Netflix Is Testing A Pop-Out Feature for Desktop Users

Is Netflix eating up most of your time and killing your productivity? Well, According to Engadget, the streaming video service is testing a “pop-out player” that shrinks the video player into a smaller window. Basically, it’s picture-in-picture mode on the desktop that will let you binge Netflix while working on other apps.

Some Netflix users have discovered that they can play Netflix in a pop-out window, similar to what’s available on YouTube, although it’s unclear when or even if the feature will be rolled out to all accounts. The test lets you watch videos in a window that hovers over all other windows, which means you can theoretically work and play at the same time. Not that you’ll be productive if you’re doing them simultaneously, of course.

There are obviously plenty of scenarios where this new feature would be very useful since it lets you do other things on your computer without interrupting Netflix playback. That said, one could argue that you can already do that. All you have to do is load Netflix in a separate window and then resize your windows around Netflix.

How it works

To enable the pop-up player, just click the button on the bottom toolbar while watching a Netflix show or Netflix movie. This needs to be done while you are watching the video. After clicking on the button, the floating player will appear.

What’s more, the player is resizable and you can drag and drop it anywhere across the screen. That being said, the subtitle feature is not supported on pop-out mode as of now. It is worth noting that the pop-out player seems to be different from the picture-in-picture feature offered by Safari and Chrome browsers.

The pop-out player seems to be rolling out slowly, and Netflix has but to formally announce the function, even though possibly it’ll take a while before it’s available to every person.