Description

Show a YouTube player with a playlist, or the latest videos from your channel, on any post or page with one shortcode. Videos are click-to-load: visitors see a lightweight thumbnail, and nothing is requested from YouTube until they press play. That keeps pages fast and makes it easier to respect cookie consent.

Click-to-load players for faster pages and better privacy, with an optional notice under the player.
Paste full YouTube URLs or video IDs. Add ?t=90 to a URL to start that video at 90 seconds.
Three layouts: playlist below the player, beside it, or a grid that opens videos in an accessible lightbox.
Auto-advance to the next video, several players on the same page, and keyboard-friendly playlists.
Your YouTube API key stays on the server. Video titles and channel feeds are fetched and cached by WordPress.
Optional VideoObject structured data for search engines.
Privacy-enhanced (youtube-nocookie.com) mode.
A shortcode generator in Settings, so you don’t need to remember any attributes.

Playlist (no API key needed)

Example: [yt_playlist mainid="xcJtL7QggTI" vdid="xcJtL7QggTI, AheYbU8J5Tc, X0zGS4-UKgg, 74SZXCQb44s, 2M0XCH9q3YI"]

Playlist with video titles (YouTube Data API v3)

Example: [yt_playlist_v3 mainid="xcJtL7QggTI" vdid="xcJtL7QggTI, AheYbU8J5Tc, X0zGS4-UKgg" layout="side" autoadvance="1"]

YouTube channel feed with lightbox player

Example: [yt_feed channels="UCpVm7bg6pXKo1Pr6k5kxG9A" results="9" offset="0"]

Optional attributes

layout="below|side|grid"
start="90" (main video start time in seconds)
autoadvance="1"
schema="1" (VideoObject structured data, needs the API key)
offset="3" (channel feed only)

Check out the official Playlist Player for YouTube website and a Playlist Player for YouTube demo.

Check out a Property Videos & Virtual Tours demo.

Check out more WordPress plugins here. Need cookie consent for YouTube? Try WP Google Consent Platform (GCP).

From the same author

Screenshots

Front-end player #2 — Front-end player #1

Installation

Upload to your plugins folder, usually wp-content/plugins/
Activate the plugin on the plugins screen.
Configure the plugin from Settings -> Playlist Player for YouTube.

Reviews

LunaGraphica August 30, 2024

I tried WP YouTube Lyte and gave up; it was much more complicated and didn't look nearly as good

sabelya February 3, 2021 1 reply

Works great, very light and user-friendly plugin. Thanks to Ciprian for his kindness and the speed of the support !

brandonfire March 6, 2018 6 replies

I transferred my site from one host to another, and now nothing I do will get the thumbnails below the video to show up again. None of the code was changed, and it was perfected before, so I'm not sure what's going on…

84EM October 5, 2017

The plugin works great, is easy to use, and the support is very helpful.

Theonlytexaspete September 26, 2017 1 reply

I run several blog sites and this plugin has helped me display Youtube videos on every one! Support team are very helpful!

bobbyshomerul September 11, 2017

very nice free plugin, easy to use, exactly what i need for my site. old version worked fine then i had some issue with new version but the author fix it very quickly. thank you.

Read all 13 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Playlist Player for YouTube – Fast, Privacy-Friendly Playlists & Channel Feed” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Ciprian Popescu

“Playlist Player for YouTube – Fast, Privacy-Friendly Playlists & Channel Feed” has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Playlist Player for YouTube – Fast, Privacy-Friendly Playlists & Channel Feed” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

4.9.0

SECURITY: The YouTube API key is no longer printed in the page; playlist titles are fetched and cached server-side
FEATURE: Click-to-load players (no YouTube requests until a visitor presses play), with an optional notice
FEATURE: Accept full YouTube URLs (watch, youtu.be, shorts, embed, live) and ?t= start times
FEATURE: New layout, start, autoadvance and schema attributes, and offset for channel feeds
FEATURE: Several players on the same page
FEATURE: Shortcode generator in Settings
FIX: Channel feeds requested 100 results by default, above the YouTube API limit of 50; the default is now 9
ACCESSIBILITY: Playlist items are buttons with labels, iframes have titles, the lightbox is a native dialog (Esc closes it, focus is kept inside)
PERFORMANCE: One small ES module, loaded only on pages with a player
REMOVED: The “fix for older browsers” option and its script
UPDATE: Requires WordPress 6.5 (script modules) and PHP 7.4

