YouTube Shorts to Normal Video Converter

Change the Link Yourself: /shorts/ to /watch?v=

A Short and a normal video are the same upload — only the address decides which player YouTube opens it in. So the converter does nothing you could not do by hand: take the 11-character ID after /shorts/ and put it after /watch?v= instead.

• youtube.com/shorts/aBcD3fGh1jK opens the Shorts player
• youtube.com/watch?v=aBcD3fGh1jK opens the normal player

Anything after a question mark in a Shorts link, such as ?feature=share or ?si=…, is tracking and can be left out. Editing the link like this works in every browser, on a computer and on a phone.

One-Click Bookmarklet: Open Any Short in the Normal Player

If you watch Shorts on a computer and want the normal player every time, you do not need a “Shorts to normal video” extension. Drag the button below to your bookmarks bar; whenever a Short is open, click the bookmark and the same video reloads in the normal player.

A bookmarklet is a bookmark that runs one line of code on the page in front of you — this one only rewrites the address. It asks for no permissions, cannot read anything in the background and works the same in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari. If the bookmarks bar is hidden, Ctrl+Shift+B shows it in most browsers (Cmd+Shift+B on a Mac).

What the Normal Player Gives You

The video does not change — it is the same file at the same quality. What changes is everything around it:

• A seek bar, to jump to any moment instead of waiting for the loop to come round
• Playback speed, to slow a tutorial down or speed a long Short up
• The quality menu, to pick 1080p or save data with a lower resolution
• Captions with their settings, and full screen, theater mode and picture-in-picture on a computer
• The description, comments and channel in the usual layout, without the next Short starting when you scroll

A Short loops on its own in the Shorts player. In the normal player it stops at the end, and Loop is a right-click away on a computer.

On iPhone and Android

The YouTube app usually shows a Short in the Shorts player whatever link it is opened from, so on a phone the normal player lives in the browser. Touch and hold Open in the normal player and choose Open in New Tab, so the link opens in Safari or Chrome rather than being handed to the app.

For the full desktop player with every menu, ask the browser for the desktop site: in Safari it is under the page menu in the address bar, and in Chrome it is the Desktop site box in the ⋮ menu.