YouTube Player API Reference for iframe Embeds

Overview
Requirements
Getting started
Loading a video player
Operations
1. Functions
2. Events
Mobile Considerations
Examples
Revision history

Overview

Video introduction

The IFrame player API lets you embed a YouTube video player on your website and control the player using JavaScript. Unlike the Flash and JavaScript player APIs, which both involve embedding a Flash object on your web page, the IFrame API posts content to an <iframe> tag on your page. This approach provides more flexibility than the previously available APIs since it allows YouTube to serve an HTML5 player rather than a Flash player for mobile devices that do not support Flash.

Using the API's JavaScript functions, you can queue videos for playback; play, pause, or stop those videos; adjust the player volume; or retrieve information about the video being played. You can also add event listeners that will execute in response to certain player events, such as a player state change or a video playback quality change.

This guide explains how to use the IFrame API. It identifies the different types of events that the API can send and explains how to write event listeners to respond to those events. It also details the different JavaScript functions that you can call to control the video player as well as the player parameters you can use to further customize the player.

Requirements

The end user must be using a browser that supports the HTML5 postMessage feature. Most modern browsers support postMessage, though Internet Explorer 7 does not support it.

Embedded players must have a viewport that is at least 200px by 200px. If the player displays controls, it must be large enough to fully display the controls without shrinking the viewport below the minimum size. We recommend 16:9 players be at least 480 pixels wide and 270 pixels tall.

Any web page that uses the IFrame API must also implement the following JavaScript function:

onYouTubeIframeAPIReady – The API will call this function when the page has finished downloading the JavaScript for the player API, which enables you to then use the API on your page. Thus, this function might create the player objects that you want to display when the page loads.

Getting started

The sample HTML page below creates an embedded player that will load a video, play it for six seconds, and then stop the playback. The numbered comments in the HTML are explained in the list below the example.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
    <!-- 1. The <iframe> (and video player) will replace this <div> tag. -->
    <div id="player"></div>

    <script>
      // 2. This code loads the IFrame Player API code asynchronously.
      var tag = document.createElement('script');

      tag.src = "https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api";
      var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
      firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag);

      // 3. This function creates an <iframe> (and YouTube player)
      //    after the API code downloads.
      var player;
      function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
        player = new YT.Player('player', {
          height: '390',
          width: '640',
          videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE',
          events: {
            'onReady': onPlayerReady,
            'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange
          }
        });
      }

      // 4. The API will call this function when the video player is ready.
      function onPlayerReady(event) {
        event.target.playVideo();
      }

      // 5. The API calls this function when the player's state changes.
      //    The function indicates that when playing a video (state=1),
      //    the player should play for six seconds and then stop.
      var done = false;
      function onPlayerStateChange(event) {
        if (event.data == YT.PlayerState.PLAYING && !done) {
          setTimeout(stopVideo, 6000);
          done = true;
        }
      }
      function stopVideo() {
        player.stopVideo();
      }
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

The following list provides more details about the sample above:

The <div> tag in this section identifies the location on the page where the IFrame API will place the video player. The constructor for the player object, which is described in the Loading a video player section, identifies the <div> tag by its id to ensure that the API places the <iframe> in the proper location. Specifically, the IFrame API will replace the <div> tag with the <iframe> tag.

As an alternative, you could also put the <iframe> element directly on the page. The Loading a video player section explains how to do so.
The code in this section loads the IFrame Player API JavaScript code. The example uses DOM modification to download the API code to ensure that the code is retrieved asynchronously. (The <script> tag's async attribute, which also enables asynchronous downloads, is not yet supported in all modern browsers as discussed in this Stack Overflow answer.
The onYouTubeIframeAPIReady function will execute as soon as the player API code downloads. This portion of the code defines a global variable, player, which refers to the video player you are embedding, and the function then constructs the video player object.
The onPlayerReady function will execute when the onReady event fires. In this example, the function indicates that when the video player is ready, it should begin to play.
The API will call the onPlayerStateChange function when the player's state changes, which may indicate that the player is playing, paused, finished, and so forth. The function indicates that when the player state is 1 (playing), the player should play for six seconds and then call the stopVideo function to stop the video.

