How to enable picture-in-picture for YouTube on your Mac

If you want to play some music in the background or have your favorite YouTube video popping up in the corner of your screen, YouTube’s picture-in-picture feature should be on your radar. This allows you to turn your YouTube videos into a small pop-up window that can be moved and repositioned on your screen.

Mac users have several ways to enable the feature, including support on Safari and Google Chrome. There’s also a nifty Chrome extension that makes it simple with just one button press. Here’s how to enable picture-in-picture for YouTube on your Mac.

Use Safari

Step 1: With the YouTube video open in Safari, right-click on the actual video. However, you will not see the PIP option in this menu. Instead, you have to right-click again elsewhere on the video to bring up a second context menu, as shown above, while the first is still visible on screen.

On a MacBook, hold down the Control key while pressing the trackpad. Repeat the operation to access the second menu.

2nd step: Select the Enter picture in picture option listed in the context menu.

Step 3: Unlike YouTube’s Miniplayer option found in the video’s built-in toolbar, the video should appear in a separate, smaller-scale window outside of the Safari browser. You can open any app, desktop program, or browser tab and the video will continue to play. However, you must keep the parent tab open, otherwise the PIP window will close.

Step 4: To move the window, simply move the mouse cursor over it, click and hold the mouse button, then drag the mouse. Release the button to complete window placement. On a MacBook, press one finger on the trackpad, then press and drag another finger to move the window. Lift both fingers to place the window.

Step 5: To return the video to its YouTube page in Safari, click or tap the button X or the PIP button next to Play pause inside the PIP window.

Use Google Chrome

Step 1: With the YouTube video open in Google Chrome, right-click on the actual video. However, you will not see the PIP option in this menu. Instead, you have to right-click again elsewhere on the video to bring up a second context menu, as shown above, while the first is still visible on screen.

On a MacBook, hold down the Control key while pressing the trackpad. Repeat the operation to access the second menu.

2nd step: Select the Picture in picture option listed in the second menu.

Much like Safari’s PIP option, the video should appear in a separate, smaller-scale window outside of the Google Chrome browser. You can open any app, program, or new tab, but don’t close the video’s parent tab.

Step 3: To move the window, simply move the mouse cursor over it, click and hold the mouse button, then drag the mouse. Release the button to complete window placement. On a MacBook, press one finger on the trackpad, then press and drag another finger to move the window. Lift both fingers to place the window.

Step 4: The methods for returning the video to the parent YouTube page are the same: click or tap the button X or the PIP button next to Play pause.

Use Google’s Chrome extension

If all that right-clicking is too annoying (in Chrome), you can always install Google’s extension.

Step 1: Go to the Chrome Web Store and install Google’s Picture-in-Picture extension by clicking Add to Chrome.

2nd step: With Chrome still open, load the desired YouTube video in PIP mode.

Step 3: THE Picture-in-picture extensionThe icon should be next to your Google profile picture in the upper right corner of the browser. Otherwise, click or tap the Extension cords (it looks like a puzzle piece), then click the pin next to the extension listed in the drop-down menu.

Step 4: Click it Picture-in-picture extension icon. The video should appear in a separate, smaller window outside of the Google Chrome browser – no right-click required.

Step 5: To move the window, simply move the mouse cursor over it, click and hold the mouse button, then drag the mouse. Release the button to complete window placement. On a MacBook, press one finger on the trackpad, then press and drag another finger to move the window. Lift both fingers to place the window.

Step 6: The methods for returning the video to the parent YouTube page are the same: click or tap the button X or the PIP button next to Play pause.

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