4.8.3

UPDATE: Tested up to WordPress 7.1
DOCS: Add WordPress Plugins directory and donation link

4.8.2

UPDATE: Tested up to WordPress 7.1
DOCS: Add WordPress Plugins directory link

4.8.1

FIX: Prevent caching of empty API responses to avoid persistent blank channel feeds
FIX: Send Referer header with YouTube API requests for compatibility with referrer-restricted API keys

4.8.0

PERFORMANCE: Cache YouTube API responses using transients to avoid API calls on every page load
PERFORMANCE: Replace file_get_contents() with wp_remote_get() for remote API requests
PERFORMANCE: Remove admin stylesheet and use native WordPress styles
PERFORMANCE: Load admin assets only on the plugin settings page
SECURITY: Escape YouTube API output in channel feed shortcode
FIX: Add allow="autoplay" attribute to iframes for modern browser autoplay support
FIX: Add autoplay to lightbox player in channel feed
UPDATE: Add error handling for failed YouTube API requests

4.7.4

FIX: Add referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" to YouTube iframes to ensure HTTP Referer is sent per YouTube embedded player requirements
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.7.3

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.7.2

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
SECURITY: Increase plugin security by sanitizing and unslashing options

4.7.1

FIX: Fix a missing JavaScript dependency

4.7.0

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Update the channels shortcode to use Grid instead of Flexbox CSS
UPDATE: Reduce the number of tags to 5

4.6.9

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.6.8

FIX: Fix Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (props yuyudhn via Patchstack)

4.6.7

FIX: Fix missing scripts and styles for the new channel feed feature

4.6.6

FEATURE: Add YouTube channel feeds
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.6.5

FIX: Fix Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (props Skalucy via Patchstack)
UPDATE: Update PHP coding standards
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.6.4

FIX: Fix Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (props Yudha P. via Patchstack)
UPDATE: Update copyright year
UPDATE: Remove unused patterns from PHPCS ruleset

4.6.3

UPDATE: Update author banner
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility for pre-5.0 versions
UPDATE: Update WPCS ruleset
UPDATE: Replace back-end PNG image with inline SVG

4.6.2

FIX: Fix wrong class in plugin documentation
FIX: Clarify usage in plugin documentation and readme.txt
UPDATE: Add cleanup routine after plugin uninstallation (delete 6 options)
UPDATE: Update readme.txt with shortcodes and features

4.6.1

FIX: Fix a content filtering issue with “Rate my post” plugin (props @sabelya)
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.6.0

FIX: Remove a redundant variable
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Update codebase to conform to latest WordPress Coding Standards (WPCS) ruleset

4.5.9

FIX: Fix documentation link
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.5.8

UPDATE: Update PHP 8 compatibility
UPDATE: Add lazy loading for iframes
UPDATE: Implement strict use for JavaScript

4.5.7

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Remove old, unused code

4.5.6

FIX: Fix aspect-ratio for Firefox and Safari (props @sabelya)
UPDATE: Update PHP coding standards (function naming)
UPDATE: Update plugin assets

4.5.5

FIX: Sanitize URL parameter in back-end
UPDATE: Combine and minify JavaScript
UPDATE: Minify CSS
UPDATE: Optimize DOM loaded functions
PERFORMANCE: Remove setInterval() for detecting YouTube iframe
PERFORMANCE: Add version number to CSS to break caching
PERFORMANCE: Remove heavy JavaScript for detecting video aspect ratio
PERFORMANCE: Implement modern CSS aspect-ratio for Core Web Vitals compatibility

4.5.4

FIX: Fix YouTube API V3 demo
FIX: Fix YouTube API V3 click event (switch to event delegation)
UPDATE: Update classic playlist JavaScript to ES6
UPDATE: Update readme.txt links
UPDATE: Add donation link

