I hate that YouTube app's seek behavior on TV requires an extra click to resume playback

Ah, YouTube. You wonderful, endless rabbit hole of knowledge, tech videos, and everything in between. It’s hard to imagine life without it. But, dear YouTube, we need to talk about something that’s been driving me (and apparently many others) absolutely bananas: the seek behavior on your official app.

For years, I relied on SmartTube to bypass the ad annoyance and unlock a feature-rich experience on my Chromecast with Google TV. It wasn’t just about dodging ads (though that was delightful); SmartTube was, frankly, light-years ahead of your official app when it came to features and customization.

One little feature that stood out? Seek behavior. SmartTube spoiled me with options. The default “Regular” setting let me rewind or fast-forward like a pro: playback paused during seeking and resumed automatically when I landed at the perfect timestamp. Or, if I was feeling wild, I could switch to “play while seeking” for seamless previewing, or “pause while seeking,” which required an extra click to resume.

But then YouTube Premium finally graced my country in late 2023, and I decided to go legit. Ad-free YouTube, officially? Count me in! Except that the seek behavior on your app is the equivalent of being handed a luxury car with a missing steering wheel. Seeking pauses playback, and — get this — requires an extra, unnecessary click to resume. Why? Just why?

Turns out, I’m not alone. While scouring the internet for answers (and solidarity), I stumbled upon a recent Reddit post in the YouTube TV subreddit. The user complained about the exact same issue — on Apple TV, no less.

Here’s the gist: on YouTube TV, hitting the back button rewinds 15 seconds (or more), but playback stubbornly stays paused until you hit “OK” or “Play/Pause.” It’s like YouTube’s out to make us work for it. Meanwhile, other streaming apps get it. Hit rewind, and playback resumes. Easy. Intuitive. Not rage-inducing.

Interestingly, a YouTube TV engineer addressed this behavior a couple of years ago, explaining that it was an intentional decision to avoid “butt dialing” with your remote control and accidentally scrubbing/interrupting playback when you didn’t want to. By having the first remote click raise the player controls as a mini speed bump, it avoids the possibility of these accidental disruptions.

Now, you might say, “Hey, it’s just one extra click.” But this isn’t about laziness. It’s about flow. Watching a video or streaming a show should feel seamless, uninterrupted by clunky mechanics. Every unnecessary step breaks immersion and chips away at goodwill.

For a tech giant with vast resources, it’s baffling that YouTube’s apps can’t match the customization and user-friendliness of a third-party app like SmartTube. How hard could it be to give us options? Add a simple toggle for seek behavior:

• Auto-resume (a.k.a. the dream): Playback resumes immediately after seeking.
• Pause-while-seeking: Playback remains paused until you manually resume.
• Play-while-seeking: Playback continues as you drag through the timeline.

YouTube, I love you. I really do. But you’ve got to step up. Listening to your users is key, and the frustration is real. Adding customizable seek behavior wouldn’t just be a win for us — it’d be a feather in your cap for finally keeping pace with user expectations.

To the product managers, engineers, and decision-makers at YouTube: hear our cries. Make the small changes that make a huge difference. Let us seek without the rage-clicking. Let us rewind without breaking the vibe. Let us have the seamless experience that’s already been proven possible by the likes of SmartTube.

Switching to YouTube Premium felt like stepping into the official party after years at the underground rave. Except the official party’s missing the best DJ. SmartTube set the bar high, and it’s time for YouTube to clear it.

Until then, I’ll be here, muttering under my breath every time I have to make that extra click. And judging by the Reddit threads, I’ve got plenty of company.