Shrink a YouTube video to responsive width

Question

I have a YouTube video embedded on our website and when I shrink the screen to tablet or phone sizes it stops shrinking at around 560px in width. Is this standard for YouTube videos or is there something that I can add to the code to make it go smaller?

Answer 1

You can make YouTube videos responsive with CSS. Wrap the iframe in a div with the class of "videowrapper" and apply the following styles:

.videowrapper {
    float: none;
    clear: both;
    width: 100%;
    position: relative;
    padding-bottom: 56.25%;
    padding-top: 25px;
    height: 0;
}
.videowrapper iframe {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
}

The .videowrapper div should be inside a responsive element. The padding on the .videowrapper is necessary to keep the video from collapsing. You may have to tweak the numbers depending upon your layout.

Answer 2

If you are using Bootstrap you can also use a responsive embed. This will fully automate making the video(s) responsive.

http://getbootstrap.com/components/#responsive-embed

There's some example code below.

<!-- 16:9 aspect ratio -->
<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9">
  <iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="..."></iframe>
</div>

<!-- 4:3 aspect ratio -->
<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-4by3">
  <iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="..."></iframe>
</div>

Answer 3

Refined Javascript only solution for YouTube and Vimeo using jQuery.

// -- After the document is ready
$(function() {
  // Find all YouTube and Vimeo videos
  var $allVideos = $("iframe[src*='www.youtube.com'], iframe[src*='player.vimeo.com']");

  // Figure out and save aspect ratio for each video
  $allVideos.each(function() {
    $(this)
      .data('aspectRatio', this.height / this.width)
      // and remove the hard coded width/height
      .removeAttr('height')
      .removeAttr('width');
  });

  // When the window is resized
  $(window).resize(function() {
    // Resize all videos according to their own aspect ratio
    $allVideos.each(function() {
      var $el = $(this);
      // Get parent width of this video
      var newWidth = $el.parent().width();
      $el
        .width(newWidth)
        .height(newWidth * $el.data('aspectRatio'));
    });

  // Kick off one resize to fix all videos on page load
  }).resize();
});

Simple to use with only embed:

<iframe width="16" height="9" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wH7k5CFp4hI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Or with responsive style framework like Bootstrap.

<div class="row">
  <div class="col-sm-6">
    Stroke Awareness
  <div class="col-sm-6>
    <iframe width="16" height="9" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wH7k5CFp4hI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
  </div>
</div>

• Relies on width and height of iframe to preserve aspect ratio
• Can use aspect ratio for width and height (width="16" height="9")
• Waits until document is ready before resizing
• Uses jQuery substring *= selector instead of start of string ^=
• Gets reference width from video iframe parent instead of predefined element
• Javascript solution
• No CSS
• No wrapper needed

Thanks to @Dampas for starting point. https://stackoverflow.com/a/33354009/1011746

Answer 4

I used the CSS in the accepted answer here for my responsive YouTube videos - worked great right up until YouTube updated their system around the start of August 2015. The videos on YouTube are the same dimensions but for whatever reason the CSS in the accepted answer now letterboxes all our videos. Black bands across top and bottom.

I've tickered around with the sizes and settled on getting rid of the top padding and changing the bottom padding to 56.45%. Seems to look good.

.videowrapper {
    position: relative;
    padding-bottom: 56.45%;
    height: 0;
}

Answer 5

Modern simple css solution

The new aspect-ratio is the modern solution to this problem.

aspect-ratio: 16 / 9;

That's all you need to make a div, image, iframe size automatically. Samples.

It's got good support, but is not yet in Safari (will be for upcoming iOS15) - so for now you'll still need to use a fallback. You can achieve that with the @supports feature

.element 
{
   aspect-ratio: 16 / 9;

   @supports not (aspect-ratio: 16 / 9) 
   {
       // take your pick from the other solutions on this page
   }
 }

Assuming your development browser does support this property be sure to test without it by commenting out both aspect-ratio and @supports.

Answer 6

@magi182's solution is solid, but it lacks the ability to set a maximum width. I think a maximum width of 640px is necessary because otherwhise the youtube thumbnail looks pixelated.

My solution with two wrappers works like a charm for me:

.videoWrapperOuter {
  max-width:640px; 
  margin-left:auto;
  margin-right:auto;
}
.videoWrapperInner {
  float: none;
  clear: both;
  width: 100%;
  position: relative;
  padding-bottom: 50%;
  padding-top: 25px;
  height: 0;
}
.videoWrapperInner iframe {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
}
<div class="videoWrapperOuter">
  <div class="videoWrapperInner">
    <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/C6-TWRn0k4I" 
      frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
  </div>
</div>

I also set the padding-bottom in the inner wrapper to 50 %, because with @magi182's 56 %, a black bar on top and bottom appeared.

Answer 7

This is old thread, but I have find new answer on https://css-tricks.com/NetMag/FluidWidthVideo/Article-FluidWidthVideo.php

The problem with previous solution is that you need to have special div around video code, which is not suitable for most uses. So here is JavaScript solution without special div.

// Find all YouTube videos - RESIZE YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!
var $allVideos = $("iframe[src^='https://www.youtube.com']"),

// The element that is fluid width
$fluidEl = $("body");

// Figure out and save aspect ratio for each video
$allVideos.each(function() {

    $(this)
    .data('aspectRatio', this.height / this.width)

    // and remove the hard coded width/height
    .removeAttr('height')
    .removeAttr('width');

});

// When the window is resized
$(window).resize(function() {

    var newWidth = $fluidEl.width();

    // Resize all videos according to their own aspect ratio
    $allVideos.each(function() {

        var $el = $(this);
        $el
        .width(newWidth)
        .height(newWidth * $el.data('aspectRatio'));

    });

// Kick off one resize to fix all videos on page load
}).resize();

// END RESIZE VIDEOS

Answer 8

If you are using Bootstrap 5.0, you can use .ratio

https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.0/helpers/ratio/

Example

<div class="ratio ratio-16x9">
  <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zpOULjyy-n8?rel=0" title="YouTube video" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>

Answer 9

With credits to previous answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/36549068/7149454

Boostrap compatible, adust your container width (300px in this example) and you're good to go:

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" style="height: 100 %; width: 300px; ">
<iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LbLB0K-mXMU?start=1841" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</div>

Answer 10

Okay, looks like big solutions.

Why not to add width: 100%; directly in your iframe. ;)

So your code would looks something like <iframe style="width: 100%;" ...></iframe>

Try this it'll work as it worked in my case.

Enjoy! :)

Answer 11

I make this with simple css as follows

HTML CODE

<iframe id="vid" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RuD7Se9jMag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

CSS CODE

<style type="text/css">
#vid {

max-width: 100%;
height: auto;

}