Random YouTube Video

Chrome Web Store:

Firefox:

Download the extension for: Chrome/Chromium | Firefox | Edge

The Chrome Web Store version can be installed on any Chromium-based browser, such as Edge, Brave, Opera and many more.

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Do you have a favourite YouTube channel, but don't know what to watch? This extension is for you!

The Random YouTube Video extension adds a 'Shuffle' button to YouTube channel, video and shorts pages, which will play a truly random video from the current channel. You can use the extension's popup to customize your experience further.

Highlighted Features:

• The shuffle button fits right in with the YouTube interface you're used to, for an optimal experience when browsing!
• Choose from a wide range of options to individualize your experience, such as ignoring shorts, only shuffling from the most recent videos, shuffling multiple videos into a playlist, and much more!
• Shuffle at any time by using the shuffle button in the extension popup, which allows you to shuffle from your most recently visited channel at any time!
• Shuffles run even faster for you if another user has already shuffled from the channel you're watching, as video IDs are shared!

Contribution

Do you have ideas for new features or have encountered a bug? Please open an issue.

The main branch of this repository should always be stable. If you want to test the newest unreleased features, follow the steps below to create a local version of the extension that you can install in the browser of your choice.
You can find out what new changes will be coming in the next version in the changelog. Did you find any bugs with the version you tested? Please let me know by opening an issue!

Installation

• Install the required dependencies by running npm install in the root directory of the project.
• Use npm run build to build a distribution for each browser environment.
  • npm run build:chromium builds a distribution for Chrome/Chromium only.
  • npm run build:firefox builds a distribution for Firefox only.
  • Replace build with dev in the above commands to build a development version of the extension that updates automatically when you make changes to the code.
• The bundled extension files will be placed in the dist/<environment> directories.
• You can load the extension in your browser by following the instructions below.

Chromium

• Open the Extension Management page by navigating to chrome://extensions.
• Make sure that you have enabled developer mode.
• Click Load unpacked and choose the dist/chromium folder.

Loading the extension like this will persist it until you remove it manually.

Firefox

• Open the Add-ons page by navigating to about:addons.
• Click the cog icon and select Debug Add-ons.
• Click Load Temporary Add-on... and choose the dist/firefox/manifest.json file.

Loading the extension like this will persist it only until you restart Firefox. You may also test the extension with Firefox by running npm run dev:firefox, which uses web-ext to load the extension in a temporary Firefox profile.

Firefox for Android

The Firefox for Android version of this extension is still under development. The extension as a whole or parts of it may not function as expected.

• Make sure to have an Android device or Emulator set up for developer mode and running (follow these instructions to learn how to do so).
• Run adb devices to get the device ID of your device or emulator.
• Exchange the device ID in the dev:android script in package.json with the ID you just got. The default is emulator-5554.
• Run npm run dev:android to load the extension in Firefox for Android.
• Your device or emulator should now open Firefox for Android with the extension loaded.

Testing

The project contains a number of different test suites, for different environments and purposes:

• All tests: Run with npm run test:all
• Unit tests: Run with npm test
• "Compatibility tests": Run with npm run test:compatibility and optionally the :headless or :headful suffixes
  • These tests are used to ensure that the extension runs as expected in a live browser environment, for Chrome only at the moment. They utilize puppeteer to start a browser session and interact with the extension.

Versioning

The manifest.json contains two version numbers: version and version_name. Packages that are released/uploaded to web stores will have both of these version numbers set to the same value. During development, smaller changes may get pushed to the main branch. These packages will have the same version number as the latest release, but a newer version_name number, often including a -beta suffix, to distinguish them from the latest release.

This naming scheme is used to allow users to test and distinguish new changes before their release, while still keeping the integrity of the automated release pipeline, which uses the version property to determine when a new release should be created.

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If you enjoy this extension and want to say thanks, consider buying me a coffee or sponsoring this project.