Whenever I’m free, most of my time is spent on YouTube. Like everyone else, I go down the rabbit hole of YouTube and play any video that might look interesting. Every once in a while, I might find a video that is so good and screams to be shared. Fortunately, YouTube gave us the ability to share videos on different social media platforms. But if you wanted to share the video only with some friends and not publicly, the only option was to share the link of the video via different messaging apps. If you’ve ever tried to do this, you should know that the whole process is a huge mess for both sender and receiver. Apparently YouTube was aware of this issue too, because they launched a pretty cool new sharing feature. In today’s article, we’re going to show you everything you need to know about YouTube’s sharing feature and how to use it.
What is YouTube Share?
As you can guess from the name, YouTube sharing is a new feature within the YouTube application that allows you to share videos with your friends without leaving the application. Besides sharing the video, you can chat with your friends, which adds a conversational aspect to video sharing. You can also share a video with multiple people at the same time. The best part is that since the video is shared on the YouTube app, you can see a thumbnail preview of the video before playing it, so you know what you’re getting into. You can do it too play video from within chat. These features make video sharing pretty easy and fun. Now let’s see how to use these features.
How to Use YouTube Share
YouTube’s sharing feature update is rolling out gradually and you will receive the update in a few days. When you get the update, a new “Shared” tab will appear in the app. The Shared tab houses all the shared videos and chats. However, before you start sharing the video, you need to add the people you want to share the video with. The following tutorial shows step-by-step instructions for adding contacts and sharing videos.
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Adding People to YouTube Share
There are three ways to add people to your YouTube app. Also, there is something to be remembered here: when you add a contact, the other party will receive a notification and must approve your request.. Once the other party approves your connection request, only you will be able to share videos and messages with each other.
1. The easiest way to add contacts is to use their Gmail account. Tap the Shared tab and YouTube will show you the names of people in your Gmail contacts who have linked their YouTube to this account. you can find them People under “You may know”. To add such contacts, all you have to do is tap the “add contact” button (marked in the picture). Tapping the button will send an invitation and the contact will be added as soon as the invitation is accepted.
2. Share the invite link on social media, messaging, email, etc. You can also add people by sharing them on different platforms. To do this, just tap the “Send invite link” button and then select your vehicle.
3. Finally, you can: Tap “Find in phone book” to send invite links directly to your phone contacts choice. But keep in mind that for this method to work, you need to grant “communication access” permission to the YouTube app when the popup comes up.
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Video Sharing and Chatting
As I mentioned earlier, besides sharing videos, you can also chat with your friends within the YouTube app. I don’t think the chat feature was launched as a competition to other chat apps (Google has its own chat app), instead it’s just there to complement the video sharing feature. Apart from that, there are two ways to share a video on YouTube.
1. First of all, you can share the video by tapping the share button while watching. As soon as you tap the share button, app will now show you “Share to YouTube” option along with the usual “Share a link” option.
2. You can tap the contacts you’ve already added to share the videos. directly with them. As soon as you tap the contact, a chat box will open. Here you can write what you want to say and then press the send button to send the message along with the video.
3. You can also share a video with someone who has not yet received or accepted your contact invitation. To do this, select people under “You may know”. Or you can also use the “ADD PERSON” option to do the same. However, the recipient first receives a connection request. Once you accept the request, only the video will be delivered.
4. The second way to share a video is to do so from within the chat. Just open any chat (a chat is automatically created when someone accepts your connection request and vice versa), and tap the share button. Here you will see all the videos you watched most recently in chronological order.. Tap any of them to share them. Or you can search any video from the search bar and then share it.
3. Sharing Videos with Multiple People at the Same Time (Group Chat)
1. To share a video with multiple people at the same time, first tap the share button while watching the video. Here, Select as many contacts as you want by tapping on them. Now type (or don’t write) your message and hit the send button.
2. Once you hit the submit button, YouTube will create a new group with all these people as members. Every member of the group will be able to see the message and the video. Group will work exactly like group chats in other messaging apps, meaning everyone will be able to see each other’s messages.
SEE ALSO: 10 Great YouTube Chrome Extensions You Should Use
Share Videos and Chat with Friends on YouTube App
The new sharing feature in the YouTube app is getting a lot of love and hate at the same time. I personally love it. Since the feature is collected in a separate tab, it does not affect my normal use. Restricting accepting an invitation before anyone can share a video is a very good precaution. This ensures that you don’t get bombarded with messages from people you don’t even know. Thus, YouTube gives users broad control over the sharing feature. If the person doesn’t want to use it, they can easily ignore it. But that’s my opinion and your opinion may differ from mine. So, check out the feature for yourself and let us know your thoughts on the matter in the comment section below.
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