How to Customize an Embedded YouTube Video

Alter the video size, color, and other features

by
Gretchen Siegchrist
Writer
Gretchen Siegchrist is a professional videographer who enjoys helping amateurs master the basics of desktop video.
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Gretchen Siegchrist
Updated on October 06, 2020

When you embed a YouTube video, you display the original video as it's seen on YouTube. However, with just a few clicks, you can completely change how the video will appear when embedded on a webpage.

You might want to customize an embedded YouTube video to make it fit better on your website. Or maybe you want to stop your viewers from making the video full screen so that they see more of your website.

How to Change the Embed Options

There are a couple ways to copy a YouTube video's embed code, but the method we'll use is the one that gives us the visual options selector.

  1. On YouTube, select SHARE below the video.

    YouTube SHARE

  2. Select Embed.

    YouTube embed

  3. Below the embed code, under EMBED OPTIONS, check the box next to Show player controls.

  4. Select COPY to copy the YouTube video embed code.

More Customization Options

As you clicked the above options, you might have noticed the embed code change. This is because with each setting you enable or disable, the code updates to reflect how the video should behave.

Highlighted sections to embed video.

YouTube allows for other alterations if you want to manually change the code. For example, setting the fs parameter to 0 prevents viewers from making the YouTube video full screen. Adding the start parameter to your code lets you choose at which point in the video to start the stream.

If you'd rather not update the code yourself, you can use this custom video embed generator. Just paste the video ID into the box on that page and enable any of the settings you see there to instantly change your embed code. Some of the options let you customize the width and height of the video player, force 1080p resolution, change the progress bar to white instead of red, and make the video play automatically.