How to play local videos in Picture in picture mode with Google Chrome

Google Chrome has recently introduced the picture in picture mode, where you can watch online videos in the most convenient way without getting out of your regular work or keep Google Chrome open on an integral part of your screen. With picture-in-picture mode, you can play the video at any part of your screen, and you can even adjust the size of the video playing area as per your likeness. The picture in picture mode also opens up the avenue to watch videos without any interruptions, as the video will always be on top of any window that you might be using. 

The picture in picture mode for Google Chrome is supposed to be used with online videos, however, you can even watch local videos in a picture in picture mode on your Google Chrome browser. If you already have the picture in picture addon installed on your Google Chrome, you will not need to download or install anything else on your Google Chrome as you are almost ready to go. Everything is available with you, and the only thing that you have to do is, start playing your video on Google Chrome and switch to picture in picture mode. How to do that! I will discuss the same here.

So, without any further delay, get started with how you can watch local videos in picture-in-picture mode with the help of Google Chrome.

Playing local videos in PIP mode

If you don’t have the PIP addon installed on your Google Chrome browser, you can read this- how you can enable Picture-in-Picture mode to find out.

Open a new tab on your Google Chrome browser and type in the drive letter, where your local videos are present, followed by a colon(:) in the Chrome Omnibox or address bar, and hit the enter key. I have my videos in the E drive, so I will write ‘E:’, hit the enter key.

Now, you will find a list of all the files and directories within your selected drive. Gradually navigate to the folder or directory, when the video you are trying to play is present.

Once you go there, simply tap on the video that you want to play and the video will start playing on a tab on your Google Chrome web browser. 

Now click on the ‘Picture in Picture’ from the triple-dot menu to start playing the video in PIP mode on your computer.

Alternatively, you can simply drag and drop the video that you want to play in PIP mode, right into Google Chrome and tap on the ‘Picture in Picture’ from the triple-dot menu to watch the video in PIP mode. 

I tried this feature with MP4 videos, and it worked like a charm. However, each time I tried playing MKV video files, the trick didn’t work, as MKV files are not natively supported by Google Chrome. MP4 is the most common video file format which most people use today and each time you record videos on your mobile device, DSLR or video camera, the videos will be recorded in MP4 format, as well.

So that is how you can play local videos in Google Chrome in PIP mode. Do you have any questions about the trick? Feel free to comment on the same below.