How to Make a YouTube Video Autoplay on Your Website

If you're looking to embed a YouTube video on your website and have it start playing automatically, here are the steps you need to follow. Please note that autoplaying videos can impact user experience, so be sure to consider the context of your website and user preferences.

Prerequisites

A YouTube account with a video you'd like to embed.
Basic HTML and JavaScript knowledge.

Steps

Obtain the YouTube video ID. Go to YouTube and find the video you want to embed. The video ID is the part of the URL after v=. For instance, in the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ, the video ID is dQw4w9WgXcQ.
Create an HTML iframe to embed the video. Add the following code snippet in your HTML file:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/{video_id}?autoplay=1&mute=1" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Replace {video_id} with the video ID you obtained in step 1. The autoplay=1 query parameter makes the video autoplay, while mute=1 mutes the audio by default. This can be helpful for websites where videos might startle or disturb visitors.

Optional: Add JavaScript to control autoplay. Some browsers may block autoplaying videos due to user privacy settings. To overcome this, you can add JavaScript to check if the video is playing and start it if not. Here's an example using jQuery:

$(document).ready(function() {
  var player;
  function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
    player = new YT.Player('player', {
      events: {
        onReady: function(event) {
          event.target.mute();
          event.target.playVideo();
        }
      }
    });
  }
  // Load 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);
});

This code initializes the YouTube Player API and sets up an event listener for when it's ready. Once ready, it mutes the video and starts playing it automatically.

That's it! With these steps, you should now have a YouTube video autoplaying on your website. Remember to consider user experience and accessibility concerns before implementing autoplaying videos.

Published June, 2017