Do you want to easily embed videos in WordPress? Videos bring life to your website and they are a great way to boost user engagement on your site. In this article, we will show you how to easily embed videos in WordPress.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
How to Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts
WordPress comes with a great feature called auto-embeds. It allows WordPress to automatically get the embed code for video from popular video hosting sites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
All you need to do is paste the video URL into the post editor. Make sure that the URL is in it’s own line and not clickable (hyperlinked).
If you are using visual editor, then WordPress will immediately fetch the embed code and display the video inside post editor.
You can now save your post and click on the preview button to see the video embed in your blog post.
Wasn’t that easy?
WordPress can only do auto-embeds for few white-listed service providers. For other websites you will still have to obtain an embed code and then paste it in your blog posts.
Here is a list of white-listed service providers for auto embeds in WordPress.
- Animoto
- Blip
- Cloudup
- CollegeHumor
- DailyMotion
- Flickr
- FunnyOrDie.com
- Hulu
- Imgur
- Issuu
- Kickstarter
- Meetup.com
- Mixcloud
- Photobucket
- PollDaddy
- ReverbNation
- Scribd
- SlideShare
- SmugMug
- SoundCloud
- Speaker Deck
- Spotify
- TED
- Tumblr
- VideoPress
- Vimeo
- Vine
- WordPress plugin directory
- WordPress.tv
- YouTube
Why can’t I upload the videos to my WordPress?
Well you can, but we do not recommend you to do so. Most smaller blogs are on shared-hosting accounts and videos take a lot of server resource.
If your video got tons of traffic, then your site is more likely to crash. Secondly, you are missing out the traffic from YouTube users. We recommend that you pick a third party site such as Youtube, Vimeo etc to upload your videos.
For more on this topic, take a look at our article on why you should never upload a video to WordPress.
We hope this article helped you learn how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog posts. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily create responsive image galleries in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Hi..I copied the Youtube URL and it shows properly on the desktop version but doesnt show anything in the mobile version? Am I doing something wrong?
I am embedding facebook live videos into our ministry website and am trying to figure out spacing issues. If you look at the link below, you’ll notice that underneath the video some of the text is cut off and when you look at it on an iphone you’ll notice there’s a TON of white space after each video.
HOW do I set it to be automatic that it just fits? Is there a way? I’d like it to show up correctly regardless of the pc or iphone or android etc.
HELP!!!! Please
Hi Suzanne,
You will have to use Inspect Tool to find out CSS causing extra white space and adjust it by adding custom css.
pls how can i post non-youtube videos on my wordpress page
Do I have to have WordPress premium to be able to do this?
What if a video is shared to Facebook from Instagram, THEN i try to put it in WordPress post? For awhile, pasting the FB link into the visual editor was working fine, but now it just shows the link.
I don’t think those past videos that work were from Instagram, i went back and looked and one was shared from one Facebook page to another but the original doesn’t say it is from Instagram. Does it matter?
Thanks for your help.
Perfect – thanks!
thank you very much wpbeginner for this awsome post as usual it was so usefull
and i have another question my worpress site does not display properly on smartphones and android device what could be the problem ?
Hi,
I want to develop a site where i am allowing users to upload the videos in their profile dynamically and same can be seen by other member, kind of facebook.
Is there any plugins for the same?
Hi WP Beginner!
First off my wordpress is a localhost. I’ve uploaded the video by adding media. (It shows up in my media library) However, when I put it in a post it starts by looking like it will play then goes black as says:
Media error: Format(s) not supported or source(s) not found
Then it gives a download link.
Is there anyway to just embed the video without giving a download link?
The video is an mp4.
Any help would be great! Thanks!
Hi Kim,
Test your video in different browsers if it still shows error then your video file may not be encoded properly.
How to embed video on worpdress without iframe? can I use div code to embed?
I have added Youtube Link in my site post but unfortunately it is not showing. I have tried many things to make it visible but no success. On load iframe load but there is nothing in the body tag of iframe.
Please Help….
I think in 4.9 you may need to add the link to the media library and then paste it from there
Sorry this is not correct. Instead I suggest you delete your post and create a new one. I was having a similar problem and that is how I fixed it.
I was able to embed my video from facebook live, and everything appears to be working perfectly EXCEPT there is no audio. What can I do?
So how then do we use the embed code for ARCHIVE.ORG
WP will not let me use the Internet Archive iframe any more since it has updated.
This is a problem!
Do you have a work-around?
I am using WP 4.9. and it is ok to embed audio and video from archive.org. just put the file between embed code. Like this: your video or audio link here
Hi Thien,
Yes, it is ok to embed audio and video from archive.org.
