Firefox Picture-in-Picture: Every Feature You Should Know

Firefox Picture-in-Picture (PiP) lets you pop a video out of its tab into a floating overlay window that stays visible while you work in other windows. It's more useful than most people realize.

How to Enable PiP

Method 1: Hover over a video → a small blue icon appears in the corner → click it.

Method 2: Right-click the video → "Picture-in-Picture."

The video detaches into a floating window. The original tab shows a placeholder. The PiP window stays on top of other windows — you can resize it, drag it anywhere, and keep working.

Controls

The PiP window has controls that appear on hover:

• Play/pause
• Seek back 15 seconds
• Mute/unmute
• Close
• Resize (drag corners)

Captions/subtitles: Most major streaming sites (YouTube, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Disney+) keep captions working in PiP mode. Firefox extracts the caption track and displays it on the PiP window.

Keyboard Shortcuts in PiP

While the PiP window is focused:

• Space — Play/pause
• Arrow right — Seek forward
• Arrow left — Seek back
• Ctrl+W — Close PiP

Pinning PiP to a Monitor

Drag the PiP window to your second monitor. Firefox remembers the position between sessions — if you always want PiP in the bottom-right corner of your second display, drag it there once and it stays.

Full-Screen PiP

Double-click the PiP window to expand it to full screen. Click again or press Escape to restore.

Sites That Work Well

PiP works on any HTML5 video element. That covers:

• YouTube
• Twitch
• Netflix
• Amazon Prime Video
• Disney+
• Most podcast/video players
• Vimeo
• GitHub (video in issues/PRs)

Some sites use custom video players that block PiP. You can work around this:

1. Right-click twice (the second right-click may bypass the site's custom menu and show the browser menu)
2. Or go to about:config → media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.respect-disableVideoPlayingInBackground — setting to false overrides sites that block PiP

PiP + Multiple Tabs Workflow

PiP was designed for exactly this use case: watching a video while taking notes, reading documentation, or writing code.

Example workflow:

1. Start a YouTube tutorial
2. Pop it to PiP
3. Switch to your code editor tab (or any other tab)
4. The tutorial stays visible, slightly transparent, in the corner

The PiP window doesn't interfere with typing or clicking in other tabs.

Keeping Video Playing When Tab Is Hidden

Without PiP, some browsers throttle video playback when a tab is not visible (to save CPU). PiP bypasses this — the video is always "visible" in the PiP window.

Useful for: keeping a livestream running in the background without it stalling.

Using PiP with Multiple Monitors

If you have a multi-monitor setup, PiP effectively turns your secondary monitor into a dedicated video space. Drag PiP to your second monitor, maximize it, and watch video full-screen there while working on your primary monitor.

Note: PiP's "full screen" is a Firefox-level full screen, not a system-level full screen — other apps can still overlap it if their windows are on top.

PiP Settings

Settings → General → Browsing → "Enable picture-in-picture video controls."

Disabling this hides the PiP button that appears on hover (the right-click option still works).

Combining PiP with Tab Sessions

If you regularly watch video while working, you might use PiP alongside a saved session workflow: save your "work" tabs as a session, open the PiP video, then restore the work session. The PiP window persists while sessions are loaded — you don't lose the video when restoring a session with Tab Manager & Session Saver.

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Firefox PiP is polished and works on nearly every major video site. If you've never tried it, a two-monitor setup is where it really shines — the floating video window on your second monitor while you code or write on your primary.