+N: Play next video in recommendation/playlist
• I key: Puts the YouTube player in mini mode
• T key: Puts the YouTube player in theater mode
• F key: Puts the YouTube player in full screen mode
• SLASH key: Place text cursor in search field to start typing
• ESCAPE key: Focus away from search field if text cursor is there
• COMMA key: Move backward per frame when video is paused
• PERIOD key: Move forward per frame when video is paused

Tip: YouTube TV mode takes the most advantage of these shortcuts. If you like navigating YouTube with keyboard shortcuts, then you will definitely like the YouTube TV mode. You can use it on both your PC and your smart TV.

All Done

I think that is all of the YouTube keyboard hotkeys. If I missed any please let me know in the comments and I will update the above list.

Qapla!