This does not work in the category text. Is it possible also here?
Hello! Is there a way to upload a Boomerang from my iPhone to a post on my WP blog?
Hello, I’m trying to include a video on my WordPress post. I copy the URL (URL only, not the embed code) from my Vimeo link and paste it onto the Post Editor on its own line. It is not a hyperlink. After saving & updating the post, I go to look at the post and all I see is the text of the Vimeo url (no video). What am I doing wrong? FYI this is my own video on Vimeo; there are no privacy settings and it can be shared. Thanks.
Hi Mac,
Try switching to a default theme and disable all plugins, see if this resolves your issue. You can also try this shortcode
hello wpbegginer
how to increase Traffic on Photography site? without any content because my friend start a photography blog he was update only photos in blog how to improve that blog?
Just a note to anybody thinking of just adding videos to explain things rather than explaining with written words.
Videos with spoken explanations only are not accessible to hearing impaired people and might also be difficult for visitors to your site who do not speak the same language as the language used in the video.
And videos cannot be read by screen readers for the bling.
So make sure to add subtitles and also provide screen reader accessible content if you want or need your site to be accessible.
Cheers
Hello,
I’ve just embed a youtube video on my wordpress site and it plays from that webpage on a desktop/leptop. However, when I access the webpage from my mobile device, when I play the video it opens it up in the Youtube app instead of staying on my website. I don’t want viewers to leave the webpage I’ve embed the video on while on mobile devices. Is there anyway to ensure viewers will not leave my site while on a mobile device and watching my video?
is it possible that I could upload a video on my homepage. this is my wordpress blog
I want to change the video that is on the bottom of my page but I can’t change it, please help me. It is entered through Videopress
Hi Kathy,
I’m having problems with Vimeo embed codes. I have copied and pasted the Vimeo embed code onto my WEBSITE on the WORD PRESS Page but, when i click update and view changes all I see is the VIMEO Embed Code and not the VIDEO.
It isn’t showing the Video on my WORD PRESS Page just the EMBED CODE?
Look forward to your reply THAK YOU
Regards
Paul
You can add a Vimeo video by simply entering the URL of the video page. No need to add embed code.
I am having great difficulty getting a video to post on my WordPress blog. I’ve loaded it up to my youtube channel and then copy the URL from there. I paste into my NewPost, taking care to not have anything else on that same line. The video pops up in the edit box, but will not show on my blog when I come in from the outside, like any of you would do.
I’ve reviewed bunches of training sites that all say I am doing this correctly, and yet it won’t show. I called GoDaddy, since they are my blog host, but to no avail. They couldn’t help.
I even tried using the embed code and got the same results.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you for this video. Seems simple enough, but the video I want to embed in my Word Press template is from a news station’s website. It’s not on the white list and although you said we would have to use the embed code instead, you did not provide a link to how to use the embed code.
This was helpful, but I’m an idiot and need every single step spelled out for me…haha! What may be helpful for others looking for the solution, is more details on the link that you actually use on the wordpress page. It’s shown in the video but isn’t specifically explained. Don’t use the links that youtube gives you in the “share” option. Instead, copy and paste the actual url that is in your address bar of your browser.
Agreed. I’m looking for more advanced options, so this actually wasn’t very helpful
where can I find website to post embed look like this
I’ve got the video embedded on my site. I’ve even set a thumbnail as a featured image! But on my blog page it shows both the thumbanil and the video when I just want the featured image to show up on the ‘recent posts’ bit. how do I do that?
I did this and it worked but I noticed that the email that gets sent to my followers do not show the videos. They would have to click on my actual website in order to see the videos. Does anyone else have this problem and how do you fix that? thanks!
Did you ever get an answer to this? I have the same problem. The email sent to followers doesn’t even show a broken link, People have no way of even knowing there is a video there that they can’t see.
Lyn and Kas, which plugin or service you are using to send out emails to your subscribers?
When I do Vimeo, the player doesn’t shrink to fit the div of my post, so it’s cropped one third of the player off the right hand side.
I tried the instructions here and it didn’t work.
I then tried what someone else suggested which is copying it elsewhere, into a document, and then copy and pasting that into wordpress – apparently that worked for others. Didn’t work for me.
I then simple copy and paste the basic URL into the post, no ’embed’ business, and voila!
Hopefully, it does actually work properly, so far so good
I have successfully embedded two videos from YouTube but views on WP are not reported in my YouTube stats. Do you know why?
make sure you embed the video and not copy and past the link from the platform you are using
my insert/edit video icon doesn’t work. Can somebody help me please?
