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How to remove related videos from the end of an embedded YouTube video

As I’m sure you’ve seen, YouTube displays related videos at the end of videos you have viewed. This can be useful, but this can also be problematic. For example, we were recently working on a very personal project for a client. This client had a great video to use for their cause, but because the project was so personal to them, they felt uncomfortable that all these random, unconnected videos were being offered to viewers at the end of the video.

I remembered that I had seen that you can remove related videos from the end of a YouTube video. It turns out, it’s really quite easy to do!

Let’s say I want to embed this adorable kitten video in my site to share it with my readers:

You see all those supposedly related cute kitten videos at the end? How can YouTube dare to even compare this video with others? In order to make sure you are completely focused on this cute kitten, I will remove the related videos from the end. Note: you can only do this on embedded videos, and not on YouTube itself.

  1. Go to the video’s individual page on YouTube. In this case, the individual page is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8GHf-aELjY.
  2. On the bottom of the video, click Share.
    image
  3. Once you click Share, a new area slides open underneath the video with a shortlink for sharing the video. It also presents an Embed button. Click that.
    image
  4. When you click Embed, another area opens up underneath that offers you the embed code, and also a number of options to allow you to customize the video’s appearance on your site. The first option is a checkbox that says “Show suggested videos when the video finishes.” Make sure that box is unchecked. If you look at the embed code, you’ll see that it adds a parameter after the video’s URL: 
    ?rel=0

    . “Rel” means related videos, and 0 is a binary command, meaning No.
    image

  5. Copy the embed code and paste wherever you want the video to appear! See below:

While I was searching for this solution, I came across a list of parameters that you can add to YouTube embed code to customize the player: YouTube Embedded Players and Player Parameters. For example, let’s say I think that the above video speaks for itself, and doesn’t need the title to appear on the player. To remove the title, I would add another parameter to the video’s URL in the embed code. So the URL would change from 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/z8GHf-aELjY?rel=0

to 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/z8GHf-aELjY?rel=0&showinfo=0

(note the use of the & to add another parameter). Here’s the final embed code:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/z8GHf-aELjY?rel=0&showinfo=0

frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And here’s how the video looks without the related videos or title:

Other things you can customize in your player with these parameters are if it autoplays, loops, starts or ends at a particular point in the video, and more!

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Miriam Schwab on May 20, 2012 • Short URL: http://illum.in/L47wSQ • Category Video • Tags: , Comments (25)

25 Responses to “How to remove related videos from the end of an embedded YouTube video”

  • Comment by Ariel on Sep 27 2012 at 7:21 pm

    Useful stuff – but what do we do with the non embeded videos?

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Sep 29 2012 at 10:18 pm

    Ariel, if by non-embedded videos you mean YouTube videos that are on the YouTube site – you can’t control how those videos appear on YouTube.

  • Comment by Anne Kleimberg on Oct 31 2012 at 10:18 pm

    Miriam- you rock! I made a lovely slide show for my b&b site (www.casacaesarea.com) but the damn images YouTube was embedding were tacky and awful. Not until I found this article from you did I find out how to get rid of them. Thank you!!!

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Oct 31 2012 at 10:33 pm

    Anne, I’m really glad that this tutorial helped you!

  • Comment by aakash on Dec 03 2012 at 10:37 pm

    This is what I have been looking for from last one hour. Didn’t know that this may be too simple. Thanks for sharing this.

  • Comment by Sara OC on Dec 07 2012 at 12:49 pm

    Thanks so much for posting this up. Very clear and extremely useful. I needed to stop the referral videos on a site for young readers, and now I can!

  • Comment by Web Design in Manchester on Dec 10 2012 at 1:58 pm

    Hi, Thanks for this. I tried a couple of other suggestions which were obviously out of date. This one sorted out my problem and is so simple when you know how. (Dec 2012)

  • Comment by Gary W on Dec 11 2012 at 11:52 pm

    That used to work, but just did that for a video and regardless of whether I check the box or not, I still get related videos at the end. Anyone see that?

  • Comment by Gary W on Dec 11 2012 at 11:56 pm

    Seems like when I added the “&showinfo=0″ then it stopped displaying the related videos.

