Undoubtedly, YouTube is the best video streaming website out there, which is being used by millions of people from across the globe. No matter whether you want to watch cooking recipes or trailer of a movie, you can find everything on YouTube. Although YouTube website offers a couple of options so that users can manage everything while watching or to watch something, you may not find some useful functionalities if you do not already know about them. That is why you should read this article so that you can know about some of the most useful YouTube URL tips and tricks to get most out of YouTube website.

Please note that all these tips and tricks are compatible with the web version of YouTube and you might not execute all of them on mobile.

Bypass Age Restriction on YouTube

On YouTube, countless content creators upload different types of videos, and as a parent, you might not want to allow your kid to watch 18+ content on YouTube. The good thing is YouTube has already recognized this issue, and that is why they have enabled an internal functionality called ‘age restriction.’ As it says, if a video has been flagged as 18+ content, viewers need to sign into their Google account to watch that video on YouTube. However, if you do not want to do that to watch such video on YouTube, you can follow this guide.

Generally, YouTube has the URL format like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDID

If YouTube is showing some warning message, you need to add “gen” in front of youtube.com. The new URL will look like this-

https://www.genyoutube.com/watch?v=ABCDID

It will redirect you to another website, where you can watch age restricted YouTube video without signing in.

Save YouTube Video

Although the YouTube mobile app lets you watch almost all the videos offline on mobile if you download, there is no way to do the same on a computer. In case you want to watch a video continuously, and you want to download it to your PC, here is what you can do. Although there are so many YouTube video downloaders available in the market, you can use this URL trick. You need to add “ss” in front of youtube.com. That means if the URL of a YouTube video is this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDID

you need to tweak the URL like this-

https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=ABCDID

It will redirect you to another website so that you can download the video to your PC. This is also possible to choose different qualities.

Switch to YouTube TV

No doubt that YouTube’s web interface is pretty good and distraction free. However, if you want to try something new, you can start watching your videos on YouTube TV interface. YouTube TV is made for smart TV. However, if you want to try it on your PC, here is what you need to do. You can visit this website. You might miss some features. For instance, you cannot right-click on the video and so on.

Download Video Thumbnail

Video thumbnail plays a vital role in YouTube since content creators use it to summarize the video. If you are making a case study or doing some research and you want to download the YouTube video thumbnail to your computer, here is what you can do. To download the video thumbnail, you can enter the video ID in this following URL-

https://img.youtube.com/vi/video_id/maxresdefault.jpg

If the URL of a YouTube video is this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qAAx0zewmo

“3qAAx0zewmo” is the video ID.

After entering that in your address bar, you can find the image in your browser. Later, you can download that image to your PC.

Skip A Part While Sharing A Video

Let’s assume that you are sharing a video with a friend or someone, but you do not want to bore him/her with the intro or something. At such moments, you can skip that part and copy the link of that video right from YouTube. To do that, play the video on YouTube and make sure the unnecessary part is over. After that, right-click on the video player and select “Copy video URL at current time.” Now you can share that link with anyone.

Create Playlist Without Account

If you are using YouTube, chances are you might already have a Google account. Anybody can create a playlist so that he/she can play those videos without searching for them all the times. If you want to do the same but you do not have a Google account, you can follow this guide. However, you need to collect all the video IDs those you want to add to your playlist. After that, open the notepad and paste the video IDs one after one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_videos?video_ids=1st_ID,2nd_ID,3rd_ID

After that, you need to enter the whole URL in your browser’s address bar. After opening, you should find the playlist on your screen. Since you want to play those videos all the times, you can bookmark that URL as well.