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Is there a way to speed up YouTube playback?

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5 Answers 5

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You'll need to switch to HTML5 YouTube player: http://www.youtube.com/html5

Then you'll see a "Normal" button next to the "360p" quality button that allows both faster and slower playback.

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  • +1 on using the HTML5 player. As long as your browser supports HTML5 fully the speed should increase, and also changing the quality will help a ton!
    – ComputerLocus
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 2:02
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For more fine-grained playback speed control (example: 3.2x speed up or speed down to 0.5x), here is how:

YouTube HTML5 method

HTML5 YouTube player mode should be activated first if you haven't yet.

Open up JavaScript Console in your Browser. I use Command + Option + J on my Chrome/Mac and Ctrl + Shift + J on my Chrome/Ubuntu.

The keyboard shortcut or the location of the Console can vary according to your Browser or OS so you can refer to the docs for Chrome's console or Firefox's console for doing this faster next time.

In the Console, paste the following JavaScript code and press Enter key (for example 2.5x speed). 

document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].playbackRate = 2.5;

Refreshing the page will change it back to the normal speed. Or execute the following code:

document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].playbackRate = 1;

This also works on Vimeo's HTML5 player.

Faster workflow

  • When watching a list of videos, undock (top right icon) the Developer Tools for less distraction.

  • Execute the above JavaScript code.

  • When a new video starts you can re-execute the code by hitting the Up button and Enter.

VLC Media Player method

  1. Go to File -> Open Network Stream menu option.
  2. Paste in the main YouTube video URL (Example URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew_tdY0V4Zo).
  3. Hit the Play button. Change the video playback speed of the video using keyboard shortcuts [ to decrease or ] to increase speed.

Hope it helps.

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The other answers are all out of date.

On desktop you can change playback speed by clicking on the settings gear in the bottom right corner:

enter image description here

On mobile, you can change it by tapping on the video and then tapping on the settings gear in the upper right corner. Details may vary based on your app version; the settings gear may be 3 dots and the word "more".

The official help article on the subject is https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7509567

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You can try SpeedBit Video Accelerator or can use HTML5 YouTube player as told by Bernhard Hofmann.

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Shameless self promotion

If you want to speed up YouTube playback on your iPhone or iPad, you can use Swift Player app to do so. It will let you change speed of video and audio from a lot of other sites as well.

http://tapparatus.com/swift

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jatEBbVPK7w

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  • 1
    Do you have any affiliation with this product?
    – ale
    Commented Sep 24, 2012 at 18:23
  • 1
    Yes, I was frustrated enough not to find a good solution for this that I build it for myself. I've updated the description to clarify.
    – dizy
    Commented Sep 25, 2012 at 3:18
  • The reason I ask: May I promote here?
    – ale
    Commented Sep 25, 2012 at 12:42
  • 1
    Yea, your right, and I think I'm now complying by disclosing.
    – dizy
    Commented Sep 26, 2012 at 21:44

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