How To Forward A YouTube Video With Keyboard Shortcuts
You can skip ahead or rewind a YouTube video on both iOS and Android by tapping either side of your screen. The rewind and forward options are limited in that they only let you rewind or forward by 10 seconds. This limitation is a result of the device that you’re using i.e., the screen can only have room for so many controls when most of it is taken up by a video player. The web version of YouTube is a lot more flexible and you can forward a YouTube video with keyboard shortcuts. The shortcuts, and the obviously omnipresent keyboard provides more extensive control over the player.
The keyboard shortcuts do not limit you to just 5 or 10 second jumps. Instead, you can skip ahead by 10%, 20%, 30% … 90% of the video. This makes the controls more useful and specific to the length of a video. For example, if you want to forward a thirty minute long video, you can forward it by a certain percentage and not miss too much of it. Likewise, if you forward a two minute video by say 10%, you won’t have skipped too much of it.
Forward A YouTube Video
The keyboard shortcuts work only when a YouTube video is playing. They’re the number keys located along the top of your keyboard. The 1 key, when tapped, will skip 10% of the video. Likewise, the 2, 3, 4, … 9 will skip ahead by 20%, 30%, 40%,… 90% of the video.
If you’re not a fan of skipping ahead by a certain percentage of a video and are more comfortable with forwarding or rewinding by an absolute time you can use the left and right arrow keys to forward and rewind it by five seconds.
These keyboard shortcuts are pretty reliable so you can rest assured that they will work. Unlike the spacebar that rarely responds, these work every single time, no extra effort needed. If you have a numpad on your keyboard, you can use the number keys on it to the same effect. These keyboard shortcuts can be used once on a video i.e., if you tap the 3 key to skip 30% of the video, you cannot tap it again to skip the next 30% of it. Once you’ve skipped ahead, the keyboard shortcuts do not reset the length of the video they can skip ahead to relative to how much is left.
The number keys only work in one direction; you can go forward, but not jump back. If you need to jump back, use the left arrow key to rewind the video by five seconds.
