YT Refined is a powerful, all-in-one Chrome extension designed to purify and supercharge your YouTube experience. It brings advanced media controls, UI decluttering, background playback force, and sponsor skipping into a beautiful, two-column glassmorphism-styled dark UI.
- Master Switch (Freeze UI): Easily disable the entire extension with a single click. The UI smoothly freezes, reverting YouTube back to its default state instantly without needing a page reload.
- Live Sync Across Tabs: Every change you make in the popup is applied instantly to all open YouTube tabs.
- Dynamic Toolbar Icon: The toolbar icon shows a green toggle while the extension is active and turns grey when it is disabled.
- Custom Playback Speed: Break YouTube's 2x speed limit. Smoothly adjust your playback speed from 0.25x up to 4.0x. YouTube's own speed menu and keyboard shortcuts (
Shift + >/Shift + <) keep working for the current video. - Volume Boost: Audio too low? Using the Web Audio API (
GainNode), safely boost any video's volume up to 600% without severe distortion. - Auto Max Quality (Auto HD): Bypasses YouTube's dynamic resolution scaling. Forces every video to start at the absolute highest available quality automatically.
- Auto PIP & Background Play: Tricks YouTube's visibility API to prevent auto-pausing when switching tabs, and tries to enter Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode when you leave the video tab. Turning it off restores YouTube's default behavior instantly (Note: Not recommended if you already have YouTube Premium).
- Sponsor Skipper: Integrated with the community-driven SponsorBlock API. Automatically detects and skips embedded sponsor pitches seamlessly.
- Dislike Counter: Brings back the exact dislike count right next to the like button, powered by the Return YouTube Dislike API.
- Home Shorts Hider: Automatically removes all Shorts shelves and recommendations from your homepage and search results using lightweight CSS injection.
- Sidebar Shorts Hider: Keeps the related videos sidebar clean by hiding mixed-in Shorts recommendations.
- Playables Hider: Completely removes the new "YouTube Playables" (instant games) shelves from the homepage, search results, and navigation menus.
- Focus Mode: Instantly hide comments and related videos on the watch page to eliminate distractions. If you are watching a playlist, the playlist panel stays visible.
ℹ️ YT Refined only runs on
www.youtube.com. YouTube Music, YouTube Studio and other YouTube subdomains are not affected.
The extension features a modern, premium 2-Column Grid Layout that completely eliminates the need for scrolling. Everything you need is visible at a single glance, neatly categorized into Media Controls and Appearance & UI.
| Toolbar icon (enabled) | Toolbar icon (disabled) |
|---|---|
|
 |
Since this extension is currently not on the Chrome Web Store, you can install it manually in Developer Mode.
- Google Chrome 111 or newer, or any Chromium-based browser such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera or Vivaldi.
- You can check your version at
chrome://settings/help.
Option A: Clone with Git (recommended, easier to update)
git clone https://github.com/himmetcanumutlu/youtube-refined-extension.gitOption B: Download as ZIP
- Open the repository page.
- Click the green Code button, then Download ZIP.
- Extract the ZIP file to a permanent location (e.g.
Documents/Extensions).
⚠️ Do not delete or move this folder after installing. The browser loads the extension directly from it.
⚠️ Extracting a ZIP sometimes creates a nested folder such asyoutube-refined-extension-main/youtube-refined-extension-main. Make sure you select the folder that directly containsmanifest.json.
- Open your browser's extensions page:
- Chrome / Brave / Opera / Vivaldi:
chrome://extensions/ - Microsoft Edge:
edge://extensions/
- Chrome / Brave / Opera / Vivaldi:
- Enable Developer mode using the toggle (top right in Chrome, left sidebar in Edge).
- Click the Load unpacked button.
- Select the extension folder (the one containing
manifest.json). - YT Refined now appears in your extensions list with its red logo.
- Click the 🧩 puzzle icon in the browser toolbar.
- Click the 📌 pin icon next to YT Refined to keep it visible.
- Open or refresh any YouTube tab. Tabs that were already open before installation need a refresh once.
- Click the YT Refined icon to open the settings popup and toggle features.
- Get the latest files:
- Git: run
git pullinside the extension folder. - ZIP: download the new ZIP and replace the old files in the same folder.
- Git: run
- Go to
chrome://extensions/and click the ⟳ Reload icon on the YT Refined card. - Refresh your open YouTube tabs.
Your settings are kept after updating.
Go to chrome://extensions/, click Remove on the YT Refined card, then delete the extension folder.
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| "Manifest file is missing or unreadable" | You selected the wrong folder. Select the folder that directly contains manifest.json. |
| Features do nothing on YouTube | Refresh the YouTube tab. Also make sure the Master Switch in the popup is on (the toolbar icon should show a green toggle). |
| Errors button appears on the extension card | Make sure your browser is version 111 or newer, then click ⟳ Reload on the extension card. |
| Auto PIP does not open | Chrome can block Picture-in-Picture that starts without a click. Background play still works. In newer Chrome versions, allow automatic Picture-in-Picture for YouTube in the site settings. |
| Speed resets after changing it from the YouTube menu | Your choice applies to the current video. The next video starts at the speed set in the popup. Set the popup speed to 1.00x to fully use YouTube's own speed control. |
├── manifest.json # Extension configuration (Manifest V3)
├── background.js # Service worker: switches the toolbar icon
├── content.js # Main feature logic (runs on www.youtube.com)
├── inject.js # Runs in the page context: Auto HD, background play, PIP
├── popup.html / popup.js # Settings popup
├── icons/ # ON / OFF icon sets (16, 32, 48, 128 px)
└── scripts/generate-icons.js # Regenerates the icons: node scripts/generate-icons.js
If you like YT Refined and find it useful, please consider giving this repository a ⭐️ Star! It helps the project grow and keeps me motivated to add new features.
Feel free to open issues, report bugs, or submit pull requests if you want to contribute to the codebase.
Developed with 💻 and ☕ by Himmet Can Umutlu.
Check out my GitHub profile for more projects on AI, Cybersecurity, and Software Engineering.
This project is open-source and distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.