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The YouTube Embedded Player API explains how to embed a YouTube player in your application and also defines the parameters that are available in the YouTube embedded player.

30-60 Minutes to read

Overview

By appending parameters to the IFrame URL, you can customize the playback experience in your application. For example, you can automatically play videos using the autoplay parameter or cause a video to play repeatedly using the loop parameter. You can also use the enablejsapi parameter to enable the player to be controlled via the IFrame Player API.

This page currently defines all parameters supported in any YouTube embedded player. Each parameter definition identifies the players that support the corresponding parameter.

Embedded players must have a viewport that is at least 200px by 200px. If the player displays controls, it must be large enough to fully display the controls without shrinking the viewport below the minimum size. We recommend 16:9 players be at least 480 pixels wide and 270 pixels tall.

Embed a Player using an <iframe> tag

Define an <iframe> tag in your application in which the src URL specifies the content that the player will load as well as any other player parameters you want to set. The <iframe> tag’s height and width parameters specify the dimensions of the player.

If you create the <iframe> element yourself (rather than using the IFrame Player API to create it), you can append player parameters directly to the end of the URL. The URL has the following format:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID

The <iframe> tag below would load a 640x360px player that would play the YouTube video M7lc1UVf-VE. Since the URL sets the autoplay parameter to 1, the video would play automatically once the player has loaded.

<iframe
  id="ytplayer"
  type="text/html"
  width="640" height="360"
  src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE?autoplay=1&origin=http://example.com"
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Follow the IFrame Player API instructions to insert a video player in your web page or application after the Player API’s Javascript code has loaded. The second parameter in the constructor for the video player is an object that specifies player options. Within that object, the playerVars property identifies player parameters.

The HTML and Javascript code below shows a simple example that inserts a YouTube player into the page element that has an id value of ytplayer. The onYouTubePlayerAPIReady() function specified here is called automatically when the IFrame Player API code has loaded. This code does not define any player parameters and also does not define other event handlers.

<div id="ytplayer"></div>
<script>
  // Load the IFrame Player API code asynchronously.
  var tag = document.createElement('script');
  tag.src = "https://www.youtube.com/player_api";
  var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
  firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag);
  // Replace the 'ytplayer' element with an <iframe> and
  // YouTube player after the API code downloads.
  var player;
  function onYouTubePlayerAPIReady() {
    player = new YT.Player('ytplayer', {
      height: '360',
      width: '640',
      videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE'
    });
  }
</script>

Select content to play

You can configure your embedded player to load a video, a playlist, or a user’s uploaded videos.

The following list explains these options for loading a video. For an IFrame embed, the YouTube video ID for the video that you want to load is specified in the IFrame’s src URL.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID

If you are using the YouTube Data API (v3), you can programmatically construct these URLs by retrieving video IDs from search results, playlist item resources, video resources, or other resources. After obtaining a video ID, replace the VIDEO_ID text in the URLs above with that value to create the player URL.

For loading a playlist, set the listType player parameter to playlist. In addition, set the list player parameter to the YouTube playlist ID that you want to load.

https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLAYLIST_ID

Note that you need to prepend the playlist ID with the letters PL as shown in the following example:

https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLC77007E23FF423C6

If you are using the YouTube Data API (v3), you can programmatically construct these URLs by retrieving playlist IDs from search results, channel resources, or activity resources. After obtaining a playlist ID, replace the PLAYLIST_ID text in the URL above with that value.

For Loading a user’s uploaded videos, set the listType player parameter to user_uploads. In addition, set the list player parameter to the YouTube username whose uploaded videos you want to load.

https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=user_uploads&list=USERNAME

Supported parameters

All of the following parameters are optional.

autoplay

This parameter specifies whether the initial video will automatically start to play when the player loads. Supported values are 0 or 1. The default value is 0.

If you enable Autoplay, playback will occur without any user interaction with the player; playback data collection and sharing will therefore occur upon page load.

Type Default

0|1

0

cc_lang_pref

This parameter specifies the default language that the player will use to display captions. Set the parameter’s value to an ISO 639-1 two-letter language code.

If you use this parameter and also set the cc_load_policy parameter to 1, then the player will show captions in the specified language when the player loads. If you do not also set the cc_load_policy parameter, then captions will not display by default, but will display in the specified language if the user opts to turn captions on.

Type Default

string

no defaults

cc_load_policy

Setting the parameter’s value to 1 causes closed captions to be shown by default, even if the user has turned captions off. The default behavior is based on user preference.

Type Default

0|1

no defaults

color

This parameter specifies the color that will be used in the player’s video progress bar to highlight the amount of the video that the viewer has already seen. Valid parameter values are red and white, and, by default, the player uses the color red in the video progress bar.

Type Default

red|white

red

controls

This parameter indicates whether the video player controls are displayed:

  • controls=0 – Player controls do not display in the player.

  • controls=1 (default) – Player controls display in the player.

Type Default

0|1

1

disablekb

Setting the parameter’s value to 1 causes the player to not respond to keyboard controls. The default value is 0, which means that keyboard controls are enabled. Currently supported keyboard controls are:

  • Spacebar or [k]: Play / Pause

  • Arrow Left: Jump back 5 seconds in the current video

  • Arrow Right: Jump ahead 5 seconds in the current video

  • Arrow Up: Volume up

  • Arrow Down: Volume Down

  • [f]: Toggle full-screen display

  • [j]: Jump back 10 seconds in the current video

  • [l]: Jump ahead 10 seconds in the current video

  • [m]: Mute or unmute the video

  • [0-9]: Jump to a point in the video. 0 jumps to the beginning of the video, 1 jumps to the point 10% into the video, 2 jumps to the point 20% into the video, and so forth.

