YouTube offers a variety of content including entertainment, educational, live streams, and gaming. If you’re new to YouTube, understanding the meaning and functionality of each icon and symbol might be a bit challenging. But don’t worry, in this article, we will explain the meaning of each icon and symbol on YouTube with their use cases.
Table of Contents
Meaning of Symbols and Icons on YouTube App’s Home Screen
For the sake of uniformity, we’ve used the YouTube app for Android as a reference. You’ll find details about the YouTube app for iPhone in the respective sections.
1. Compass Icon: Tap the Compass icon below the YouTube logo in the top-left corner to explore popular categories like Music, Fashion, Games, Live videos, and more. It also shows trending videos on various topics.
2. Rectangle With Wi-Fi Like Icon: This is Cast icon and tap it will to stream the YouTube video directly on a compatible TV.
3. Bell Icon: A lot of YouTubers keep asking you to click on the Bell icon and that’s for a reason – they want YouTube to notify you whenever they add a new video. This Bell icon is like a notification center where you can find all your YouTube notifications, including likes, comments, new videos, and more.
4. Magnifying Glass Icon: Right next to the Bell icon is the Magnifying glass which is a universal icon for Search. You can use it to look for videos on a particular topic or find a specific channel.
5. Three Vertical Dots Icon on a Shorts Video: The three-dotted icon on the top-right corner of a Shorts video reveals settings like reporting, expressing disinterest, and providing feedback to YouTube about your preferences.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons in Video Preview
1. Speaker Symbol With Slash: While browsing the home feed, several videos will start automatic previews. There is a speaker symbol with a diagonal line which indicates that the audio is muted. Tapping on it will play the audio in the inline player.
2. CC Symbol: Right below the speaker icon, you will see a CC icon that allows you to enable or disable subtitles on the video content. If the CC text color appears as grey, that means subtitles (closed captions) are not available for the video.
3. Channel Profile Photo: The circular icon next to the description of a video is a YouTube channel’s profile icon. You can tap on it to head directly to that YouTube channel’s page.
4. Red Dot on Seek Bar: When a video plays on YouTube, you’ll find a white Seek bar with a red dot over it, indicating the current progress of the video. You can tap on it and scrub it to change the position of the playback in the video preview.
5. Time Stamp for Video Duration: When a video preview starts, the Time Stamp on the bottom-right corner of the video preview shows the total time remaining in that video.
6. Live Label: Based on Trends and your YouTube video preferences, you’ll see the Live Label appearing in the bottom-right corner of the video previews.
7. Channel Profile With Live Label: At times, you will see the Live icon on the YouTube channel profile. This indicates a live stream is currently happening. Tap it to join the live stream.
8. Three Vertical Dots Under a Video: Tap the three-dot icon below the video to access options like Save to Watch Later, Download, Playlist, Share, Report, and more.
9. Two Brackets With a Dot Icon: A signal icon appearing above the video means that it is a YouTube Mix video. The playlist is usually generated based on your watch history and interests.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons in YouTube Shorts
1. Thumbs Up: That’s a Like button. When you tap it, the icon will change to a blue color, indicating that you’ve added a like to the video. To undo your choice, tap the icon again and your like will be removed from the video.
2. Thumbs Down: Consider this as a Dislike button. Use it to express your dissatisfaction or disagreement with the video. Tap it again to remove the dislike from a video.
3. Chat Icon: Refer to this icon as Comments. Tap on it to view all the comments or post a new comment.
4. Right-Pointing Curved Arrow: This is a Share button that allows you to share YouTube videos with anyone.
5. Two Circular Arrows: Tap this to create your own unique Short video by using the audio or video from the original video.
6. Left Arrow: Treat this icon as the back button. Use this to go back to the previous screen.
7. Subscribe Button: This button appears next to the YouTube Channel name to help you subscribe to a YouTube channel.
8. Music Cover Icon: By tapping this icon, you’ll discover the name of the music used in the Shorts video, along with a list of other Shorts videos featuring the same music.
9. Join Button: Use this Join button to provide monthly support to your favorite YouTube creator. By becoming a member, you unlock exclusive perks, including early access to videos, live chat privileges, and access to members-only emojis.
10. Google Product Ad: This label appears when a creator promotes a product.
Tip:Â You can check the dislike count on YouTube.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons in YouTube Player
1. Play/Pause, Previous, and Next Button: By tapping the Previous button (left-pointing arrow), the player will navigate to the previous video, while the Next button (right-pointing arrow) will take you to the subsequent video. Additionally, the Pause and Play buttons allow you to stop or resume playback of the video.
