41

I am trying to take a screenshot of a YouTube video in fullscreen.

When I pause the video and wait a moment, only the bottom UI bar (play/pause/seek) disappears. The top UI bar (Like/Share/More Info) stays there.

So when I press PrintScreen on the keyboard, the screenshot is polluted by this top UI bar. Is there any way to remove it while the video is on pause?

4
  • Why not just put a black box over the UI bar in the saved screen shot image? Sep 7, 2012 at 21:06
  • 3
    @techie007 I wanted to find a way to get the screenshot without losing part of the image...
    – SemMike
    Sep 8, 2012 at 14:02
  • I don't have enough rep to answer, but I highly recommend the Screenshot Youtube extension for Chrome. It works perfectly + can either copy to clipboard or save to file Sep 21, 2021 at 16:45
  • I write a gist for It, use tampermonkey to install. The only shortcuts are shift and ctrl, you could play It w or w/out fullscreen.
    – Tokenyet
    Dec 14, 2021 at 15:51

10 Answers 10

42

Bookmarklet to Hide All YouTube Video Progress/Toolbars with one click

(makes it easy to get a clean full-screen HD screenshot)


To ADD the Bookmarklet:

  1. highlight the the text in the next box

    javascript:(function(){var goaway=".ytp-chrome-top,.ytp-chrome-bottom{display:none;}";if("\v"=="v"){document.createStyleSheet().cssText=goaway}else{var tag=document.createElement("style");tag.type="text/css";document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(tag);tag[(typeof document.body.style.WebkitAppearance=="string")?"innerText":"innerHTML"]=goaway}})();

  2. drag the highlighted text to your browser bookmarks toolbar

  3. rename the newly created bookmark if desired

To USE the Bookmarklet (to remove progress/toolbars):

  1. load any YouTube video
  2. click the bookmark
  3. All progress/toolbars are gone
    (EVEN WHEN PAUSING VIDEO)

To RESTORE all toolbars:

  • refresh the page

To CONTROL VIDEO (without buttons toolbar):

  • Full-screen: double-click the video
  • Rewind/Fast Forward: left/right arrow keys
6
  • 1
    This is the correct answer. Worked perfectly. May 12, 2016 at 22:11
  • 10
    You can add .ytp-gradient-top and .ytp-gradient-bottom classes to the list to hide the dark gradient as well.
    – Sumit
    Apr 1, 2017 at 9:53
  • 2
    anyone knows what this one does: if ("\v" == "v") ?
    – JinSnow
    Sep 29, 2017 at 14:20
  • 2
    @Sumit I suggested edit to add gradients in the script so people can just copy paste and use the whole thing. Waiting for peer review.
    – hsandt
    Dec 16, 2019 at 23:04
  • 1
    @JinSnow Tests specifically if the browser is IE10 or below.
    – Slight
    May 7, 2021 at 1:49
19

A very simple solution which is working on Firefox. This will take a full screenshot of the YouTube video at the current time.

No need for downloading anything or adding anything to your browser.

  1. The first right click will open the internal YouTube menu, leave that.
  2. Right click again on the video so the browser menu will be shown
  3. Click on "Save Snapshot As..." from there.

As shown below: enter image description here

BTW, You can move frame by frame with , and . keys when the video is paused.

2
  • 1
    I was concerned this method might snapshot everything (including the overlay and controls), but it does seem to save just the image, without the controls (and without the captioning information).
    – R.M.
    Jul 7, 2020 at 21:24
  • 2
    If only people would take a few more seconds to dig into the other answers before moving on this one would be at the top, as the answer provided here by @dashakol not only meets the OP question, but it is also the best from the bunch, since you don't need to install anything else, nor fiddle with code nor nothing. With this answer OP is literally three clicks away from saving the desired screenshot to his device.
    – solr
    Jul 28, 2020 at 22:40
8

The only way I could find was simply to download the video from Youtube, play it in any media player and take a screenshot from there (either with the media player's screenshot option, or PrtScn on the keyboard).

1
  • 1
    Just another way DRM hurts honest people.
    – Cosine
    Sep 15, 2016 at 13:20
8

How about not pausing and hitting PrtScn when the timing is right. If that is not an option Windows 7 has a tool called Snipping Tool that will let you chop off the top UI bar, of course at the cost of losing that much video area.

