Use This Trick to Place Safari Picture-in-Picture Videos Anywhere on Your Screen
My favorite browser on Mac used to be Safari, but a few months ago I switched to Firefox . One of the reasons for the replacement was the way Safari handles picture-in-picture video. When a video goes into picture-in-picture mode, Safari allows you to snap it to any of the four corners of the screen, but it usually won’t let you place the frame anywhere else unless you dig into your settings. It turns out that Safari supports custom placement of picture-in-picture frames, but this feature is not well explained.
How to Use Picture-in-Picture Video in Safari
In Safari, picture-in-picture video moves out of your browser tab and appears in a floating window that stays on the screen even when you’re using other apps. This is useful for multitasking, such as when you take notes while watching a video. To use picture-in-picture , play a video, find the sound button in the address bar, press and hold it, hover your mouse over “Enter picture-in-picture” and release. If your chosen video streaming site does not display this option, try using the PiPfier browser extension to improve your browser’s compatibility. You can also use PiPifier to make it easier to launch a video in picture-in-picture mode by simply going to the web page with the video and selecting “Launch PiPifier” from Safari’s Search button menu (it comes out with a box with an up-pointing arrow) .
When you see your video in a floating frame, it is in picture-in-picture mode. If you try to drag it, you’ll notice that it snaps to one of the four corners of your Mac’s screen, but doesn’t go anywhere else.
How to Place Safari Picture-in-Picture Videos Anywhere on Your Mac
To place a Safari picture-in-picture video anywhere, hold down the Command key on your keyboard and click and drag the picture-in-picture frame. When you release the frame, it will remain where you placed it. I learned about this tip from a post on Reddit and it has already changed the way I watch Safari videos. Now that my MacBook is connected to my 34-inch ultrawide monitor, I can place Safari picture-in-picture videos right in my line of sight rather than pushing them to the far corners of the display.
Please be aware that other browsers such as Chrome and Firefox support this feature without a keyboard shortcut. With these browsers, you can click and drag any picture-in-picture video and place it anywhere without any hassle.