2. Square Border: That’s a Fullscreen button. Tap it to switch the YouTube video into full-screen mode and tap it again to exit the full-screen mode.
3. Bell Icon Next to YouTube Channel: Tapping this icon will let you mute notifications, set personalized notifications, enable all notifications, and unsubscribe from the YouTube channel.
4. Down Arrow Icon (Comment): Hitting this icon will open the comments section of the YouTube video.
5. Down Arrow Icon (YouTube Player): Hitting this icon will minimize the current video you’re playing.
6. YouTube Music Logo: If you see the YouTube Music logo on a YouTube video, it means that you can listen to the audio of the video on YouTube Music.
7. Auto-Play Toggle: Use this icon to enable or disable auto-play on a video. A small circle with a pause icon indicates auto-play is disabled, while a small circle with a play icon indicates auto-play is enabled.
8. Cog Icon: That is the Settings icon. Tapping it will offer a variety of options to customize your viewing experience, including playback speed, quality, captions, loop video, and more.
9. Heart Icon With Dollar Symbol: If you’re a fan of a creator and want to support their work, you can use this icon (Thanks button) to pay a small amount to show your appreciation for their content and help them earn additional revenue.
10. Scissor Icon: Tapping this icon will let you create and share a short clip of up to 60 seconds from a longer video. Do note that if you don’t see the Clip button on a video, that means the original creator has disabled the clipping for their video.
11. Bookmark Icon: Tapping it will allow you to save a video to your playlists.
12. Profile Picture With Heart Icon: This icon appears when the owner of the video replies to or likes certain comments left by viewers.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons in YouTube Playlists
1. Pencil Icon: Tap this icon to edit the playlist name, description, and privacy.
2. Three-Lines Icon: Use this icon to sort your playlist video.
3. Cross Icon: Tapping it will minimize your playlist.
4. Lock Icon: A lock icon next to your name means that the playlist is private and only you can view it.
5. Criss-Cross Arrow: This is a Shuffle icon. Tap it to shuffle your playlist order.
6. Two Arrows With Rectangular Rotation: Consider this as a Repeat button. Tapping it once will turn the icon bold and will set your YouTube playlist in a loop. Tapping it again will display number 1 at the center, indicating that the current song will continue to repeat until the feature is deactivated.
7. Two-Parallel Lines Icon: Hold-n-drag this icon to reshuffle the play order on your YouTube Playlist.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons on YouTube Web Home Screen
1. Three-Parallel Lines: At the top-left corner, this familiar Hamburger menu icon takes you to various options, such as Home, Shorts, Subscriptions, History, and more.
2. Red Signal Next to Channel Name: On the YouTube Web, the indicators for Live are slightly different. Under the Subscriptions section, if you see a red signal icon next to the channel name, it means that the channel is currently live-streaming a video.
3. Blue Dot Next to Channel Name: A blue dot next to the channel name serves as a visual indicator to inform you about a new video in the relevant channel.
4. Microphone Icon: When typing is cumbersome, you can hit the microphone icon right next to the search box to use your voice to search for videos on YouTube.
5. Video Camera With + Sign: This is a Create button. You can click on it to upload a video, create a post, and go live on YouTube.
6. Left and Right Arrow: Just below the search bar, you’ll see buttons with keywords on them. Tapping them will take you to the corresponding topic. You can use the left and right arrows to navigate between them.
Meaning of Symbols and Icons on YouTube Player
1. Speaker Icon: Use this icon to increase or decrease the volume of the YouTube video.
2. White Tick in a Circle: A white tick icon next to the YouTube channel indicates that YouTube has verified the creator.
3. White Rectangular Button With Transcript Icon: This is a Closed Captions/Subtitles icon. Use it to enable or disable subtitles on a video.
4. White Rectangular Button With Small Square: Consider this icon as the Miniplayer button. Clicking on it will minimize the video player. This way you can continue watching the video in a smaller window while doing other things on your computer.
5. Rectangular Box: Refer to this icon as the Cinema Mode button. By clicking it, the video player will expand and occupy the entire screen, providing a more immersive viewing experience.
6. Music Note Icon: A music note icon next to the YouTube channel is called the Music note badge. The badge indicates that the channel is a verified official artist channel.
Decoding YouTube’s Symbol For Success
YouTube is a vast video streaming platform and sometimes even tech geeks might find it hard to understand the meaning of each symbol and icon on YouTube. That’s why we tried to cover every possible icon in this guide to make your life easier. By the way, if you’re interested, you can also learn the meaning of every icon and symbol on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter.