Loading a video player

After the API's JavaScript code loads, the API will call the onYouTubeIframeAPIReady function, at which point you can construct a YT.Player object to insert a video player on your page. The HTML excerpt below shows the onYouTubeIframeAPIReady function from the example above:

var player;
function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  player = new YT.Player('player', {
    height: '390',
    width: '640',
    videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE',
    events: {
      'onReady': onPlayerReady,
      'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange
    }
  });
}

The constructor for the video player specifies the following parameters:

The first parameter specifies either the DOM element or the id of the HTML element where the API will insert the <iframe> tag containing the player.

The IFrame API will replace the specified element with the <iframe> element containing the player. This could affect the layout of your page if the element being replaced has a different display style than the inserted <iframe> element. By default, an <iframe> displays as an inline-block element.
The second parameter is an object that specifies player options. The object contains the following properties:
- width (number) – The width of the video player. The default value is 640.
- height (number) – The height of the video player. The default value is 390.
- videoId (string) – The YouTube video ID that identifies the video that the player will load.
- playerVars (object) – The object's properties identify player parameters that can be used to customize the player.
- events (object) – The object's properties identify the events that the API fires and the functions (event listeners) that the API will call when those events occur. In the example, the constructor indicates that the onPlayerReady function will execute when the onReady event fires and that the onPlayerStateChange function will execute when the onStateChange event fires.

As mentioned in the Getting started section, instead of writing an empty <div> element on your page, which the player API's JavaScript code will then replace with an <iframe> element, you could create the <iframe> tag yourself.

<iframe id="player" type="text/html" width="640" height="390"
  src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M7lc1UVf-VE?enablejsapi=1&origin=http://example.com"
  frameborder="0"></iframe>

If you do write the <iframe> tag, then when you construct the YT.Player object, you do not need to specify values for the width and height, which are specified as attributes of the <iframe> tag, or the videoId and player parameters, which are are specified in the src URL. As an extra security measure, you should also include the origin parameter to the URL, specifying the URL scheme (http:// or https://) and full domain of your host page as the parameter value. While origin is optional, including it protects against malicious third-party JavaScript being injected into your page and hijacking control of your YouTube player.

The Examples section shows a few more examples for constructing video player objects.

Operations

To call the player API methods, you must first get a reference to the player object you wish to control. You obtain the reference by creating a YT.Player object as discussed in the Getting started and Loading a video player sections of this document.

Functions

The following subsections list the functions that the player API supports.

This function indicates whether a playlist's videos should be shuffled so that they play back in an order different from the one that the playlist creator designated. If you shuffle a playlist after it has already started playing, the list will be reordered while the video that is playing continues to play. The next video that plays will then be selected based on the reordered list.

This setting will not persist if you load or cue a different playlist, which means that if you load a playlist, call the setShuffle function, and then load a second playlist, the second playlist will not be shuffled.

The required shufflePlaylist parameter indicates whether YouTube should shuffle the playlist.

If the parameter value is true, then YouTube will shuffle the playlist order. If you instruct the function to shuffle a playlist that has already been shuffled, YouTube will shuffle the order again.

If the parameter value is false, then YouTube will change the playlist order back to its original order.

Playback status

player.getVideoLoadedFraction():Float: Returns a number between 0 and 1 that specifies the percentage of the video that the player shows as buffered. This method returns a more reliable number than the now-deprecated getVideoBytesLoaded and getVideoBytesTotal methods.

player.getPlayerState():Number

Returns the state of the player. Possible values are:

-1 – unstarted
0 – ended
1 – playing
2 – paused
3 – buffering
5 – video cued

player.getCurrentTime():Number: Returns the elapsed time in seconds since the video started playing.

player.getVideoStartBytes():Number: Deprecated as of October 31, 2012. Returns the number of bytes the video file started loading from. (This method now always returns a value of 0.) Example scenario: the user seeks ahead to a point that hasn't loaded yet, and the player makes a new request to play a segment of the video that hasn't loaded yet.

player.getVideoBytesLoaded():Number: Deprecated as of July 18, 2012. Instead, use the getVideoLoadedFraction method to determine the percentage of the video that has buffered.

