A major category of these are special YouTube URLs. Let’s look at some YouTube URL tricks to help you get more out of the service, like turning videos into GIFs.
1. Link to Any Part of a Video
Typically, when you copy a link to a YouTube video, it starts from the beginning. If you want to show someone just a bit of a video or skip a lengthy intro, you can append a time stamp to the URL to start it at that time.
You can do this in a couple of ways. By manually adding &t=YmXXs to the end of a video URL, you’ll set it to start Y minutes and XX seconds into the video. You can omit minutes, or use only seconds, such as 90s for a minute and a half. So this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y
Can be shared 90 seconds in using this URL:
youtube.com/watch?v=7RWI3-8N_-Y&t=1m30s
If you don’t want to use the manual method, pause the video at the time you’d like to share it at, then right-click and choose Copy video URL at current time. And there are plenty more YouTube sharing tricks worth knowing.
2. Loop a Video Infinitely
YouTube is a great place for listening to music, especially video game soundtracks for studying. If you’re into a song and want to listen to it over and over, you can add repeater after youtube in the URL. This will open the video at YouTubeRepeater.com, which loops the video for you.
So change this URL:
youtube.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8
To this to loop it:
youtuberepeater.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8
You can tweak the playback using the options below the video if you want to start or end at different points. To do this without changing the URL, just right-click any YouTube video and toggle Loop on.
3. Bypass Age Restrictions
YouTube has age restrictions on certain videos that are flagged as containing mature content. Whether you don’t have a YouTube account or don’t feel like signing in to watch one, you can perform a little trick to bypass the sign-in.
Take a YouTube URL for a restricted video like this:
youtube.com/watch?v=wvZ6nB3cl1w
Simply append gen in front of youtube as shown here:
genyoutube.com/watch?v=wvZ6nB3cl1w
The video will open on a new page that features no age restriction.
4. Skip a Certain Amount of the Intro
Similar to the trick that lets you pick the start time, you can also choose to skip a certain number of seconds at the start of the video. You can’t specify minutes with this one, so use 90 (seconds) for a minute and a half.
So, to skip the first 30 seconds of this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=uA0nSkSxA3E
Add &start=30 to the end of the URL and get this:
youtube.com/watch?v=uA0nSkSxA3E&start=30
This is similar to the timing one but is a bit faster to type and doesn’t require you to remember a certain time stamp.
5. Claim a Custom YouTube Channel URL
If you have your own YouTube channel and meet certain requirements, you can set a vanity URL for your page. This is much easier to remember than the default random string of characters, so it’s worth doing for easier linking.
To get a custom URL, your channel needs to meet the following criteria:
- Have at least 100 subscribers
- Be at least 30 days old
- Have an uploaded profile photo and channel art
If you satisfy these, head to YouTube’s Advanced settings page by clicking the gear in the top-right, choosing Settings, and clicking Advanced settings on the left. Here under Channel settings, you’ll see the text You’re eligible for a custom URL if that’s the case. Click the link next to this and proceed through the steps to create a custom URL and confirm the terms of use.
Once your custom URL is set up, anyone can head to youtube.com/[YourCustomURL] to visit your channel. Note that you can only have one custom URL at a time. You can’t change it, but you’re allowed to remove your current URL and create a new one, if it’s available.
