Add a progress bar and playback controls to YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and Facebook Reels.
Take back control of videos on the web by reversing the (very) annoying trend of social media platforms removing the native progress bar in an effort to keep you hooked. ReelControl adds a progress bar and playback controls anywhere they should rightfully be! That is, on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, or Facebook Reels.
Adding progress bars and video controls back in lets you:
– Know the time commitment before watching
– Rewind when you miss something
– Skip ahead and go back without having to start over
I initially built this for myself and found that not only is it a little bit more enjoyable if I do ever end up on those videos, but I notice myself spending a lot less time on them without having to explicitly block them. I spend less time on my phone too, since I am now used to having that progress bar and just get frustrated and leave immediately when I remember it’s not there.
== Platform Notes ==
– Instagram has a pretty clean video interface, so we only add the native video controls.
YouTube Shorts
– YouTube does have its own progress bar, but it’s proprietary and hidden from immediate view, making it impossible to quickly see the video’s length as opposed to the native controls which work _for_ the user.
– YouTube Shorts interface is crazy cluttered, so we have some options to remove most elements from view.
Facebook Reels
– Facebook Reels have a crazy amount of clutter, and also no progress bar or video controls.
– Facebook’s HTML structure is extremely obfuscated, so we just removed all the clutter and added a progress bar. If anyone wants to add more fine-grained control, PRs are most welcome here!
—
Open source, PRs and issues are welcome @ https://github.com/darajava/reel-control/
—
Built with love by Soliloquy Apps ❤️
Like this extension? We also built AudioDiary–a super smart voice-powered journal that’s gotten lots of love from its users.
Try it out at https://audiodiary.ai !
Details
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Version
1.3
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Updated
April 2, 2025
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Offered by
darajava
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Size
162KiB
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Languages
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Developer
Email
darajavaherian@gmail.com
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Non-trader
This developer has not identified itself as a trader. For consumers in the European Union, please note that consumer rights do not apply to contracts between you and this developer.
Privacy
The developer has disclosed that it will not collect or use your data.
This developer declares that your data is
- Not being sold to third parties, outside of the approved use cases
- Not being used or transferred for purposes that are unrelated to the item’s core functionality
- Not being used or transferred to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes
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17 Comments
uptown
An answer to my wishes … https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398696 thank you!
joshdavham
Thanks for sharing! Also, would you mind adding a license to your gh repo?
robgibbons
Thanks for this. I've thought about building this exact thing ever since this vicious trend began.
xnx
Nice. Does this do more than the "Show Video Controls by Default" extension? https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/show-video-controls…
omoikane
For youtube shorts, replacing the "shorts" in URL with "watch" will give you the usual interface, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GqkmtcirwYA -> https://www.youtube.com/watch/GqkmtcirwYA
But actually I see that seek bar is already available in youtube shorts. Maybe it's a recent change?
ensignavenger
Thanks for releasing it! Whats the chance of this getting shipped to Firefox users? A future improvement might be to add the ability to change the playback speed :)
mthoms
For anyone looking: Safari has "Stop The Madness" which has something similar (and much more).
Aissen
I wrote a set of uBo rules to do the same on TikTok. Not sure if they still work, but might as well publish it:
tiktok.com##sharing-main-video-el:watch-attr(controlslist):remove-attr(controlslist)
It seems a bit flakey on mobile, but it was a nice addition to the other enhancements. I haven't been able to make the mobile web as useful as the desktop web version, but didn't want to spend too much time on it either.
devmtk
Thank you for that. Helps a lot!
65
Instant download. Works great. Perhaps on Instagram you can make it save the audio level when the video is muted? If I mute a video then scroll to the next one, the audio still plays. Otherwise, thanks for making this, it's something I've wanted for a long time.
umvi
Adding a progress bar back might cause people to just skip to the part they want to see instead of watching the whole thing again though, and I'm worried that might not be in the best interests of the content creator or advertisers.
Zak
That looks pretty useful. A Firefox release would be most appreciated.
varenc
I have a simple bookmarklet does does something similar:
It just re-enables all controls on all <video> elements and uses z-indexing to push them to the top. Works on instagram but needs to be re-ran for new video elements.
haberdasher
I've made these for TikTok/Instagram:
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/video-scrubber-for-…
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-scrubbe…
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/video-controls-for-…
https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/video-cont…
megadata
I haven't tried this out but if it works it's one the biggest bang for the buck I've seen on HN. Thanks!
4jck
is there a way to "save" a volume for instagram/youtube? i swear their volume is boosted to 200% volume
ranger_danger
Been using this extension to turn shorts back into regular videos for years: https://github.com/raven0230/Remove-Youtube-Shorts
That way not only do you get the seek/pause controls back, but other stuff like volume, comments, keyboard shortcuts etc. now work as usual too.