Firefox's Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode is one of its most useful quality-of-life features — and one of the most underused. It lets you pop any video out of the browser into a floating overlay that stays on top of all your other windows. Here's how to use it fully.
Basic Picture-in-Picture
When you hover over a video in Firefox, a small blue PiP icon appears. Clicking it pops the video into a floating window that:
- Stays on top of all other windows (system-level always-on-top)
- Persists even if you navigate away from the tab or close the tab
- Works across virtual desktops/spaces
The floating window has play/pause, skip, and close buttons. You can resize it by dragging the corners.
Keyboard Shortcut
No hovering required: Ctrl+Shift+] (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+] (Mac) opens PiP for the currently playing video on the active tab.
This is significantly faster than hovering for the icon — especially useful when you're watching a video and need to quickly pop it out to switch windows.
Captions/Subtitles in PiP
Firefox automatically shows captions in the PiP window if the video has HTML5 subtitle tracks and captions are enabled in the player.
For streaming services:
- YouTube: captions carry over to PiP if enabled before popping out
- Netflix/Hulu: subtitles work in PiP on most content
- Prime Video: subtitles work in PiP
This is a Firefox-exclusive feature — Chrome's PiP doesn't support captions.
Using PiP for Video Calls
PiP works on WebRTC video streams too, not just recorded videos. You can pop out a Google Meet or Zoom web call participant's video as a floating overlay.
On Meet:
- Hover over a participant's video tile
- The PiP icon appears (may need to hover near the top of the video)
- Pop it out — now their video floats while you work in other applications
Note: Meet's main view is not a <video> element in some implementations — individual participant tiles are. Hover over the tile you want to pop out.
Multiple PiP Windows
Firefox supports multiple simultaneous PiP windows. You can pop out multiple videos — for example, two different conference call participants or two sports streams — and arrange them in different corners of your screen.
Positioning and Resizing
- Move: drag the floating window by its background
- Resize: drag any corner
- Snap to corners: when you release near a screen corner, the window snaps to that corner (some OS window managers provide this)
The position is remembered per-window — if you always pop out YouTube to the bottom-right, it'll default there next time.
about:config Settings for PiP
about:config → search "picture-in-picture":
| Preference | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.enabled |
true | Master toggle |
media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.display-text-tracks.enabled |
true | Caption support |
There's no per-site setting, but you can disable PiP entirely if you find the hover icon intrusive.
Site Compatibility
PiP works on any site using HTML5 <video> elements. Most modern streaming sites work:
- YouTube ✓
- Netflix ✓ (with DRM)
- Twitch ✓
- Vimeo ✓
- Amazon Prime Video ✓
- Disney+ ✓
- Plex web player ✓
Some sites use non-standard video players (Flash-style, custom player frameworks) that may not expose a <video> element — PiP won't work on those, but they're rare now.
PiP + Tab Pinning Workflow
A productive pattern for long-form video:
- Open the video in a new tab
- Pin the tab (right-click tab → Pin Tab) — it becomes a small favicon-only tab
- Pop the video into PiP
- The pinned tab keeps the video stream alive without taking up tab bar space
This works well for podcast videos, background music YouTube, or long conference recordings where you want the video persistent but not consuming tab bar space.
PiP for Video Notes
Pop a tutorial video into PiP and take notes in your editor or another tab. The video stays visible while you type elsewhere — no Alt+Tab needed to check the video and switch back.
Combined with Tab Manager & Session Saver, you can save a "Tutorial Research" session containing the video tab, your notes document, and relevant documentation tabs — then restore it later to continue where you left off. Install from Firefox Add-ons.
Troubleshooting
PiP icon not appearing: some videos require hovering near the center of the video. The icon appears after ~1 second of hover.
Video pauses when popped out: some streaming sites detect PiP and pause playback (anti-PiP). This is a site-side behavior, not a Firefox bug. Less common on major services.
Captions not showing: check that captions are enabled in the original player before popping out. If the site uses custom caption overlays (not HTML5 track elements), they won't transfer.
Black screen in PiP: usually a hardware acceleration issue. Try Settings → Performance → uncheck "Use hardware acceleration" → restart Firefox.
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