New Wistia Keyboard Shortcuts for Efficient Video Viewing

Sometimes, hovering over a video to see the controls and reading through choices to find the right one doesn’t offer quite the same satisfaction as pressing a button to do exactly what you want. Previously, we offered some limited hotkey options for the Wistia player. Recently, we decided to add a few more shortcuts!

We added a double click to fullscreen and a faster fast forward and rewind by holding the arrows. And while we’re on the topic, why not take this opportunity to explain all of our hotkey offerings?

The Wistia Hotkeys

To learn about all the fun hotkeys and shortcuts we have in our video player — look no further — here is your guide to video viewing bliss!

Play/Pause: Click once anywhere over the video player to play and pause. Or press the space bar.

Full Screen: Double click anywhere on the player to enter and exit fullscreen. Or press any one of these combos: f or F11 or Alt+Enter. Note: only doable if video fullscreen control is turned on.

Slow motion forward/rewind: When the video is paused, press the left or right arrow to jump a frame. If you hold shift and press an arrow, it will jump forward or backward one second in the video.

Fast forward/rewind: While the video is playing, press the left or right arrow to jump 2 seconds for videos under a minute long and 10 seconds for all other videos.

Super fast forward/rewind: While the video is playing, press the shift button while pressing the arrow, or hold the arrow, and you’ll enter a speedier fast forward or rewind. This jumps 5 seconds for videos under 30 seconds and 10 seconds for videos under 60 seconds. For videos over a minute, it jumps 10 seconds plus the number of minutes long the video is. For example, a 30-minute video will jump 40 seconds when you enter the speedy fast forward/rewind. A 2-hour video will jump 130 seconds (2.1 minutes) at a time. Hope that quenches your neeeed for speeeed! Note: only doable if video playbar controls are on.

Volume: The up arrow increases volume by .1 and shift + up increases volume by 1. Press the down arrow to decrease volume by .1 and shift + down to decrease volume by 1. Note: only doable if video volume controls are on.

Let us know how the new hotkeys feel! Do you usually use hotkeys to navigate when they’re available? Are there any other actions you’d like us to add hotkeys for in the future?