2
  • Thanks but it destroys part of the image, I could just discard that part with Paint but the point was to get the whole image...
    – SemMike
    Sep 8, 2012 at 14:03
  • 2
    Timing it like this is possible but super frustrating. :) May 12, 2016 at 22:42
6

As an extension of JumboDS64's extension of oLinkWebDevelopment's answer, I noticed that there is still a gradient at the top of the video, which can be removed with the name "ytp-gradient-top" for the complete, clean look. The updated command is:

javascript:(function(){var goaway=".ytp-gradient-bottom,.ytp-gradient-top,.ytp-chrome-top,
.ytp-chrome-bottom{display:none;}";
if("\v"=="v"){document.createStyleSheet().cssText=goaway}
else{var tag=document.createElement("style");
tag.type="text/css";document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(tag);
tag[(typeof document.body.style.WebkitAppearance=="string")?"innerText":"innerHTML"]=goaway}})();
1
  • billion thanks for this script. I really hated that gradient. It is a big trouble while taking clean screenshot at some point in YouTube playback to prepare some notes from video.
    – Mahesha999
    Jan 26, 2022 at 15:22
5

You can use http://www.youtubescreenshot.com to get a screen shot from custom position

4
  • 1
    A similar site would be ytscreen.com which also takes various screenshots from a youtube video.
    – zeddex
    Dec 2, 2015 at 20:37
  • While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review
    – nKn
    Jan 2, 2016 at 13:34
  • 3
    @nKn This is not a regular link only answer but a software/website recommendation
    – clhy
    Jan 2, 2016 at 15:01
  • 1
    @nKn the link is the answer. He could write about what it does, but if the link goes away so does the value of the answer. May 12, 2016 at 22:42
2

Type these into Javascript Console:

document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-chrome-bottom")[0].style.display="none"; 

for bottom GUI;

document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-gradient-bottom")[0].style.display="none";

for bottom gradient;

document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-chrome-top")[0].style.display="none"; 

for top GUI;

document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-gradient-top")[0].style.display="none";

for top gradient;

document.getElementsByClassName("branding-img-container")[0].style.display="none";document.getElementsByClassName("branding-context-container-outer")[0].style.display="none";

for branding;

Here is the plain code:

document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-chrome-bottom")[0].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-gradient-bottom")[0].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-chrome-top")[0].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByClassName("ytp-gradient-top")[0].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByClassName("branding-img-container")[0].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByClassName("branding-context-container-outer")[0].style.display="none";

Note, you will have to navigate via keyboard controlls, but that isn't too hard (left arrow, right arrow, space)

2

As an extension of oLinkWebDevelopment's answer, at the begining, "ytp-gradient-bottom" should also be deleted (that being the black gradient at the bottom of the video which is part of the pause toolbar). With that added, the command is:

javascript:(function(){var goaway=".ytp-gradient-bottom,.ytp-chrome-top,.ytp-chrome-bottom{display:none;}";if("\v"=="v"){document.createStyleSheet().cssText=goaway}else{var tag=document.createElement("style");tag.type="text/css";document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(tag);tag[(typeof document.body.style.WebkitAppearance=="string")?"innerText":"innerHTML"]=goaway}})();
1
  • This works but requires a "javascript:" in front of the text.
    – Mando Stam
    Oct 19, 2020 at 16:39
0

I personaly use Lightshot

This tool is usefull in so many ways and when you need a screenshot of a video you can just wait for the right moment, then press the Prt Sc button and then you can just adjust your image then save it in a folder, copy to your clipboard or even google search it.

It also comes with a basic editing tools like, pencil, marker, change of colors, adding text and some sharing capavility

0

If you double right click a youtube video without moving the cursor, it overwrites the first menu with a second menu. If you then press "show controls", it opens a second set of controls hidden behind the default ones. If you then click the "fullscreen" button (of the second set of controls), you will go fullscreen.

Now that you're fullscreen, just double click the video, and the UI should disappear.

Use left click or press space bar where you want to pause.

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