The web version of YouTube supports Picture-in-picture (PIP) mode by default. To activate PIP on YouTube, simply click on the small MiniPlayer icon in the bottom-right corner of the video player. If you don’t see the icon, make two consecutive right clicks on YouTube video and select the picture-in-picture option from the drop-down menu. This will launch the video in a floating window, which you can move to any position and, or resize it by dragging from one of the sides or corners.
While the native PIP mode works fine, it’s quite limited in functionality. You cannot use it on other tabs outside YouTube, cannot check comments, and more than anything you cannot resize to the PIP window into the size you like. Fortunately, you can get all of these features with third-party apps. This is a lengthy one-time set-up process, but once you set it up, it only takes one-click to activate it. Let’s check it out.
Also read:-Â How to Watch YouTube Together on Android And iOS
Advanced PIP mode for YouTube
To get started, Open YouTube on your desktop and click on the three-dot menu in the browser and select “More Tools” and then click “Create Shortcut”.
Now you can see a pop-up, check on the checkmark beside “Open as Window” and click on the “Create” button. This will install YouTube as an app on your Windows.
Now download the app called “Stay on top“, this will the complete app stays like a pip. Once downloaded, open the system tray of windows and right-click on the Stay on top icon.
Here you can see all the apps that are currently in open, just select the YouTube app from it. That’s it YouTube app will come to the top. You can close it, minimize it, reopen it, but whenever the YouTube app is open, it will be on top just like the PIP mode.
But still, this is far from the PiP mode because when you click on Full-screen, it occupies the complete screen. But when you are not on the Full-screen, it is just a YouTube app floating around.
To use it like complete PiP mode, install the extension called YouTube Windowed Fullscreen. Once done, you will be redirected to a settings page, where you can add a shortcut key. Select a shortcut that you don’t normally use and click on save.
That’s it. Now if you want to open the PiP mode, just click on the shortcut icon in the omnibar and click on your full-screen shortcut.
With this, you can resize the PIP screen however you want, access all the tools including the timeline just by hovering on the PIP, scroll down and check out comments, or else you can get back and navigate the entire YouTube just from the PIP screen.
Wrapping up
The best part is, you can minimize it instantly by click on the minimize button and still listen to the video and open the app again just like the PIP mode. This is useful when you want to remove the distraction for some time which is something you cannot do with the native PIP-mode option.
Also Read:Â How to Create Gifs From YouTube Videos
