Summary

The web content provides instructions on how to embed YouTube videos and playlists into Medium articles, detailing two methods for embedding and listing supported URL formats.

Abstract

The article "How to Embed a YouTube Video on Medium" outlines two methods for incorporating YouTube videos into Medium posts. The first and simplest method involves copying the YouTube video link and pasting it directly into the Medium article, which should automatically convert into an embedded video. The second method is slightly more involved, requiring the use of Medium's "+" button to manually embed the video link into an empty line within the article. The article also provides a comprehensive list of supported YouTube URL formats for embedding and briefly touches on the possibility of embedding YouTube playlists and user profiles, noting that playlists can be embedded with the first video featured and user profiles, while embeddable, do not display attractively.

Opinions

The author implies that videos enhance Medium articles by providing visual engagement, citing Renderforest's statistic that 45% of people watch more than an hour of video weekly.
YouTube is emphasized as a highly popular video platform, with a significant number of daily video views, suggesting its relevance and importance for content creators on Medium.
The preference for the first embedding method is evident, as it is described as more straightforward and automatic, while the second method is presented as a fallback if the first does not work.
The article suggests that embedding a YouTube playlist is a useful feature, allowing readers to access multiple videos from a single embed.
There is a subtle critique of embedding YouTube user profiles, as the author notes it does not look very nice, implying that it may not be the most visually appealing way to present content.

How to Embed a YouTube Video on Medium

2 ways to include YouTube videos in your Medium articles

Videos are a powerful tool to add some visual punch to your Medium articles. According to Renderforest, 45% of people watch more than an hour of video on YouTube or Facebook per week.

YouTube is one of — if not the — most popular video platform in the world. Five billion YouTube videos are watched every single day and a third of internet users are also YouTube viewers.

Being able to embed YouTube videos directly into your Medium articles is a great feature of the platform. Below is an example of what a YouTube embed looks like on Medium.

I’ll show you the two ways you can embed a YouTube video on Medium.

Option 1

Go to the YouTube video you want to embed and find the Share button
Copy the link.
Paste the link into your Medium article and hit Enter.

You’re all done! The YouTube embed should automatically load into your article within a few seconds.

Option 2 — if Option 1 doesn’t work

If — for whatever reason the YouTube video doesn’t automatically load — follow the steps below:

Go to the YouTube video you want to embed, find the Share button, and copy the link like in Option 1.
Click the “+” button on an empty line

When you have an empty line while writing on Medium, a “+” button appears to the left:

When you click on it, a few options will appear. Click on the “<>” embed button.

Doing this will give you the option to paste a link to embed content into the article.

Paste the link and hit enter and the embedded YouTube video should show up within a few seconds.

You’re likely only using this option if hitting Enter doesn’t automatically embed the YouTube video.

Below are the supported URL formats for YouTube video embeds

http://*youtube.com/watch*
http://*.youtube.com/v/*
https://*youtube.com/watch*
https://*.youtube.com/v/*
http://youtu.be/*
https://youtu.be/*
http://*.youtube.com/user/*
http://*.youtube.com/*#*/*
http://m.youtube.com/watch*
http://m.youtube.com/index*
http://*.youtube.com/profile*
http://*.youtube.com/view_play_list*
http://*.youtube.com/playlist*
https://*.youtube.com/playlist*
http://www.youtube.com/embed/*
https://www.youtube.com/embed/*
http://youtube.com/gif*
https://youtube.com/gif*
http://www.youtube.com/gif*
https://www.youtube.com/gif*
http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link*
https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link*
http://youtube.com/attribution_link*
https://youtube.com/attribution_link*
http://youtube.ca/*
http://youtube.jp/*
http://youtube.com.br/*
http://youtube.co.uk/*
http://youtube.nl/*
http://youtube.pl/*
http://youtube.es/*
http://youtube.ie/*
http://it.youtube.com/*
http://youtube.fr/*
https://youtube.ca/*
https://youtube.jp/*
https://youtube.com.br/*
https://youtube.co.uk/*
https://youtube.nl/*
https://youtube.pl/*
https://youtube.es/*
https://youtube.ie/*
https://it.youtube.com/*
https://youtube.fr/*

Can I embed a YouTube playlist?

Yes it’s possible to embed a YouTube playlist. The first video on the list will be featured and users can click on the top right corner of the video to expand the playlist to be able to go to any video in the list.

Can I embed a YouTube user or profile?

Technically yes. But it doesn’t look very nice. A YouTube user profile embed essentially looks like a normal hyperlink box in Medium.

The Complete List of Embeddable Things on Medium

Here is a list of all the service providers that should, in theory, work on Medium.

medium.com