5 Ways to Change the Playback Speed in the YouTube Android (.5x, 1.25x etc)

There are couple of reasons, why you may want to change the playback speed on YouTube —

You want to quickly watch a video lecture to save some time
You want to find a particular section in a video when hopping around from point to point is not an option
Or let just say, you prefer following a tutorial video in .75x speed, instead of watching the same section over and over again

Now, while the web version of YouTube gives you an option to change the playback speed of any videos. Unfortunately, there are no such options in the official YouTube app for Android.

Changing YouTube Playback Speed

So here are some methods through which you can do that on your mobile phones.

Table of Contents

1. Using BSPlayer app

In this method, we will use the BSPlayer app to control the playback speed.

So follow these instructions:

Head over to PlayStore and install BSPlayer
Open the YouTube app, open the video and then tap on the Share button
Select BSPlayer from the menu shown, it will open the BSPlayer app and the video will start playing
Now, in the BSPlayer app, you will see three circular buttons on the screen, select the playback button and it will then expand.
Now, using the +/- buttons to set the playback speed.

Why BSPlayer and not any other media player app?

Well, because, it’s the only app that works. But if you want to use MX Player or any other player app of your choice then the 2^nd method is for you.

2. Using the NewPipe App

NewPipe is frontend app YouTube that is you can play any YouTube video from this app without having YouTube app. But this app is not on Google PlayStore and you have to download it from F-Droid.

If you want to use MX Player

Now, follow these instructions:

Head over to F-Droid and download the NewPipe App and install it.
Fire the NewPipe app then tap on the 3 vertical dots on the top right corner and go to Settings
In the settings, tick “Use external video player” option
Go back and play the video. A dialog box will open, select the MX Player app or any other app of your choice
In the MX Player app, tap on the 3 vertical dots, select Play then select Speed and by using +/- buttons set the playback speed.

Using this method you can play any YouTube video using any third party video player like BSPlayer, VLC. But make sure the video player you choose supports playback speed control.

[UPDATE: 21 July ’17]

Native Playback Control in NewPipe app

With the latest update(ver. 0.9.10) to the NewPipe app, it now supports native playback control.

3. Bookmark Method

Thanks to the folks over StackExchange, now you can also use Google Chrome app to play YouTube video. Start by creating a bookmark which when clicked while watching the video, can be used to set the playback speed. The advantage of using this method is, one, you don’t have to download an additional third-party app and second, Chrome for Android also support background playback (at least for now.)

Here is how to do it.

- Launch the Google Chrome app. You are required to have a bookmark for any site, say YouTube. If you don’t go to youtube.com and bookmark it.
- Now, on the Google Chrome home screen, tap on the 3 vertical dots on the top right corner and select Bookmarks
- Tap on the 3 dots on the YouTube bookmark and select Edit
- Paste this javascript code in the URL section and rename this bookmark to ”yspeed” or anything you want.

javascript: document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].playbackRate = parseInt( prompt("Enter Rate") );

Now, go to m.youtube.com, play any video and then tap on the URL box
Now, type “yspeed” in the URL section, the bookmark will appear. Tap on that, now a dialog box will appear and then put the desired speed in the dialog box

This method will even work on the desktop Google Chrome browser. With this, you can set custom speed like 1.7x which is not available on desktop YouTube site.

4. Using Desktop Mode

This is probably the easiest way to change YouTube playback speed, and it will work will any browser which supports desktop mode ( look for an option like “request desktop mode”)

Now, follow these steps:

Fire up Firefox or Chrome and go to youtube.com
Tap on the 3 vertical dots on the top right corner of your browser
Now, tap on the “request desktop mode” option and the site will reload
Play the video and then tap on the gear icon
Select your desired speed from the dialog box.

The only con with this method is that you can’t have a custom speed like 1.7x and you have to select the speeds from the preset ones.

5. Firefox Extension- Video Speed Controller

So if you’re a Firefox user then there is no need to download any other YouTube app or media player app as Firefox itself has a way to control playback speed.

Follow these steps:

Fire up the Firefox browser
Open Video Speed Controller extension page and tap on the iPhone-styled button to add it to your Firefox
Now, go to youtube.com and play the video. You will see “1.00” written on the top left corner of the player in a small box. Tap on that and then use +/- buttons to control the playback speed.

I like keeping two browsers, one is Google Chrome for regular web surfing and the other one is Firefox for using these types of extensions.

Wrapping Up: YouTube Playback Speed Control in Mobile

These were the best methods we found. I like the Firefox Extension method the most because it’s easy and I get to use some other Firefox extensions too. Tell us which one you will use or if you know about any other method in the comments.

Also Read: Automatically Transcribe YouTube Video/Audio with Google Docs

Android YouTube