How to watch multiple YouTube videos at once
·3 min read
Four ways to put several YouTube videos on one screen — split-screen windows, multi-view sites, picture-in-picture and a browser extension — and when each one is worth the trouble.
There is no button on YouTube for this. The site is built around one video at a time, and every workaround happens outside it. Here are the four that actually work, with the catch for each.
1. Tile the browser windows yourself
The zero-install option. Open each video in its own window and arrange them.
- Windows: drag a window to a screen edge, or
Win+ arrow keys. - macOS: hold the green button and pick a side, or use Rectangle / Magnet for quarters.
It works, and it costs nothing. What it does not do is stay put. Every window keeps its own title bar, tab strip and address bar, so on a 1080p screen you lose a good third of the space to browser furniture. Four videos means four windows to re-arrange the next time, and clicking one video's controls brings its whole window forward over the others.
Good for two videos. Painful at four.
2. Multi-view websites
Sites like MultiViewer, YouTube Multiview and a dozen similar tools ask you to paste video URLs, then embed them in a grid.
The grid is tidy and shareable by link. The limitation is what YouTube's embed player allows: a lot of videos are blocked from embedding entirely, live streams and premieres are inconsistent, and anything that is not on YouTube — Twitch, Vimeo, a club's own stream — will not go in at all. You also cannot put a video you are already watching into the grid; you have to find its URL and start it over.
Good when all the videos are plain, embeddable YouTube uploads.
3. Picture-in-picture
Chrome can pop one video out into a small floating window that stays on top. Right-click the video twice (once to dismiss YouTube's own menu, once for Chrome's) and choose Picture in picture.
This is the best way to watch one video while doing something else. It is not a way to watch four: Chrome allows one picture-in-picture window at a time, and the floating window has no proper timeline.
Good for one video plus work. Not a wall.
4. A browser extension that builds the wall for you
An extension can take the picture a tab is already showing and draw several of them together on one page. No embeds, no URL pasting, no window juggling — and because it uses what the tab is showing, it is not limited to YouTube.
This is what Video Mosaic does:
- Play a video in a tab for a second, then pause it.
- Right-click the page and choose Add this tab to Video Mosaic.
- Repeat for each video, then press Play all.
Each screen on the wall keeps its own play/pause and its own timeline, with −10s and +10s. Sound goes to one screen of your choice, or follows your mouse so you hear whichever screen the pointer is over.
Why the right-click step exists
The one part people ask about. Chrome only lets an extension read a tab after you explicitly grant it, tab by tab — that is a rule of the browser, and the right-click menu item is how you give permission. It is two seconds per video, and it is the reason the extension can work on any site rather than only on embeddable YouTube URLs.
Which one should you use
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| Two videos, once, right now | Tile two windows |
| A grid you can send someone a link to | A multi-view site |
| One video while you work | Picture-in-picture |
| Four or more, from different sites, with real controls | An extension |
One thing none of them can do
Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video use DRM, and Chrome refuses to hand that picture to any extension or embed. Those services will show a black screen in every method above except tiled windows. Anything that claims otherwise is doing something you should look at closely.