This method returns a value between 0 and 1000 that approximates the amount of the video that has been loaded. You could calculate the fraction of the video that has been loaded by dividing the getVideoBytesLoaded value by the getVideoBytesTotal value.

player.getVideoBytesTotal():Number: Deprecated as of July 18, 2012. Instead, use the getVideoLoadedFraction method to determine the percentage of the video that has buffered.

Returns the size in bytes of the currently loaded/playing video or an approximation of the video's size.

This method always returns a value of 1000. You could calculate the fraction of the video that has been loaded by dividing the getVideoBytesLoaded value by the getVideoBytesTotal value.

Playback quality

player.getPlaybackQuality():String: This function retrieves the actual video quality of the current video. Possible return values are highres, hd1080, hd720, large, medium and small. It will also return undefined if there is no current video.

player.setPlaybackQuality(suggestedQuality:String):Void

This function sets the suggested video quality for the current video. The function causes the video to reload at its current position in the new quality. If the playback quality does change, it will only change for the video being played. Calling this function does not guarantee that the playback quality will actually change. However, if the playback quality does change, the onPlaybackQualityChange event will fire, and your code should respond to the event rather than the fact that it called the setPlaybackQuality function.

The suggestedQuality parameter value can be small, medium, large, hd720, hd1080, highres or default. We recommend that you set the parameter value to default, which instructs YouTube to select the most appropriate playback quality, which will vary for different users, videos, systems and other playback conditions.

When you suggest a playback quality for a video, the suggested quality will only be in effect for that video. You should select a playback quality that corresponds to the size of your video player. For example, if your page displays a 1280px by 720px video player, a hd720 quality video will actually look better than an hd1080 quality video. We recommend calling the getAvailableQualityLevels() function to determine which quality levels are available for a video.

The list below shows the playback quality levels that correspond to different standard player sizes. We recommend that you set the height of your video player to one of the values listed below and that you size your player to use 16:9 aspect ratio. As stated above, even if you choose a standard player size, we also recommend that you set the suggestedQuality parameter value to default to enable YouTube to select the most appropriate playback quality.

Quality level small: Player height is 240px, and player dimensions are at least 320px by 240px for 4:3 aspect ratio.
Quality level medium: Player height is 360px, and player dimensions are 640px by 360px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 480px by 360px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
Quality level large: Player height is 480px, and player dimensions are 853px by 480px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 640px by 480px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
Quality level hd720: Player height is 720px, and player dimensions are 1280px by 720px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 960px by 720px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
Quality level hd1080: Player height is 1080px, and player dimensions are 1920px by 1080px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 1440px by 1080px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
Quality level highres: Player height is greater than 1080px, which means that the player's aspect ratio is greater than 1920px by 1080px.
Quality level default: YouTube selects the appropriate playback quality. This setting effectively reverts the quality level to the default state and nullifies any previous efforts to set playback quality using the cueVideoById, loadVideoById or setPlaybackQuality functions.

If you call the setPlaybackQuality function with a suggestedQuality level that is not available for the video, then the quality will be set to the next lowest level that is available. For example, if you request a quality level of large, and that is unavailable, then the playback quality will be set to medium (as long as that quality level is available).

In addition, setting suggestedQuality to a value that is not a recognized quality level is equivalent to setting suggestedQuality to default.

player.getAvailableQualityLevels():Array: This function returns the set of quality formats in which the current video is available. You could use this function to determine whether the video is available in a higher quality than the user is viewing, and your player could display a button or other element to let the user adjust the quality.

The function returns an array of strings ordered from highest to lowest quality. Possible array element values are highres, hd1080, hd720, large, medium and small. This function returns an empty array if there is no current video.

Your client should not automatically switch to use the highest (or lowest) quality video or to any unknown format name. YouTube could expand the list of quality levels to include formats that may not be appropriate in your player context. Similarly, YouTube could remove quality options that would be detrimental to the user experience. By ensuring that your client only switches to known, available formats, you can ensure that your client's performance will not be affected by either the introduction of new quality levels or the removal of quality levels that are not appropriate for your player context.

Retrieving video information

player.getDuration():Number: Returns the duration in seconds of the currently playing video. Note that getDuration() will return 0 until the video's metadata is loaded, which normally happens just after the video starts playing.

