Firefox’s picture-in-picture mode lets you take videos out of your website to become a window that always floats on top. This means that you can browse other sites at the same time while watching a video.
Here we are going to show you how to enable and use picture-in-picture mode Firefox.
What is picture-in-picture mode?
Picture-in-picture mode is a Firefox Function that has been available since version 71 for Windows and since version 72 for macOS and Linux.
When you’re watching most of the videos, you can click Picture-in-picture icon to get the video out of the website. That video then becomes its own floating window, which you can resize and move anywhere on your screen, and it always stays on top. You can even control video playback without going back to the original webpage.
How to enable picture-in-picture mode
Picture-in-picture mode is standard Firefox Function that is activated by default. However, you can hide the icon that activates it. So, follow these instructions to check its status:
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Press the Menu button (three horizontal lines).
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click Options .
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Under surfing , ensure that Enable picture-in-picture video controls is checked.
How to use picture-in-picture mode
To use picture-in-picture mode, hover over a video and click the Picture-in-picture icon . It looks like two rectangles on top of each other. This will get the video out of the page.
Alternatively, you can Right click the video to open the context menu. From here click Picture in picture . Some websites like YouTube overwrite Firefox Context menu, so you have to Right click twice to access it (don’t right click any menu item or it won’t work).
You can also press Ctrl + Shift +] and Firefox starts the most relevant video on the page in picture-in-picture.
There are some videos for which picture-in-picture mode is not available. These include those with no audio track and those that are too small or too short. To the example, lots of videos on Twitter fall into this category.
If you’re using picture-in-picture mode, you can Click and drag on the video to move it anywhere on your screen. Likewise, Click and drag the sides of the video to resize. To switch to full screen mode, Double click the video.
Hover over the video and you will see three icons. Top right X symbol pauses and closes the picture-in-picture video. Alternatively, the Picture in picture symbol stops the video and takes you back to the original webpage.
Finally, that Play / pause symbol toggle does exactly what you expect.
If you are using picture-in-picture mode, a message will appear on the original webpage that says, “This video is playing in picture-in-picture mode.”
The video won’t appear in the player, but you can use the media controls. To the example, At YouTube, you can adjust the video quality and enable autoplay. However, some features such as subtitles are not supported in picture-in-picture mode.
Keyboard shortcuts for picture-in-picture mode
You can use these keyboard shortcuts to control the video without having to return to the original webpage:
- place : Pause / play
- Ctrl + Down Arrow : Mute
- Ctrl + Up Arrow : Unmute
- Down arrow : Decrease the volume
- Up arrow : Increase the volume
- Left arrow : Back 15 seconds
- Right arrow : Forward 15 seconds
- Ctrl + Left Arrow : 10 percent back
- Ctrl + Right Arrow : 10 percent forward
- home : Go to the beginning of the video
- end : Go to the end of the video
Multitask with picture-in-picture mode
Once you have used Firefox’s Picture-in-Picture mode, you will find it hard to do without. Now you can multitask – watch videos while browsing other websites or doing your work.
The picture-in-picture mode is not exclusive Firefox Specialty. It’s also available on mobile platforms like Android and iOS.
