I’m working on embedding YouTube videos in my website and ran into an issue with the player controls. When I use the autohide parameter set to 1, the entire control bar disappears including the progress bar. But I noticed that on YouTube’s own website, when you move your mouse away from the video, the controls hide but the progress bar stays visible at the bottom.
Is there a way to achieve this same behavior with embedded videos? I want the controls to auto-hide but keep the progress bar showing so users can still see video progress.
Nice find! i’ve actually seen this behavoir mentioned in some developer forums but never tried it myself. the autohide=3 trick definitely seems like the way to go for now, even if its not officially documented. probaly worth bookmarking this solution since youtube’s embed options can be pretty limiting otherwise.
Interesting discovery with the autohide=3 parameter. I actually encountered this same issue about a year ago when building a custom video player interface for a client’s training portal. What caught my attention was that this undocumented value seems to mirror YouTube’s internal player behavior rather than being a random hack. From what I’ve observed, YouTube likely uses different autohide values internally for different contexts - their main site, embedded players, mobile apps, etc. The fact that autohide=3 has remained functional suggests it’s probably tied to their core player logic rather than being an accidental feature. I’ve been monitoring it in production environments and it handles edge cases well, like when users pause videos or seek to different positions. The progress bar stays visible throughout these interactions, which is exactly what you’d want for maintaining context. While the lack of documentation is concerning from a maintenance standpoint, the behavior is consistent enough that it seems like a deliberate feature rather than an oversight.
The autohide=3 parameter has been reliable in my experience working with video platforms for enterprise clients. While it’s concerning to depend on undocumented features, this particular setting appears to be deeply integrated into YouTube’s player architecture. I’ve implemented it across multiple commercial projects without issues, though I always document this dependency clearly for future maintenance. The behavior matches user expectations perfectly since most people are accustomed to the native YouTube interface. One consideration is that if you’re building something mission-critical, you might want to implement event listeners using the YouTube IFrame API as a backup plan. This way you can detect when the parameter stops working and fall back to programmatically showing progress updates. For most standard implementations though, the autohide=3 approach provides exactly the UX balance you’re looking for between functionality and clean interface design.
The autohide=3 parameter you discovered is indeed undocumented but works reliably in practice. I’ve been using this approach for several client projects over the past two years and haven’t encountered any breaking changes from YouTube’s side. This parameter essentially mimics the native YouTube player behavior where only the control buttons fade out while preserving the progress indicator. One thing to keep in mind is that this behavior might vary slightly across different devices and browsers. I’ve noticed that on some mobile devices, the progress bar visibility can be inconsistent depending on the user’s interaction patterns. For production websites, I typically implement a fallback solution using the YouTube Player API to manually control these states, though the autohide=3 method remains the simplest approach for most use cases.
That undocumented autohide=3 parameter is actually a lifesaver for maintaining better user experience. I stumbled across it about six months ago while dealing with a similar issue for a video-heavy educational platform. What’s interesting is that this parameter seems to be YouTube’s internal setting that they use for their own embedded players in various contexts. I’ve tested it extensively across different browsers and devices, and while it works consistently, there’s always that nagging concern about relying on undocumented features. However, given that it’s been stable for quite some time now, it appears YouTube has kept this functionality intact even through their various player updates. The behavior you’re getting is exactly what most users expect - they want to see playback progress without the visual clutter of all the control buttons. Just make sure to test it periodically since undocumented parameters could theoretically be removed without notice, though this one seems pretty entrenched in their system.