If the currently playing video is a live event, the getDuration() function will return the elapsed time since the live video stream began. Specifically, this is the amount of time that the video has streamed without being reset or interrupted. In addition, this duration is commonly longer than the actual event time since streaming may begin before the event's start time.

player.getVideoUrl():String: Returns the YouTube.com URL for the currently loaded/playing video.

player.getVideoEmbedCode():String: Returns the embed code for the currently loaded/playing video.

Retrieving playlist information

player.getPlaylist():Array: This function returns an array of the video IDs in the playlist as they are currently ordered. By default, this function will return video IDs in the order designated by the playlist owner. However, if you have called the setShuffle function to shuffle the playlist order, then the getPlaylist() function's return value will reflect the shuffled order.

player.getPlaylistIndex():Number

This function returns the index of the playlist video that is currently playing.

If you have not shuffled the playlist, the return value will identify the position where the playlist creator placed the video. The return value uses a zero-based index, so a value of 0 identifies the first video in the playlist.
If you have shuffled the playlist, the return value will identify the video's order within the shuffled playlist.

Adding or removing an event listener

player.addEventListener(event:String, listener:String):Void: Adds a listener function for the specified event. The Events section below identifies the different events that the player might fire. The listener is a string that specifies the function that will execute when the specified event fires.

player.removeEventListener(event:String, listener:String):Void: Removes a listener function for the specified event. The listener is a string that identifies the function that will no longer execute when the specified event fires.

Accessing and modifying DOM nodes

player.getIframe():Object: This method returns the DOM node for the embedded <iframe>.

player.destroy():Void: Removes the <iframe> containing the player.

Events

The API fires events to notify your application of changes to the embedded player. As noted in the previous section, you can subscribe to events by adding an event listener when constructing the YT.Player object, and you can also use the addEventListener function.

The API will pass an event object as the sole argument to each of those functions. The event object has the following properties:

The event's target identifies the video player that corresponds to the event.
The event's data specifies a value relevant to the event. Note that the onReady event does not specify a data property.

The following list defines the events that the API fires:

onReady

This event fires whenever a player has finished loading and is ready to begin receiving API calls. Your application should implement this function if you want to automatically execute certain operations, such as playing the video or displaying information about the video, as soon as the player is ready.

The example below shows a sample function for handling this event. The event object that the API passes to the function has a target property, which identifies the player. The function retrieves the embed code for the currently loaded video, starts to play the video, and displays the embed code in the page element that has an id value of embed-code.

function onPlayerReady(event) {
  var embedCode = event.target.getVideoEmbedCode();
  event.target.playVideo();
  if (document.getElementById('embed-code')) {
    document.getElementById('embed-code').innerHTML = embedCode;
  }
}

onStateChange

This event fires whenever the player's state changes. The data property of the event object that the API passes to your event listener function will specify an integer that corresponds to the new player state. Possible values are:

-1 (unstarted)
0 (ended)
1 (playing)
2 (paused)
3 (buffering)
5 (video cued).

When the player first loads a video, it will broadcast an unstarted (-1) event. When a video is cued and ready to play, the player will broadcast a video cued (5) event. In your code, you can specify the integer values or you can use one of the following namespaced variables:

YT.PlayerState.ENDED
YT.PlayerState.PLAYING
YT.PlayerState.PAUSED
YT.PlayerState.BUFFERING
YT.PlayerState.CUED

onPlaybackQualityChange

This event fires whenever the video playback quality changes. For example, if you call the setPlaybackQuality(suggestedQuality) function, this event will fire if the playback quality actually changes. Your application should respond to the event and should not assume that the quality will automatically change when the setPlaybackQuality(suggestedQuality) function is called. Similarly, your code should not assume that playback quality will only change as a result of an explicit call to setPlaybackQuality or any other function that allows you to set a suggested playback quality.

The data property value of the event object that the API passes to the event listener function will be a string that identifies the new playback quality. Possible values are:

small
medium
large
hd720
hd1080
highres

onPlaybackRateChange: This event fires whenever the video playback rate changes. For example, if you call the setPlaybackRate(suggestedRate) function, this event will fire if the playback rate actually changes. Your application should respond to the event and should not assume that the playback rate will automatically change when the setPlaybackRate(suggestedRate) function is called. Similarly, your code should not assume that the video playback rate will only change as a result of an explicit call to setPlaybackRate.

