How to use picture in picture on Mac (Safari, Chrome, Firefox and QuickTime)
Picture in picture on Mac is the one floating window Apple actually supports: a video lifts out of its page into a small player that stays on top of everything, follows you from Space to Space, and gets out of the way when you're done. The catch is that every app starts it differently — Safari hides it in a menu, Chrome buries it behind a second right-click, Firefox puts a toggle on the video itself, and QuickTime puts it on a button most people have never noticed. Here's each one, plus what to do when the option simply isn't there.
How to use picture in picture on Mac in Safari
In current Safari (the version in macOS Tahoe and the macOS 27 betas), the reliable route is the address bar:
- Start the video playing.
- Click the Page menu button in the Smart Search field.
- Choose Enter Picture in Picture.
Two other ways still work on many sites. Right-click the video twice — the first right-click usually opens the site's own player menu, the second reaches Safari's, which has Enter Picture in Picture. And some players, especially plain HTML5 ones, show a PiP button right in their controls: two overlapping rectangles with an arrow.
To bring the video back, click the Restore button in the floating player and it returns to the tab and keeps playing. The Close (X) button also sends it back, but pauses it — handy when someone walks up to your desk.
Chrome
Chrome has picture in picture built in; you don't need Google's old extension any more.
- Right-click the video twice, then choose Picture in picture. On YouTube the first right-click shows YouTube's own menu, which is why the first attempt always seems to fail.
- While media is playing, the media controls button in Chrome's toolbar (the music-note icon) also has a picture-in-picture button, which saves hunting for the tab.
Recent Chrome versions can also pop a video or a call out automatically when you switch tabs — Google Meet is the familiar example — but only on sites that have opted in. If a site hasn't, it's the right-click route.
Firefox
Firefox makes it the easiest of the three:
- Hover over a video and click the picture-in-picture toggle that appears on its edge.
- Or press ⌥⌘⇧] while the video's tab is in front.
- Or right-click (twice on YouTube) and choose Watch in Picture-in-Picture.
If the hover toggle is missing, it has been switched off in Firefox's settings under Browsing; the shortcut and the context menu still work.
QuickTime Player and Apple's own apps
For a video file on your disk, open it in QuickTime Player, move the pointer over it to show the controls, and click the picture-in-picture button at the bottom right. It behaves exactly like Safari's floating player.
If you'd rather keep the full QuickTime window — to scrub, or to see a screen recording at full size — View → Float on Top keeps the whole window above the others instead. That and the other apps that can pin themselves are covered in how to keep a window always on top.
Moving and resizing the floating player
| You want to | Do this |
|---|---|
| Move it | Drag it; it snaps to the nearest corner of the screen |
| Park it off a corner | Hold ⌘ while you drag (a long-standing macOS trick; if your version ignores it, the corner snap wins) |
| Make it bigger or smaller | Drag any edge |
| Send it back to the page | Restore button (keeps playing) or Close (pauses) |
The player stays where you put it even when you switch desktops, so it comes with you into Mission Control Spaces and over full-screen apps. That is the whole point, and it's something no third-party pinning tool can match — the always-on-top utilities all stop at the edge of a full-screen Space.
Picture in picture not working on Mac? Check these
The option isn't in the menu. The site has disabled it or plays video in a way that blocks it; some streaming services do this on purpose. Try a different browser — support varies site by site — or the service's own Mac app if it has one.
You only see the site's menu. You right-clicked once. Right-click again on the same spot.
Nothing happens in Safari. Start the video playing first, then open the Page menu; Safari offers picture in picture for a video that is playing.
The player keeps jumping to a corner. That's the snap. Hold ⌘ while dragging, or accept a corner and resize it instead.
It vanished. Closing the browser tab the video came from closes the floating player with it. Reopen the page and start it again.
Make room for it
A floating video works best when it isn't sitting on top of the thing you're working on. The simplest setup is a two-thirds / one-third split: your main window takes the left two-thirds, and the video lives in the free corner of the remaining third.
macOS's own tiling does halves and quarters, but not thirds. Let's Tile does, and on its free tier — press its shortcut, a grid drops over the window, steer to the left two-thirds with the arrow keys and hit return. The PiP player then has a corner to itself instead of covering your cursor. It's a small thing, and it's the difference between watching a talk while you work and constantly shoving a video out of the way.
If you'd rather keep the video on a second monitor, see how to lay out windows across two monitors.
Frequently asked questions
What is the picture in picture shortcut on Mac?
There's no system-wide one. Firefox has ⌥⌘⇧]; Safari and Chrome don't ship a default shortcut, so in those two it's the menu or the right-click.
Can I have more than one picture in picture window?
In Safari and Chrome, one at a time: starting a second replaces the first. Firefox allows several at once.
Does picture in picture work over full-screen apps?
Yes. The floating player follows you across Spaces, including full-screen ones — which makes it the only reliable way to keep a video above a full-screen app on a Mac.
Does picture in picture work with Netflix or other streaming sites?
It depends on the service and the browser, and it changes. If the menu item is missing, the site is blocking it; there's no setting on your Mac that overrides that.