Watching videos has become an integral part of our online lives. They say there’s nothing you can’t find on Google, and YouTube is quickly catching up with its owner to provide almost anything you can dream of in video form. Want to build a computer? Not a problem, just choose a tutorial. Want to listen to music? Want to learn how to fold a shirt? Looking for the latest movie trailer? No matter what it is, there are good chances you’re going to find it on YouTube.
This abundance of videos goes hand in hand with longer videos, which you might not always have time to watch in one sitting. The huge number of videos does not mean a huge increase in your free time, and you might therefore find yourself having to stop videos in the middle to go do something else. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could save those videos for later, just like you can save articles on services such as Pocket and Instapaper?
Introducing Pause For Later
Pause for Later is a cute little bookmarklet and browser extension which you can use to save videos for later, and pick them up exactly where you stopped. It’s available for multiple browsers, but the Pause for Later website is a bit confusing as to what is really available for which browser, so I’ll simplify it for you:
If you’re using Chrome, you can download a browser extension (or use the bookmarklet if you prefer).
If you’re using Firefox, IE, Opera or Safari – ignore the “install now” links which are supposed to lead to browser extensions, and simply use the bookmarklets. These installation links don’t really lead anywhere.
Since Pause for Later is still in beta, we’ll excuse them this confusion, with the hope that browser extensions will become available for more browsers in the future. In the meantime, I made use of the Firefox bookmarklet, which worked like a charm.
Saving Videos For Later
In order to really enjoy Pause for Later, you’d have to create an account first. This will allow you to access your saved videos and watch them from where you left off. Don’t forget to do that before you start saving videos.
Now comes the fun part: After dragging the bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, you’re ready to hit the road. Pause for Later works with YouTube, and should also work with Netflix and Hulu. It did not work well with Vimeo when I tried it. Start watching your video, and when you need to pause, click on the “Pause” bookmarklet (Firefox users, here’s how you can turn the bookmarklet into a real button!).
Once you do that, you’ll be redirected to your Pause for Later page. Your saved videos will be stored here, and you can click the bookmarklet again at any time to access this page again. For each video you’ve saved you get a thumbnail, a name, where you paused it and how much time you still have left to watch.
When you want to finish watching your video, simply click on it to start watching from exactly where you stopped. Alternatively, you can also watch it from the beginning, mark it as watched, copy a shortened or a full link, and delete it from your list. All videos you add are private by default.
Bottom Line
Since Pause for Later is still in beta, there aren’t many extra features available yet. Having said that, the core features of pausing and continuing later work flawlessly, and to be honest, I’m not sure if the service even requires many more features. Pause for Later is a basic tool that does only one thing, but does it well.
Know of other ways to save videos from the Internet for later and start watching where you left off? Do you often need such a service? Tell us in the comments!
Via: Make Use Of