4.5.3

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.5.2

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Update JavaScript to ES6
FIX: Fix version number for enqueued scripts

4.5.1

FIX: Fix issue with playlist not appearing
FIX: Fix issue with playlist styling
UPDATE: Refactor JS for less overhead
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Update demo link

4.5.0

UPDATE: Update PHP requirements
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility

4.4.1

FIX: Fix a strict check
FIX: Add spaces removal for V3 shortcode (main video)
FIX: Add spaces removal for V3 shortcode (playlist)

4.4.0

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Remove jQuery dependency
UPDATE: Force cache clearing for JavaScript actions

4.3.5

UPDATE: Code quality fixes
UPDATE: Update JavaScript DOM loading detection

4.3.4

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Mobile UI tweaks

4.3.3

FIX: Fix localized issue not saving options

4.3.2

UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Add new screenshots
UPDATE: UI tweaks

4.3.1

FIX: Remove old code
UPDATE: Refactor and move player functions
UPDATE: Add YouTube related options
UPDATE: Remove unused option
UPDATE: Add more documentation (+ YouTube API how-to)
UPDATE: Add more/better YouTube branding

4.3

FIX: Load JS/CSS assets only when shortcode is present
FEATURE: Add YouTube API V3
FEATURE: Add new settings screen
FEATURE: Add new shortcode
UPDATE: Add a bit of documentation
UPDATE: Add more/better YouTube branding

4.2.4

FIX: YouTube Branding fixes
FIX: Author box layout fixes

4.2.3

FIX: Regression fix for previous version (add interval checking)

4.2.2

FIX: Fix player detection before being loaded

4.2.1

FIX: Fix JS code being executed on all pages
UPDATE: Update readme.txt

4.2

FIX: Add PHP compatibility
FIX: Fix/update old screenshots
FIX: Remove jQuery dependency
FIX: Fix JS codeflow
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Update readme.txt and general information

4.1.6

FIX: Fix script being included before jQuery
FIX: Fix duplicated variable assignment
FIX: Fix strict variable assignment
FIX: Remove unused colour picker script
UPDATE: Update plugin usage details
UPDATE: Small admin UI tweaks
UPDATE: Remove novd argument and switch to internal count

4.1.5

PERFORMANCE: Stop options from autoloading
UPDATE: Update WordPress compatibility
UPDATE: Better i18n options
UPDATE: Remove unused colour option

4.1.4

FIX: Remove version constant
FIX: Better security tweaks
UPDATE: Update admin menu name to reflect the plugin

4.1.3

FIX: License update
FIX: Official link update

4.1.2

FIX: Fix color picker enqueue dependency
UPDATE: Move all JS code to a separate file
UPDATE: Change the main video playlist function (JS) to accept parameters

4.1.1

FIX: Remove hardcoded background colour
FIX: Remove hardcoded padding and increase margin
FIX: Correctly enqueue style.css
UPDATE: Update default height and add option autoloading
UPDATE: Completely refactor YouTube Javascript
UPDATE: Remove all Flash (SWFObject) dependencies

4.1.0

FIX: Add index.php file to plugin root
UPDATE: Update plugin URLs
UPDATE: Update CSS styles for better compatibility

4.0.1

UPDATE: Add getButterfly ad box

4.0.0

FIX: Change all HTTP links to HTTPS
FIX: Update YouTube API and remove all deprecated functions and parameters
FIX: Remove parameters with same values as the default ones
FIX: Clean up the code (slight performance increase)
FIX: Fix rare cases of line ending issues
UI: Remove background color for better theme integration

3.2.0

FIX: Fix IFRAME name target
FEATURE: Add responsiveness

3.1.0

FIX: Fix a PHP warning
FIX: Remove deprecated options nonce
FEATURE: Add usage details on the plugin page
PROMOTION: Add link to premium version on CodeCanyon

3.0.2

Add license link
Add donate link
Add default options
Fix wrong internal version

3.0.1

Add CSS vendor prefixes

3.0.0

Initial release

Easy to use, works perfectly

Simple is perfect !

Was Working Perfectly…

Works great, simple to use

Best Youtube plugin I’ve found!

Great plugin and Support