Free Chrome Video Speed Controller β€” Works on Any Site ⚑🎬

Chrome Extension Free Β· MV3 6 min read

The speed controller
your browser forgot to build.

IMGLAB Video Speed Control puts a draggable overlay on every video, gives you 13 remappable keyboard shortcuts, and remembers your preferred speed per site. Works on YouTube, Udemy, Vimeo, Twitch β€” any page with an HTML5 video element. Free. No sign-up. No ads. No data collection.

∞
Sites
supported
13
Remappable
shortcuts
0.1Γ—
Step
granularity
Free
Always &
forever

YouTube gives you eight fixed playback speeds. That’s it. Every other video site gives you even less. If you watch lectures, tutorials, or long-form content, you’ve already made peace with this β€” or found yourself clicking the speed menu twenty times just to land on 1.75Γ—.

IMGLAB Video Speed Control ends that compromise. A draggable overlay controller appears on every video automatically. Thirteen keyboard shortcuts work out of the box, every one remappable. Each site remembers its own speed. And all of it is completely free.

🎬
What you’re working around without it
YouTube’s 8 fixed presets
No 1.3Γ—, no 1.6Γ—, no 1.8Γ— β€” you either round up or live with the gap
Most sites: nothing at all
Udemy, news sites, lecture portals β€” zero built-in speed controls
No keyboard shortcuts
No way to nudge speed by 0.1Γ— without reaching for the mouse
Speed resets every tab
Set it manually every single time β€” the browser never remembers
01

Three things that work together

The extension is built around three interlocking pieces: a visible on-page controller, a full keyboard shortcut system, and per-site memory. Each one is useful alone β€” together they make speed control feel native to the browser.

⭐ Most Visible
Draggable on-page overlay β€” always right there

A sleek [ βˆ’ ] [ 1.50Γ— ] [ + ] [ Γ— ] controller attaches to every video automatically. Drag it by grabbing the speed number. Double-click to toggle between 1Γ— and your preferred speed. Built inside a shadow DOM β€” completely immune to page style interference.

πŸ’‘ Press H to hide the overlay during full-screen viewing β€” and bring it back with the same key.
13 keyboard shortcuts β€” every one remappable

Speed up (C), slow down (X), reset to 1Γ— (Z), jump to preferred speed (V), cycle favourites (B), rewind, advance, frame step, volume, pause. All configurable from the popup β€” click any key badge, press your new key, done. Shortcuts never fire when you’re typing.

Per-site speed memory β€” set it once, forever

YouTube at 1.5Γ—. Udemy at 2Γ—. Netflix at 1Γ—. Each hostname stores its last speed in chrome.storage.sync β€” it follows you across all your Chrome profiles automatically. New sites start at your configured preferred speed without any setup.

🌐
Every <video> site
πŸ”’
Shadow DOM isolated
☁️
Syncs across profiles
⚑
MV3 compliant
🎞️
Frame-step support
02

All 13 shortcuts at a glance

All thirteen bindings work out of the box. Remap any of them from the Shortcuts tab in the popup β€” click a key badge, press your preferred key, hit Save. On YouTube, keys that duplicate YouTube’s native behaviour (arrows, space, comma, period) are intentionally passed to YouTube’s own handler so seek animations and the progress bar keep working perfectly.

Default Keybindings β€” All Remappable
H Β· Show / hide overlay X Β· Slow down βˆ’0.25Γ— C Β· Speed up +0.25Γ— Z Β· Reset to 1Γ— V Β· Jump to preferred speed B Β· Cycle favourites ← Β· Rewind 5s β†’ Β· Advance 5s Space Β· Pause / play , Β· Frame backward . Β· Frame forward ↑ Β· Volume +0.1 ↓ Β· Volume βˆ’0.1

Shortcuts never fire when focus is inside an <input>, <textarea>, <select>, or any contentEditable element β€” no accidental speed changes while searching or commenting.

03

YouTube gets special treatment

YouTube is a Single Page Application β€” it doesn’t reload the page when you navigate between videos. That breaks most browser extensions. IMGLAB handles it with three specific YouTube-aware behaviours built into the engine.

πŸ”
SPA Navigation

Listens for YouTube’s own yt-navigate-finish event, detects stale controllers, re-attaches to the correct parent, and re-applies your speed on every video switch.

🚦
Native Key Pass-Through

Arrow keys, Space, comma, and period are passed to YouTube’s handlers. Seek animations, the +5s bubble, and the progress bar all work exactly as YouTube intended.

πŸ–ΌοΈ
Thumbnail Preview Guard

Hover previews in YouTube video cards never get an overlay β€” a size check plus an ancestor YTD-VIDEO-PREVIEW check blocks attachment reliably on any screen size.

πŸ’‘
Re-apply speed on play

Some sites β€” including YouTube β€” silently reset playbackRate when a new video loads. IMGLAB listens for the play event and immediately re-applies your speed if the site changed it behind your back. No more surprise speed resets when autoplay kicks in between videos.

04

Up and running in 30 seconds

Click Add to Chrome below. The extension installs from the Chrome Web Store instantly. Open any video page β€” the overlay appears automatically in the top-left corner of the video. Press C to speed up, X to slow down. Open the popup to configure preferred speed, step size, cycle list, and remap any shortcut from the Shortcuts tab.

Add it to Chrome. It’s free and takes 30 seconds.

No account. No ads. No data collection. Works on YouTube, Udemy, Vimeo, Twitch, and any other site with an HTML5 video element. If it saves you time, a Ko-fi keeps the project alive.

Free forever Β· Chrome Web Store Β· No sign-up required

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