The Top YouTube Tricks and Hacks Everyone Should Know

Last Updated: November 1st, 2019

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website in the world by a considerable margin. Now owned by Google parent company Alphabet, YouTube is a versatile platform used by a variety of people for a variety of different reasons. After Facebook, the largest social media company in the world, YouTube is the platform with the next biggest reach in terms of raw audience numbers.YouTube is nice and simple to use. Whether you are there to watch content, or to upload your own, using YouTube is designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. And yet, there are also a whole host of features and capabilities which aren’t advertised. Learning how to make use of these little-known tips and tricks will help you get even more out of YouTube.

Turn Any Video Into a GIF

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GIFs are one example of the many unique ways in which people communicate with one another over the internet. Whether to convey a message or just to share a short animation, GIFs are the default method of sharing videos and animations without incurring a massive data cost.

In order to turn any YouTube video you like into a GIF, simply find the video, grab the URL from your web browser, then add the word ‘gif’ before the domain name. This will turn www.youtube.com/[videotag] to www.gifyoutube.com/[videotag]. By visiting this URL you will be taken to gifs.com where a version of the video will be waiting for you ready for editing.

Download Blocked Videos

Sometimes, for reasons of censorship or even international licensing, some YouTube videos may be blocked in your location. For example, many TV stations upload clips, or even episodes, of their most popular shows on YouTube. Often these clips are only viewable by those who are in certain geographic locations.

There are a few ways that you can bypass this problem, probably the easiest and most straightforward method is outlined in this guide from http://www.freemake.com. Being able to watch any video from anywhere in the world only adds to the potential of YouTube as a platform for education, entertainment, and information.

Find Transcripts of Videos

Not many people realize this, but YouTube automatically generates text transcripts of every video uploaded to the site. Unless the video uploader chooses specifically to hide the transcript from users then anyone can access it.

There are a number of reasons why you might want a transcript of a video file. For example, you might want to extract a particular quote from the video, or you might want a kind of map of longer videos that you are going to regularly refer to.

In order to find a video’s transcript, open it in YouTube, press on the ‘More’ button beneath the video and select ‘Transcript’ from the menu. If you cannot see the transcript button it is because the user has turned it off.

YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the internet and is the most popular video-sharing service by quite a considerable margin. There are many more hidden features tucked away on YouTube, and learning how to use them will allow you to do more with YouTube than you ever knew was possible.

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