How to loop a YouTube video

Playlists on a computer

1. Open a video that is part of the playlist.
2. On the right of the page, expand the playlist if it is collapsed.
3. Click the Loop icon in the playlist box. When the last video ends, the playlist starts again from the top.

Playlists in the app

Play the playlist and look for the playlist control box under the video. Tap Loop once to repeat the whole playlist. Tap it again and a 1 appears in the middle of the icon: now only the video that is playing repeats.

One video in a playlist on a computer

YouTube’s help page for computers does not describe a loop-one mode in the playlist box. The simplest route is to right-click the player and choose Loop, which repeats the current video on its own.

TVs and games consoles

The YouTube app on TVs and consoles has a repeat control of its own, labelled Repeat in YouTube’s help. Its position varies with the device and app version, so look in the playback controls of the video.

YouTube has no setting for marking a start and end point and repeating just that stretch. The Loop option always replays the whole video. If you want a chorus, a dance step or a tricky moment on repeat, there are two realistic routes.

Make a YouTube clip

Clips are short sections of a video, between 5 and 60 seconds, and YouTube’s help says they play on a loop from the original video’s watch page.

• On a computer, sign in, open the video, select More and then Clip. Give the clip a title, drag the slider over the section and click Share clip.
• On Android, slide the options under the Subscribe button and tap Clip, set the section and tap Share clip.
• Clips are public: anyone with the link who can watch the original video can watch your clip, and it may appear elsewhere on YouTube. Creators can turn clipping off, so the option is missing on some videos, and you cannot clip a live stream unless it has DVR turned on.

Use a browser extension or third-party site

Various extensions and websites add an A-B loop to the YouTube player. They are not made or supported by YouTube, they ask for access to the pages you visit, and they can stop working when YouTube changes its player. Check the permissions and reviews before installing one.

If the video is your own, the cleanest answer is to loop part of the video from the original file and upload or share the result.

Ambient scenes, study backgrounds, screensavers and fireplace videos are often a few seconds of footage repeated for an hour or more. Viewers expect them to run on their own, so the repeats have to be in the uploaded file; you cannot ask every viewer to turn on Loop.

• Length limits: by default, YouTube accepts uploads of up to 15 minutes. Verify your Google Account (by text message or voice call) to upload longer videos. The maximum is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less.
• Start with your own footage: a loop of someone else’s video is still their video. Film your own scene, or use footage you have the rights to.
• Hide the join: in an hour-long loop the join comes round hundreds of times, and a small jump becomes the thing viewers notice. A crossfade at the join hides most of it; see ambient video loops for what makes a loop restful to watch.
• Mind the monetisation rules: if you plan to earn from the channel, read YouTube’s channel monetisation policies first. YouTube treats repetitive or mass-produced content as ineligible for monetisation, so a channel of near-identical loops may not qualify.

loop.video turns a short clip from your camera roll or computer into a long video file, ready to upload. It runs in your browser, is free, adds no watermark and never uploads your video anywhere; you upload the finished file to YouTube yourself. It cannot fetch or loop a video that is already on YouTube.

1. Click Select video and open your clip (MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV where the browser can decode it, or a GIF).
2. Press Find the best loop. It picks the start and end that join with the smallest jump and rates the result from Excellent match to Poor match. On a poor match, follow the suggestion to Use a crossfade.
3. Under Repeat, choose Length → 1 hour, or a Custom length of up to 3:00:00.
4. For music instead of the clip’s sound, set Sound to Music and Choose music; turn on Repeat the music if the track is shorter than the video.
5. Click Export video, then Download video, and upload the MP4 in YouTube Studio as usual.

An hour-long export does not mean an hour of encoding: the loop is compressed a single time and those frames are reused for each pass. Leave the join on Cut, Shape and Size at their originals and Quality on Standard, and when the loop begins on a key frame your camera’s own frames go into the file untouched. Files stop at three hours, well under YouTube’s 12-hour limit. The loop video for an hour page covers file sizes and settings in detail.