Twitter is testing a way to let you watch YouTube videos right from your timeline. Usually when someone includes a YouTube link in a tweet, clicking that link will take you to YouTube, which can be frustrating if you don’t want to leave Twitter to watch the video. This new feature, which is in testing today on iOS, means you won’t be kicked out of Twitter, making it easier to watch a video and then continue scrolling if you want.
Twitter shared how the feature works in a GIF:
Starting today on iOS, we’re testing a way to watch YouTube videos right in your News Feed, without leaving the conversation on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/V4qzMJMEBs
– Twitter support (@TwitterSupport) March 18, 2021
The test will be available to “a very small group of users” in Canada, the United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia, Twitter said in a statement shared with The edge after the first publication of this story.
“The current iOS test will be a four-week experiment,†a Twitter spokesperson said. We plan to take a look at the results and adapt them accordingly.
This new test comes alongside two others announced last week for iOS and Android that aim to improve media sharing and viewing on the social network. A test adds a “what you see is what you get†image preview in the Tweet Composer, which means the images appear in your timeline just as they do when you compose a tweet. The company is also testing ways to download and view 4K images on the mobile.
Updated March 18 at 2:56 p.m. ET: Added information from Twitter.
