Player
Choose what happens when a shopper taps a clip: the fullscreen viewer, a floating mini player, or playing inside the card.
Where to find it: open a widget and click the Player tab.
These settings are for this widget only. Shop-wide player settings, such as the like button and auto-advancing to the next video, are in Settings → Fullscreen player. Your logo is in Settings → Appearance.
Where the video opens
Open in
| Option | What shoppers get |
|---|---|
| Fullscreen story viewer (default) | A large player over the page. On desktop it's a tall 9:16 frame with up and down arrows beside it. On phones it fills the screen. Shoppers swipe up and down between clips. |
| Floating mini player | A small player in a corner. The page stays usable underneath. Shoppers tap it to expand it to the full viewer. |
| Play inside the card | Carousel and Grid only. The video plays right in its card, with sound, and loops. Tapping it again pauses it. Shoppers never leave their spot on the page. |
With Play inside the card:
- Images and product chips still open the full player.
- A speaker button in the card's corner mutes and unmutes.
- Only one card plays at a time.
- These plays aren't counted as Plays in Analytics, so this widget's play rate will read low.
- Corner and Mini player size are hidden, since there's no player to place.
Change where videos open
Open the widget and click the Player tab.
In the Where the video opens card, set Open in to the option you want. Play inside the card only appears on Carousel and Grid widgets.
For a mini player, choose the Corner and the Mini player size.
Click Save.
Corner and Mini player size
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Corner | Bottom right, Bottom left, Top right, Top left | Bottom right |
| Mini player size | Small (160 px wide), Medium (210 px), Large (280 px) | Medium |
These set where the mini player sits and how big it is. On narrow screens it's capped at a share of the screen width, so it never fills the page. The mini player appears in Floating mini player mode, and whenever a shopper minimises the fullscreen viewer. On Pop up widgets, Corner is called Corner (pop up and player) and also places the pop up.
The mini player has no sound button, and it hides captions and the share button. With Floating mini player, turn on Start with sound off below if you'd rather videos don't play with sound while shoppers browse.
While it plays
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Start with sound off | The player opens muted, and shoppers tap the speaker for sound. When off, videos open with sound, since the shopper tapped to open them. If a browser refuses sound, the video plays muted. | Off |
| Show captions | Shows each file's alt text as a caption: under Carousel and Grid cards, over Product page clips, and in the player above the product card. Stories and Pop up thumbnails never show captions. On a new Product page widget, the preview shows captions before you save. Turn this on to keep them. | Off |
| Show a share button | Adds a share button to the player. On phones and other devices with a share sheet, it opens that sheet with a link to the current page. Elsewhere it copies the link. | Off |
Turn on captions
Open the widget and click the Player tab.
In the While it plays card, turn on Show captions.
Click Save.
Check that your clips have alt text in Shopify Files. A clip with no alt text shows no caption.
Captions come from the file's alt text
The caption shoppers see is the file's alt text in Shopify Files, not the Caption field on the clip's page in your Video library. The hint under the library's Caption field says otherwise, but that field only feeds your search engine data (see AEO & GEO), not what shows on your widgets. To change a caption, edit the file's alt text in Content → Files, then save the widget again. See Where the captions shoppers see come from.
How these combine with Settings
Each of these has a shop-wide twin in Settings → Fullscreen player. The feature is on if either one is on:
| Widget setting | Settings twin | Settings default |
|---|---|---|
| Start with sound off | Open muted | Off |
| Show captions | Show media captions | Off |
| Show a share button | Show share button | On |
Show share button is on by default in Settings, so every widget shows a share button until you turn it off there. The widget's own switch can't hide it.
Show media captions in Settings only affects the player. Captions under Carousel and Grid cards and over Product page clips need the widget's own Show captions.
For videos that play inside a card, only the widget's Start with sound off applies.
Subtitles aren't set here
The player shows subtitles automatically for any video that has a subtitle track. See Subtitles.