Thanks for the post. It just worked after I had tried several plugins but failed. But the thumnail is too large for my theme. The video therefore distorts homepage appearence. How can I minimise the size of the thumnail
confused!
Whoa. I thought there would be more to it!
It works! Just like that.
Thanks a lot.
the link for the youtube video does not work!
Anyway, its ironic that you are showing how to embed a video, and the video you show is only a link, not an embedded video???
The link does not work, because it is not a valid link. It is an example of how to paste a link in a post to embed a youtube video. If you are interested in our YouTube videos please check out our YouTube Channel.
Simple is better and this is as simple as it gets. I love oEmbed!
If you could instruct me in English perhaps I may understand. How do I know whether it is hyperlinked or not?
The videos you embed on your site are not exactly hyperlinked. Instead, they are opened from youtube with in an iframe on your site.
Not worth a damn. How about people that don’t want to be a youtube whore?
You can use Vimeo, or one of the many other platforms that WordPress has built-in oEmbed support.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds#Okay.2C_So_What_Sites_Can_I_Embed_From.3F
Thank you. Worked like a charm
Okay, I did as you said and, even though I couldn’t see anything more than a yellow box, it was there. How about that.
Thank you!
Thank you very much for this post. I have tried embedding them I don’t know how many ways, then find this. Oh Duh! lol
“Well you can, but we do not recommend you to do so.”
So, how do you do it then? I’ll decide if I want to host it from my own site or not. I have a password protected site with only a few users. I do not want to make my video public. Hosting a 30 second clip is not going to crash the server.
If you have a handful of users and a short clip, sure go ahead and host it on your server. We would recommend going with Vimeo. Their plus feature which costs like $60 per year allows you to limit video embeds to a certain domain name. You can make it yoursite.com, and then have your site members only.
I consistently can’t embed videos on our blogs unless they are posted on YouTube. I am trying to embed a video from a public television station that provides embed code. Pasting the url does not work, using the embed code does not work. I tried pasting both into Notepad before pasting as a commeter above sugggested and that is not working. I have checked my settings to make sure auto-embed is enabled. Any other ideas?
If these public televisions are not using a popular service like Youtube, Vimeo, etc, then just pasting their URLs wouldn’t work. You would have to use their embed code. If it is iFrame embed code, then you should probably download one of the iframe plugins. If it is a Flash Player code, then you should be able to paste the code in your HTML tab of post editor. It should work just fine.
I’m trying to embed videos manually (unfortunately all the videos I want to post in my blog are not among the easy-to-embed ones that you’ve listed) but it doesn’t work.
If I copy and paste the link in the HTML page, it doesn’t do anything in the VISUAL page. What am I doing wrong? I’m downloading these videos and uploading them on my dailymotion page to avoid this problem but it’s time consuming and I really would like to just embed.
Any ideas?
If your embed is iFrame based, then use one of the iFrame plugins.
Iframe based videos don’t work either, not even with the iFrame plugin. Flashplayer code videos don’t work.
I’m considering migrating somewhere else, it takes less time than trying to figure how to do something that’s supposed to be easy, according to what WP support keeps telling us.
We’re using WordPress on our own server. Seems like it doesn’t do anything right. When I paste the url into the body, I leave a space above and a space below it. Nothing happens. My url is from a YouTube video that is public! I think it may have something to do with my lines disappearing between paragraphs. They are there when I’m editing but in the preview they are gone. Any know of a fix for that? Keep in mind I don’t really know code, so hopefully a fix that doesn’t involve messing with it.
First go to Settings > Media and make sure that auto-embeds are checked. If it is and it is still not working, then it could be a formatting error.
i have a similar problem. I go to Settings > Media, and the only thing it asks is the size limits for small, medium and large images. There is no mention of auto-embedding, there or elsewhere.
Is the problem that I’m trying to embed .mov files? It doesn’t seem to make a difference if I select Flash (which I used in the past) or QuickTime as a choice under the “embed media” shortcuts.
Help!
Hi Kristina!
I know I’m writing this a year and a half after you posted the above, but I’m having exactly the same youtube embed problems (no auto embedding option, etc)
Did you ever figure out the problem? If so, please let me know…I’m starting to get frustrated!
Thanks!
Niña
I Think this simple way for embed video, thanks for sharing
That’s really easy and nice….Thanks
My embedded videos disappear when I go back to a post to edit. Is there a plug-in that prevent this?
Doesn’t work for my when I do a straight cut and paste. I have to paste into Notepad, then recopy/pasted into WordPress. Why? Who knows. One of the myriad of foibles of WordPress that should be easy but are ball-tearingly frustrating.
Incredible! This really works. I spent hours trying to find a simple way to do this. Thanks a bunch.