Type Default

0|1

0

enablejsapi

Setting the parameter’s value to 1 enables the player to be controlled via IFrame Player API calls. The default value is 0, which means that the player cannot be controlled using that API.

For more information on the IFrame API and how to use it, see the IFrame API documentation.

Type Default

0|1

0

end

This parameter specifies the time, measured in seconds from the start of the video, when the player should stop playing the video. The parameter value is a positive integer.

Note that the time is measured from the beginning of the video and not from either the value of the start player parameter or the startSeconds parameter, which is used in YouTube Player API functions for loading or queueing a video.

Type Default

integer

no defaults

fs

Setting this parameter to 0 prevents the fullscreen button from displaying in the player. The default value is 1, which causes the fullscreen button to display.

Type Default

0|1

1

hl

Sets the player’s interface language. The parameter value is an ISO 639-1 two-letter language code or a fully specified locale. For example, fr and fr-ca are both valid values. Other language input codes, such as IETF language tags (BCP 47) might also be handled properly.

The interface language is used for tooltips in the player and also affects the default caption track. Note that YouTube might select a different caption track language for a particular user based on the user’s individual language preferences and the availability of caption tracks.

Type Default

string

no defaults

iv_load_policy

Setting the parameter’s value to 1 causes video annotations to be shown by default, whereas setting to 3 causes video annotations to not be shown by default. The default value is 1.

Type Default

1|3

1

list

The list parameter, in conjunction with the listType parameter, identifies the content that will load in the player.

  • If the listType parameter value is user_uploads, then the list parameter value identifies the YouTube channel whose uploaded videos will be loaded.

  • If the listType parameter value is playlist, then the list parameter value specifies a YouTube playlist ID. In the parameter value, you need to prepend the playlist ID with the letters PL as shown in the example below.

https://www.youtube.com/embed?
    listType=playlist
    &list=PLC77007E23FF423C6

  • If the listType parameter value is search, then the list parameter value specifies the search query.

This functionality is deprecated and will no longer be supported as of 15 November 2020.

If you specify values for the list and listType parameters, the IFrame embed URL does not need to specify a video ID.

listType

The listType parameter, in conjunction with the list parameter, identifies the content that will load in the player. Valid parameter values are playlist and user_uploads.

If you specify values for the list and listType parameters, the IFrame embed URL does not need to specify a video ID.

A third value, search, has been deprecated and will no longer be supported as of 15 November 2020.
Type Default

user_uploads|playlist

no defaults

loop

In the case of a single video player, a setting of 1 causes the player to play the initial video again and again. In the case of a playlist player (or custom player), the player plays the entire playlist and then starts again at the first video.

Supported values are 0 and 1, and the default value is 0.

This parameter has limited support in IFrame embeds. To loop a single video, set the loop parameter value to 1 and set the playlist parameter value to the same video ID already specified in the Player API URL:

 
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID?playlist=VIDEO_ID&loop=1
Type Default

0|1

0

modestbranding

This parameter is deprecated and has no effect. See the deprecation announcement for more information.

origin

This parameter provides an extra security measure for the IFrame API and is only supported for IFrame embeds. If you are using the IFrame API, which means you are setting the enablejsapi parameter value to 1, you should always specify your domain as the origin parameter value.

Type Default

string

no defaults

playlist

This parameter specifies a comma-separated list of video IDs to play. If you specify a value, the first video that plays will be the VIDEO_ID specified in the URL path, and the videos specified in the playlist parameter will play thereafter.

Type Default

array

no defaults

playsinline

This parameter controls whether videos play inline or fullscreen on iOS. Valid values are:

  • 0: Results in fullscreen playback. This is currently the default value, though the default is subject to change.

  • 1: Results in inline playback for mobile browsers and for WebViews created with the allowsInlineMediaPlayback property set to YES.

Type Default

0|1

0

rel

Prior to the change, this parameter indicates whether the player should show related videos when playback of the initial video ends.

  • If the parameter’s value is set to 1, which is the default value, then the player does show related videos.

  • If the parameter’s value is set to 0, then the player does not show related videos.

After the change, you will not be able to disable related videos. Instead, if the rel parameter is set to 0, related videos will come from the same channel as the video that was just played.

Type Default

0|1

1

start

This parameter causes the player to begin playing the video at the given number of seconds from the start of the video. The parameter value is a positive integer. Note that similar to the seekTo function, the player will look for the closest keyframe to the time you specify. This means that sometimes the play head may seek to just before the requested time, usually no more than around two seconds.

Type Default

integer

no defaults

widget_referrer

This parameter identifies the URL where the player is embedded. This value is used in YouTube Analytics reporting when the YouTube player is embedded in a widget, and that widget is then embedded in a web page or application. In that scenario, the origin parameter identifies the widget provider’s domain, but YouTube Analytics should not identify the widget provider as the actual traffic source. Instead, YouTube Analytics uses the widget_referrer parameter value to identify the domain associated with the traffic source.

Type Default

string

no defaults