Quick start

  1. Open a Short at youtube.com/shorts/….
  2. Allow it to play briefly so the extension can detect its frame rate.
  3. Pause and move through the video using the keys below.
,
Previous frame Step backward by one detected video frame.
.
Next frame Step forward by one detected video frame.
Pressing either key will pause the active Short before stepping. Do not hold Ctrl, Alt, Shift, or Command while you press the frame-step keys.

How it works

Automatic detection

The extension measures the active Short’s frame rate shortly after playback begins.

Safe fallback

If a reliable measurement is unavailable, stepping uses a 30 fps fallback.

Shorts only

On ordinary YouTube video pages, comma and period remain available to YouTube’s native controls.

Compatibility and limitations

Troubleshooting

The keys do nothing

Confirm that the address begins with https://www.youtube.com/shorts/, that no modifier key is held, and that the cursor is not active in a comment or other editable field.

Stepping does not match the frames precisely

Let the Short play for a moment before stepping. Frame-rate measurement occurs during playback, and the extension falls back to 30 fps when too few usable samples are available.

A regular YouTube video is affected

This should not occur. Please report the page URL and browser version through the project’s issue tracker.

Privacy

YouTube Shorts Frame Stepper collects, stores, and transmits no user data. It requires no account, contains no analytics or advertising, makes no network requests of its own, and loads no remote code.