  • Comment by Nathan K Smith on Dec 19 2012 at 10:21 pm

    Hi Miriam,

    great tip. Removing the title worked. Do you have suggestions on removing the video player at the bottom?

    All I want viewers to see is a play button in the middle of the video.

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Dec 19 2012 at 10:28 pm

    What do you mean by removing the video player at the bottom? Do you mean you want to remove the controls from the bottom, where the play bar and volume are?

  • Comment by Nathan K Smith on Dec 19 2012 at 10:46 pm

    Yes remove the controls that appear at the bottom.

    Also, I noticed when I removed the title my video now has black space above and below the video. Anyway to remove that?

  • Comment by Miriam Schwab on Dec 21 2012 at 1:57 pm

    To remove the controls, and have the video autoplay, try adding the following parameters: modestbranding=1;autohide=1&showinfo=0&controls=0;

    Re the black space – sorry, I don’t know what’s causing that. Might have to do with a misplaced bracket or quotation mark.

  • Comment by hollysnails on Jan 26 2013 at 4:36 am

    thanks I needed this!

  • Comment by Edward on Feb 22 2013 at 5:15 am

    I have tried several videos and I don’t get that selection in order to avoid related videos. I just get

    Use HTTPS [?]
    Enable privacy-enhanced mode [?]

  • Comment by melissa on Mar 07 2013 at 9:15 pm

    I keep adding this -trying to add the following parameters

    ?auotplay=1&rel=0&autohide=1 -it keeps removing the rel=0 every time I save. Also if I change the size of the iframe it deletes the numbers back to the original. Why???!! Arg.

  • Comment by jean mellano on Mar 07 2013 at 10:30 pm

    Miriam, THANK YOU for posting this tip. It was aggravating to see these video suggestions at the end of embedded videos on our website. It implied to our customers that we were endorsing those videos which we did not, in addition to the fact, videos of our competition were also suggested.

  • Comment by Nada Lou on Mar 10 2013 at 10:49 pm

    Hi Thank you so much for your very clear suggestions. Before I found your posts, I tried to “trick” the YouTube by adding about 30 seconds of just black to words title. After I found your suggestions, I tried to do what you recommend – found all the part, even removed twice myYouTube clip and she I got back to it -the same imposed YouTube stuff is at the end of these 30 seconds!!! Why

    Also I want to know if I leave leave the clip with this blank space at the end – would the “view” be counted or not?

    Thanks for being a bright light in this frustrating tunnel of YouTube trick!
    Nada

  • Comment by zara carkner on Mar 13 2013 at 11:31 pm

    I’ve tried this, and when I post onto my client’s Facebook page, the video still plays with the suggested videos at the end. what am I doing wrong?

  • Comment by Michael Dionne on Apr 02 2013 at 6:50 am

    Any webmaster or programmer has a solution to append ?rel=0 automatically at end of an embedded Youtube video? I am programming a new browser (using the IE engine) aimed specifically at kids, and keeping track of the videos they are viewing is apparently impossible since most embedded Youtube videos have this feature set to on that allow them to see other videos when the first one ends… because the URL does not change..
    For the sake of making the Internet a better place for kids, thanks in advance for any help or hint!
    Skype ID: nuganx

  • Comment by Shadi Gharaibeh on Apr 17 2013 at 6:38 pm

    Thank you for the useful and easy to follow information which I applied to the embedded video on my website and the related videos at the end are gone.

    Shadi

  • Comment by D@yesiwanna on Apr 23 2013 at 7:34 pm

    Thank you SO very much!!

  • Comment by Keith on Apr 29 2013 at 9:58 pm

    I did what you said here-good stuff.
    I have the box unchecked, but it still suggests the videos.
    What else can I do?

  • Comment by mindy on May 05 2013 at 1:10 am

    I can follow all your steps, but I get lost at the end of step 4 and the beginning of 5. Where am I supposed to cut and paste the code to? I have unchecked the box. I follow all the steps, I just do not understand what I do with the code. Thanks for your help.

  • Comment by Boo on May 16 2013 at 12:52 pm

    Hi i have got the youtube video embedded on my website but the title of the video is appearing twice on the top. Could any one please help me out in this?

    Thanks in advance

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