Ultimate Guide: Autoplay YouTube Videos from CMS in Webflow

Autoplaying YouTube videos from the CMS in Webflow can enhance the user experience on your site by providing dynamic and engaging content right off the bat. However, setting this up isn't as straightforward as one might expect. In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of enabling autoplay for YouTube videos embedded in your Webflow site's CMS.

The Problem

While Webflow provides a robust platform for creating and managing your website, it doesn't natively support autoplay for YouTube videos linked to a collection. This can be a bit of a challenge if you have a client who wants videos on their site to start playing automatically. Moreover, the YouTube embed element provided by Webflow does not support linking to a collection. This means you can't simply pull video URLs from your CMS collection and expect them to autoplay.

The Solution: Autoplaying YouTube Videos from CMS

The good news is, with a bit of URL manipulation and custom code, you can get those YouTube videos to autoplay. Here's how:

Create a text field in your collection to store YouTube video IDs. You can get the ID from the URL of the YouTube video. For instance, in the URL "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ", the video ID is the part after "v=", which is "dQw4w9WgXcQ".
On the YouTube video page, click on Share then Embed. This will give you a code that already includes the autoplay parameter.
Copy this code and go to your CMS Collection page or any other page with a collection list on your Webflow site. Drag a custom code element and paste the code into it.
Select the ID part of the YouTube URL in the code, and link it to the Video ID field that you created in your collection.
Add the following piece of code after the ID and before the closing " sign: "?rel=0&modestbranding=1&autohide=1&mute=1&showinfo=0&controls=0&autoplay=1". This code includes various parameters to control the appearance and behavior of the video, including enabling autoplay.

And voila! Your YouTube videos should now autoplay when the page loads, even inside the Webflow designer. Note, however, that autoplay may not work on mobile devices due to restrictions on mobile browsers.

Handling Aspect Ratio and Responsive Design

One issue you might encounter when embedding videos is maintaining the correct aspect ratio, especially when you set the video width to 100%. To address this, you can use a CSS trick to create containers with a controlled aspect ratio. For a 16:9 ratio, for instance, you can use a width of 50% and a padding-bottom of 28.125%. If you need to make the video responsive, you might want to consider using a JavaScript library like FitVids.js.

Dealing with Autoplay Restrictions

It's worth noting that some browsers, like Google Chrome, have introduced policies that block autoplay for videos with sound. To get around this, you can add the "mute=1" parameter to your YouTube embed code, which will mute the video on load and allow it to autoplay.

For more detailed instructions, you can refer to this Webflow forum post where users discuss various solutions and workarounds.

With a bit of tinkering and custom coding, you can enhance your Webflow site's user experience with autoplaying YouTube videos from your CMS. Happy designing!

Pro tip: Leverage Webflow's Dynamic Embeds for More Customization

While the method mentioned above works perfectly for autoplaying YouTube videos, there's an even more powerful tool at your disposal in Webflow: Dynamic Embeds. This feature allows you to insert custom code and link it directly to your CMS fields, providing more control over how the content from your CMS is displayed.

So, how can you use this for autoplaying YouTube videos? Here's a quick guide:

On your CMS Collection page, drag an Embed element into the area where you want your video to display.
Click on the Embed element to open the code editor.
Insert the basic structure for an iframe YouTube embed, but leave the src attribute blank for now. For example: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
For the src attribute, you need to add an autoplay-enabled YouTube video URL. Click on the "+ Add Field" button in the top right corner of the code editor, and select the CMS field containing your YouTube video ID. The CMS field will be automatically inserted into your code: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YOUR_VIDEO_ID?autoplay=1" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>