YouTube is always rolling out new features every year. Strangely, not many of its users know about these features. Most of them still think YouTube is only about watching videos.
But beyond the traditional video-viewing feature of YouTube, there are lots of other exciting things you can do on the platform. Like converting videos on YouTube to MP3 or downloading movies directly to your phone.
But these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Read on to discover some of the most exciting stunts you didn’t know you could pull on YouTube.
Convert any YouTube video to GIF
How do you think your friends will react if you send a GIF featuring some of the best scenes from a recent movie you guys saw together?
Most likely, they’ll be marveled at your tech-ingenuity!
But guess what? You don’t have to be a tech genius to do it. Just go to YouTube, search for the video you’d like to extract a GIF out of. Then add the word “gif” right before the domain name, so it reads something like this, www.gifyoutube.com/[your-video-tag].
This will take you to the gifs.com page where you can set the duration of the GIF you want, customize it to your taste, and add any captions you like.
Download or convert a video you like
Unfortunately, YouTube’s term of service doesn’t allow users to download or convert content directly from the site. Luckily for you, there are sites like youtubemp3.pro, which allows you to convert YouTube to mp3, convert YouTube to mp4, and download any YouTube video you like.
Just copy the video’s URL from YouTube while it’s playing and then visit www.youtubemp3.pro/en2. Once the site loads, paste the URL you’ve copied into the box provided and choose the size, quality, and format of the video you want.
Click “convert,” and voila, your video is ready to go!
Play YouTube videos in the background
One of the most frustrating parts of YouTube is that you cannot play videos without keeping YouTube open. While watching a video, if you mistakenly hit the home button on your phone, the video stops immediately.
But guess what?
There is a way to make your YouTube videos (at least the audio) run in the background even though YouTube isn’t what is showing on your phone.
How?
On iOS
- On your default phone browser (Safari), open the video you’re trying to watch on YouTube.
- Start the video and hit the home button to go out of Safari. The video should stop as expected. Don’t worry!
- Swipe up on the phone’s home screen to show the Action Center.
- Swipe left to show the second screen on the Action Center. The details of the video you were trying to play should appear.
- Tap play to continue playing the video. But this time in the background.
On Android
- Go to Chrome and open the video you’re trying to watch on YouTube.
- Hit the “Settings” bar in the top right corner.
- Click the ellipses (the three dots) and select “Request Desktop Site.
- Start playing the video on YouTube again.
- Tap the home button to minimize away from the YouTube’s page of your browser.
- The audio of the video should start blazing in the background while you run other apps.
Share a link that starts a video wherever you want
Let’s say you want to share a piece of news or an info with your friends. But the info is locked away within an 18-minute video on YouTube. How would you do it?
If you’re like most YouTubers, you’ll likely send your friends the YouTube link to the video and ask them to fast-forward to the eleventh minute where they’ll see what you’re trying to show them.
But why put your friends through such stress when you can share them a specific YouTube time link that starts the video at whichever time you choose?
Go to “Share” on the YouTube video you’re trying to send and check the box “Start at” to see how this is done.
Extract video transcripts
Have you ever felt like extracting a quote or a statement from a YouTube video, but the thought of pausing-and-typing discouraged you? Once upon a time, I used to feel this way too.
Until I discovered that YouTube always generates a written transcript for all the videos uploaded on its platform.
Don’t know where to find a video’s transcripts? Open the video and go to “More” just below the video title and click on “Transcripts” from the drop-down menu.
If you check but can’t seem to find a transcript, it means that the video owner has chosen to hide it.
Save videos to watch later
Perhaps you become suddenly too busy to complete a video you’re watching. You need not worry. You can save the video to “watch later.”
How?
On the page of the video you’re watching, click the “Add to” icon below the video title and check the box next to the playlist you’d like to add the video too.
Haven’t yet created playlists on YouTube? Follow this link to learn about how to create YouTube playlists.
Add sound effects to your YouTube videos
Do you have a video you want to add some sound effects or music to? Or a YouTube video you want to mix a sound effect into? Feel free to take from YouTube’s music and sound effects library. There are a lot of high-quality 320kbps audio tracks and sound effects on the library, all of which are available for free.
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