☰

YouTube - Disable Inline Playback ("Keep hovering to play")

Disable the Inline Playback feature ("keep hovering to play") on YouTube even when logged out

As of 2022-01-15. See the latest version.

Author
yeggog
Ratings
0 0 0
Version
0.1.1
Created
2022-01-15
Updated
2022-01-15
Size
645 Bytes
License
MIT
Applies to

YouTube recently pushed out a change called "Inline Playback" which, instead of playing a short GIF of a small section of the video when hovering over a recommendation, the site will start playing the video from the start without sound. This not only results in a slower and more clunky experience, it can also affect your future recommended videos because the video will actually be added to your watch history.

This is a very basic script I wrote to revert to the original behavior without needing to be logged in. It is imperfect, but reach out to let me know of any changes I could make. The biggest issue is that it still takes about a full second for the video preview to start playing, as well as for the Watch Later and Add To Queue buttons to show up. If a better coder than me can figure out how to avoid this behavior, then please let me know and I will add it to the code.

This script is only recommended if you usually use YouTube while logged out. If you are logged in, you can still revert to the old behavior using officially supported settings. Go to your Settings > Playback and Performance > Inline Playback and turn the feature off.