If you have a relatively updated version of YouTube, you should know that there’s a double tap to seek gesture built right into it.
Trying to get to a later point in a YouTube video hasn’t always been as easy as it should. Depending on what your DPI is set to on your phone, the seek bar in a YouTube video can be rather difficult to tap on. Just testing this now on my OnePlus 3, it took me about 4 taps before I had actually tapped the seek bar in the right place to skip through the video.
These are perfectly fine on a desktop PC with a precise mouse, but it’s not ideal for smartphones and tablets.
For a while, it seemed like Google didn’t care and we had to resort to various modifications (like Xposed Modules) to get idea rewind and fast forward seek features with the YouTube application. However, a recent update to the YouTube application (that I believe was done server-side) actually added a very handy feature to it. Now, you can double tap on either the left or right half of the video in the YouTube application to seek back or seek forward through it.
So that’s what I wanted to show you today.
YouTube Double Tap to Seek
- Launch the YouTube application
- Start playing any video
- Expand the video to landscape mode (completely optional here though)
- Then double tap on the left or right half of the screen
Explanation
As you can see, the process is incredibly easy and it really doesn’t even need a step by step guide for it. I just wanted to break things down as simply as possible so you can visualize how this works. I have also created a short video of me doing this gesture in the YouTube application so again, you can see what this feature does. Again, all you need to do is launch the YouTube application and start playing any video you want.
While a video is playing (in either landscape or portrait mode), all you have to do is quickly double tap on either the left or right side of the video. Double tapping on the left side of the video will rewind the video by 10 seconds (by default). Then double tapping on the right side of the video will fast forward it through the video by, again, 10 seconds (by default). You’ll see a little animation appear that will give you an indication of what is going on too.
Now, if 10 seconds is not good enough for you, there’s a way for you to customize this little feature too. So to do that, go back to the home screen on the YouTube application (meaning exit a playing video), and then tap on the 3-dot menu icon at the top right of the screen. This will make a drop down menu appear and there will be a Settings option right in there. Tap on this Settings option and you should see the customization option right at the top.
This option is labeled Double Tap to Seek, and again it is set to 10 seconds by default. Just go ahead and tap on this option and you’ll be given a list of other time increments to choose from. So from here, you have the option of changing this from 10 seconds to 5 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds or even 60 seconds. It all depends on how you want to use this feature and I’m happy to see that Google is giving us the option to pick what we want.
I also want to note that you can do multiple double tap gestures on a side of the screen to increase the amount of time you’re seeking through the video. So if you have it set to seek by 10 seconds for each gesture, you can do two quick double taps on the video and you’ll see it skip through 20 seconds instead of doing 10, having to wait and then doing another 10.