The data property value of the event object that the API passes to the event listener function will be a number that identifies the new playback rate. The getAvailablePlaybackRates method returns a list of the valid playback rates for the currently cued or playing video.

Note: Even though the AS3 player supports this event, variable speeds are currently only supported in the HTML5 player.

onError

This event fires if an error occurs in the player. The API will pass an event object to the event listener function. That object's data property will specify an integer that identifies the type of error that occurred. Possible values are:

2 – The request contains an invalid parameter value. For example, this error occurs if you specify a video ID that does not have 11 characters, or if the video ID contains invalid characters, such as exclamation points or asterisks.
5 – The requested content cannot be played in an HTML5 player or another error related to the HTML5 player has occurred.
100 – The video requested was not found. This error occurs when a video has been removed (for any reason) or has been marked as private.
101 – The owner of the requested video does not allow it to be played in embedded players.
150 – This error is the same as 101. It's just a 101 error in disguise!

onApiChange

This event is fired to indicate that the player has loaded (or unloaded) a module with exposed API methods. Your application can listen for this event and then poll the player to determine which options are exposed for the recently loaded module. Your application can then retrieve or update the existing settings for those options.

The following command retrieves an array of module names for which you can set player options:

player.getOptions();

Currently, the only module that you can set options for is the cc module, which handles closed captioning in the player. Upon receiving an onApiChange event, your application can use the following command to determine which options can be set for the cc module:

player.getOptions('cc');

By polling the player with this command, you can confirm that the options you want to access are, indeed, accessible. The following commands retrieve and update module options:

Retrieving an option:
player.getOption(module, option);

Setting an option
player.setOption(module, option, value);

The table below lists the options that the API supports:

Module	Option	Description
cc	fontSize	This option adjusts the font size of the captions displayed in the player. Valid values are `-1`, `0`, `1`, `2`, and `3`. The default size is `0`, and the smallest size is `-1`. Setting this option to an integer below `-1` will cause the smallest caption size to display, while setting this option to an integer above `3` will cause the largest caption size to display.
cc	reload	This option reloads the closed caption data for the video that is playing. The value will be `null` if you retrieve the option's value. Set the value to `true` to reload the closed caption data.

Mobile Considerations

Autoplay and Scripted Playback

The HTML5 <video> element, in certain mobile browsers (such as Chrome and Safari), only allows playback to take place if it's initiated by a user interaction (such as tapping on the player). Here's an excerpt from Apple's documentation:

"Warning: To prevent unsolicited downloads over cellular networks at the user’s expense, embedded media cannot be played automatically in Safari on iOS — the user always initiates playback."

Due to this restriction, functions and parameters such as autoplay, playVideo(), loadVideoById() won't work in all mobile environments.

Examples

Creating YT.Player objects

Example 1: Loud playback

This example creates a 1280px by 720px video player. The event listener for the onReady event then calls the setVolume function to adjust the volume to the highest setting.

function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  var player;
  player = new YT.Player('player', {
    width: 1280,
    height: 720,
    videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE',
    events: {
      'onReady': onPlayerReady,
      'onPlaybackQualityChange': onPlayerPlaybackQualityChange,
      'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange,
      'onError': onPlayerError
    }
  });
}

function onPlayerReady(event) {
  event.target.setVolume(100);
  event.target.playVideo();
}

Example 2: This example sets player parameters to automatically play the video when it loads and to hide the video player's controls. It also adds event listeners for all of the events that the API broadcasts.

function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
  var player;
  player = new YT.Player('player', {
    videoId: 'M7lc1UVf-VE',
    playerVars: { 'autoplay': 1, 'controls': 0 },
    events: {
      'onReady': onPlayerReady,
      'onPlaybackQualityChange': onPlayerPlaybackQualityChange,
      'onStateChange': onPlayerStateChange,
      'onError': onPlayerError
    }
  });
}

Revision history

This section lists YouTube IFrame Player API changes and documentation updates. Subscribe to this changelog.