Embed YouTube videos responsively

🌱 This post is in the growth phase. It may still be useful as it grows up.

YouTube makes it easy to copy-paste a video embed. LOVE THAT!

But, the default embed isn’t responsive so it is guaranteed to look shit wherever you embed it.

I’ve dragged this snippet around the internet with me for years.

/* youtube embed wrapper */
[data-responsive-youtube-container] {
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  height: 0;
  padding-bottom: 56.25%;
  margin: 1em 0;
}

[data-responsive-youtube-container] > iframe {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
}

I adapted it to use AVO 🥑 CSS, my data attributes specification of BEM. But I didn’t write the styles. I hate magic numbers like 56.25%, and I would have tried to avoid it until giving up 😆

Usage

1. Copy a YouTube embed from the share sheet.
2. Paste that embed in an HTML or markdown file.
3. Wrap it in a block-element container with the data-responsive-youtube-container selector.
4. Enjoy container-aware responsive videos!

<div data-responsive-youtube-container>
  <iframe
    width="560"
    height="315"
    src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u63pOK6Zyog"
    title="YouTube video player"
    frameborder="0"
    allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share"
    allowfullscreen
  ></iframe>
</div>

It’ll look like this:

Embed responsively!

Bonus

This works with layouts as well. Around chan.dev, you’ll see this paired with a flex and grid layout.

Help me attribute this

If you know where I originally swiped this from, let me know so I can give the author credit here.

I’m @chantastic on twitter and discord.