How to loop part of a YouTube video

Learning anything from a video means the same few seconds, over and over: the chord change, the footwork, the sentence you can't quite catch. Dragging the playhead back by hand works for a while. By the tenth time, you're practising scrubbing.

What you want is A–B repeat: play from here to there, jump back, go again. YouTube doesn't have it. Here is what it does have, the workaround that doesn't hold up, and what works.

YouTube's Loop repeats the whole video

On a computer, right-click the video and choose Loop. In the YouTube app, tap the video, then the settings gear, and look for Loop video; recent versions put it under Additional settings.

Either way it loops from the last second back to the first. That is right for a song playing in the background and no use for a twelve-second passage in the middle of a lesson.

The embed trick doesn't loop a section

The workaround that gets passed around is an embed URL with a start, an end and the loop flag:

• https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID?start=48&end=60&loop=1&playlist=VIDEO_ID

We tested it in September 2026. The first pass plays your section, as hoped. Then the player jumps back to 0:00, not to your start, and plays straight on past your end: the start and end only apply to the first pass. YouTube's own documentation says the loop setting has only “limited support in IFrame embeds”.

Opened directly as a link, it doesn't get that far: YouTube's embedded player now shows Error 153 when there is no web page around it. There is more on that in how to share part of a YouTube video.

Loop a section with a clip

A–B repeat needs something that watches the playhead and sends it back at the end of your section. A browser extension can do that from inside YouTube's player. YTMark does it with clips, which means the loop is also saved for next time:

1. Pause just before the part and press X. A 30-second clip starts at the playhead and loops straight away.
2. Drag the clip's ends on the progress bar to fit the part. The video keeps playing while you drag, and the loop takes up the new ends when you let go.
3. Press Enter to save it, or Esc if you only needed it for now.
4. Next session, open the panel with Shift+B and click the clip. YouTube's player repeats it until you jump somewhere else.

You don't have to save anything to use the loop. Press X, trim, practise, then Esc. Saving is for the passages you'll come back to.

Practice habits that make loops work

• Slow it down first. Shift + , drops YouTube's speed a step, or pick one from the settings menu. The loop keeps its ends at any speed, so get it clean at 0.75x before going back to 1x.
• Leave a lead-in. Start the loop a second or two before the part, so there is time to find the beat or the count.
• One clip per passage. Break a long piece into clips, such as the intro, the verse and the solo, and work through them in order. The panel lists them together for that video.
• Write the note for later. “Left hand: slide on the third fret” is more use in a week than “solo”.
• Turn captions on for speech. For language practice, loop one sentence, press C for captions, and speak along until you match it.

Who loops sections

• Musicians learning a riff, a solo or a tricky change by ear.
• Dancers drilling an eight-count until it's in their feet.
• Language learners shadowing one sentence at a time.
• Athletes and coaches studying a technique, stepping a frame at a time with the comma and full-stop keys while paused.
• Editors and filmmakers working out how a cut or a camera move is done.

Take the loop with you

Clips you save also play in your YTMark library, one per screen and on repeat, in any browser where you're signed in, phones included. A clip can be shared as a link too, which is handy when a teacher wants to send a student exactly the eight bars to work on. For more on that, see how to share part of a YouTube video.