How to loop a YouTube video (or just one part of it)

There are three different jobs hiding behind the phrase “loop a YouTube video”, and they need three different answers. Repeating a whole track while you work is one thing. Returning to the same chorus every time you reload is another. Drilling four bars of a solo until your fingers know it is a third, and it is the one YouTube has never handled.

Looping the whole video

YouTube has this built in, and if the whole video is what you want, you do not need anything else.

On a computer: right-click anywhere on the video picture and choose Loop from the menu that appears. A tick appears next to it. The video now restarts from the beginning each time it ends, and the setting stays on until you turn it off or leave the page.

In the mobile app: the right-click menu does not exist, so this route is not available. The usual workaround is to make a playlist with the single video in it and turn on repeat for the playlist.

Looping one section with A and B

A-B repeat is the idea borrowed from cassette and CD practice decks: mark the start of a passage as A, mark the end as B, and let the machine bounce between them. TubeRepeat does the same thing to a YouTube player.

1. 01

   Paste the link

   Drop any YouTube URL into the box at the top — a watch link, a share link, a Shorts link, or just the eleven-character video ID. If the link carries a timestamp, the video opens there.

2. 02

   Mark A where the section starts

   Play until you reach the moment you want, then press the A button or the [ key. A green marker drops onto the timeline at that exact point.

3. 03

   Mark B where it ends

   Keep playing to the end of the phrase and press B, or the ] key. The stretch between the two markers fills in, and playback jumps back to A as soon as it reaches B.

4. 04

   Trim, slow down, repeat

   Drag either marker to adjust it, or hold Shift with the arrow keys for hundredth-of-a-second steps. Drop the speed to 0.5× while the phrase is new and raise it as it settles.

The two markers appear on the timeline as green flags with their timecodes attached, and the stretch between them is filled with a fine hatch so the loop is visible at a glance. Everything outside the loop dims. When playback reaches B it jumps back to A without a gap.

Both markers have keys as well as buttons: [ drops A at the playhead and ] drops B. Because they fire instantly, the fastest way to catch a phrase is to let the video play and tap the two keys in time with what you hear — then tidy up afterwards.

Landing the loop on the beat

A loop that starts a tenth of a second late sounds wrong in a way that is hard to name. Getting it right is worth thirty seconds of fiddling, and there are four ways to do it:

• Drag the flag. Grab A or B on the timeline and slide it. The timecode updates as you move.
• Use the nudge buttons. Under each timecode box there are four steps: −1s, −0.1, +0.1 and +1s.
• Arrow-key a marker. Tab to a flag and press the arrows. Plain arrows move a second, Shift moves five hundredths, Alt moves five seconds.
• Type the timecode. Click the box under A or B and enter 1:04.25, or 64.25, or 1:04. All three are read the same way.

Once the range is right, drag the middle of the loop to slide it along the timeline without changing its length — useful when the phrase repeats later in the song and you want the second occurrence instead.

Slowing the section down

Speed and looping belong together. Anything genuinely difficult is easier to learn at half speed first, and the loop keeps you there long enough for it to sink in.

The speed control sits in the transport bar and runs from 0.25× to 2× in steps of 0.05×. Pitch is preserved, so a guitar part at 0.5× is still in the same key — it does not drop an octave the way a slowed tape would. Shift + , and Shift + . step down and up, and 0 returns to normal speed.

If you would rather not touch the control at all, the speed ramp in the practice settings adds a fixed amount to the rate after every completed pass, up to a ceiling you choose. Set it to start at 0.6× and climb by 0.02× and the drill walks itself up to full speed over twenty passes while your hands stay on the instrument.

There is more on this in the guide to slowing videos down.

On a phone or tablet

There is nothing to install. The layout stacks on small screens, the A and B buttons are sized for thumbs, and the timeline markers can be dragged with a finger.

1. 01

   Open TubeRepeat in your phone browser

   There is nothing to install. The page works in Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Samsung Internet, and you can add it to your home screen if you use it often.

2. 02

   Share the video from the YouTube app

   Tap Share, then Copy link. Come back to TubeRepeat and paste it into the box — the loop is armed as soon as the video loads.

3. 03

   Tap A and B as it plays

   The two large buttons under the video mark the start and the end at whatever point the video has reached. Tapping is quicker than dragging when you already know the moment.

4. 04

   Drag the markers to fine-tune

   The green flags on the timeline can be dragged with a finger. The timecode above each one updates as you move it, so you can land on the beat without guessing.

If you use it regularly, add the page to your home screen — Share → Add to Home Screen in Safari, or Menu → Add to Home screen in Chrome. It then opens without browser chrome, which gives the timeline more room.

Saving and sharing a loop

Press S or use Save range and the current A–B pair is kept as a named section against that video, along with the speed you were using. Sections reappear the next time you open the same video, and the number keys 1–9 jump between the first nine of them. Taking a solo apart phrase by phrase and switching between the pieces takes one keystroke each.

Sections live in your browser, not on a server, so they are private by default and disappear if you clear site data. The settings panel exports them as a JSON file you can import on another device.

For sending a loop to someone else, the address bar is enough — it always holds the current video, start, end and speed. The Share button gives you the same link with a copy button, plus an embed snippet for putting the looped section into your own page.

When a video will not loop

Almost every failure has the same root cause: the video cannot be embedded. Uploaders can switch embedding off, and private, age-restricted and region-blocked videos behave the same way. When that happens the player reports it and TubeRepeat tells you plainly; the only fix is to watch it on YouTube or find another upload.

Two other things are worth checking:

• The timeline never appears. It needs the video duration, which comes from the player. If an ad blocker or privacy extension is blocking YouTube’s player script, nothing loads. Allow www.youtube.com and reload.
• Keys do nothing. Shortcuts are deliberately ignored while the focus is in a text box, so nothing fires while you are typing a link or renaming a section. Click the page background first.

Questions people ask