Fullorama for YouTube™

Enjoy YouTube without distracting black bars on your ultrawide monitor.

Fullorama for YouTube™ adds one crop button directly to YouTube's player. Turn it on once and videos stay zoomed to fill across videos, refreshes, navigation, and fullscreen, until you turn it off.

Built for 21:9 and other ultrawide displays.

This project is not affiliated with YouTube, Google, or Alphabet. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC.

Before and After

Crop off	Crop on

Demo

fullorama-demo.mp4

How the demo video was made

Features

• YouTube player button for ultrawide crop / zoom-to-fill
• Global persistent on/off state across videos, refreshes, and navigation
• Works with YouTube's single-page navigation
• Works in theater mode and fullscreen
• Read-only popup shows current crop status
• Optional feedback form (popup link and uninstall survey)

FAQ

How do I get rid of the black bars?

Install Fullorama for Chrome or Firefox and play any YouTube video. Look at the bottom-right of the player: there's a new button with four little corner brackets, next to the settings gear. Click it and the video zooms in to fill the player. A small square appears in the middle of the icon to show it's on. Click it again to go back to normal.

I can't find the button. Where is it?

It's with YouTube's own buttons at the bottom-right of the video, between the settings gear and the theater-mode button. Move your mouse over the video if the controls are hidden. If the button isn't there, refresh the YouTube tab once. Tabs that were already open when you installed Fullorama don't get it until you do.

Will the video look stretched?

No. Fullorama zooms in evenly from the center, so people and objects keep their normal shape. The trade-off is that a little of the top and bottom gets trimmed. There's no stretch option.

Why do some videos still have black bars?

Some videos have the bars recorded into the picture itself, often old movies or re-uploads. Fullorama can't tell those apart from the real image, so they can stay even with the button on. It also can't show picture that was never in the video.

Does it work in theater mode and fullscreen?

Yes. When you switch to theater mode or fullscreen, the zoom adjusts automatically to fill the new size.

Do I have to click it for every video?

No. Turn it on once and it stays on as you watch more videos, refresh, or browse around YouTube. Turn it off the same way whenever you like. The setting applies to all of YouTube in that browser.

I have a 32:9 monitor. Will it work?

Yes. Fullorama works out the zoom from your player's shape, so it fits 21:9, 32:9 and anything in between. On very wide screens, more of the top and bottom gets trimmed, because the video has to zoom in further to fill the width.

Can I fill the screen and still see the whole picture?

Not if the video and your screen are different shapes: filling the space without stretching always trims a bit off. If you'd rather see everything, turn the button off and keep the bars.

Does it work on Netflix, other sites, or my phone?

No, only YouTube in a desktop browser (Chrome or Firefox). It doesn't work on Netflix, Prime Video, other websites, or the YouTube app on phones and TVs.

Will it slow YouTube down or make videos sharper?

It just zooms in on the video that's already playing, so it doesn't change the video's quality or load anything extra. Zooming in won't make it sharper, either. We haven't measured its effect on performance yet, but it does very little work. It only resizes the video you're watching.

What's the toolbar icon for?

Clicking Fullorama's icon in your browser toolbar shows whether the zoom is on or off, and has a link to send us feedback. To turn it on or off, use the button in the video player.

Does Fullorama collect my data?

No. It saves one thing in your browser: whether the zoom is on or off. It doesn't track what you watch, has no ads, and needs no account.

Feedback is optional and goes through a separate form run by Tally. It opens if you choose "Share feedback" in the toolbar popup, or after you uninstall. The form link includes the extension's version and where you opened it from. On Firefox, those two details are only sent if you've allowed the optional data permission. See PRIVACY.md for the full details.

Is it free?

Yes, completely free and open source. The code is on GitHub under the MIT license.

Privacy and Permissions

Fullorama doesn't track what you watch, shows no ads and needs no account. See PRIVACY.md for the full privacy policy.

Permission	Why
storage	Stores whether ultrawide crop is on or off

The content script is limited to https://www.youtube.com/*.

The popup's Share feedback link opens a Tally form, and the browser opens the same form when you uninstall. The extension adds only a source label and its version to the form URL. On Firefox, those values are included only when the optional technical and interaction data permission is enabled.

How It Works

The extension stores one boolean, cropEnabled, in extension local storage (chrome.storage.local on Chrome and browser.storage.local on Firefox).

A read-only toolbar popup displays whether crop is currently on or off by reading the stored value once when opened. The popup cannot toggle crop — only the player button can. A tiny background script registers an uninstall survey URL so the browser can open the optional feedback form if you remove the extension.

When crop is enabled, the content script adds a class to YouTube's #movie_player element and sets a CSS scale variable based on the current player aspect ratio and video aspect ratio. The CSS clips the player and scales the rendered video from the center.

YouTube rebuilds parts of its player during normal navigation, so the extension uses YouTube navigation events, a controls-scoped MutationObserver, a player-scoped ResizeObserver, video metadata events, window resize, fullscreen, and short retry bursts to keep the button and crop state in sync. Player-size changes automatically recalculate the crop when entering or leaving theater mode.

Install Locally

You need Bun and Chrome, another Chromium browser, or Firefox.

bun install
bun run build

Then load it in Chrome:

1. Go to chrome://extensions
2. Turn on Developer mode
3. Click Load unpacked
4. Select the dist-chrome/ folder
5. Open or refresh YouTube

Or load it temporarily in Firefox:

1. Go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
2. Click Load Temporary Add-on...
3. Select dist-firefox/manifest.json
4. Open or refresh YouTube

Development

bun install
bun run dev

The dev command rebuilds the JavaScript on save. Reload the YouTube tab to test changes.

Useful commands:

bun run typecheck
bun run test
bun run build
bun run lint:firefox
bun run pack:all
bun run release

bun run release validates the project (typecheck, build, tests, Firefox lint) and creates Chrome, Firefox, and source ZIPs in artifacts/.

Release

Releases are published from main via GitHub Releases.

1. Bump version in package.json (three-part numeric, e.g. 1.2.0).
2. Commit and push to main.
3. Create a GitHub Release tagged vX.Y.Z with release notes.
4. The publish workflow builds the extension, attaches ZIPs to the release, submits Chrome through the Web Store V2 API, and submits Firefox through web-ext sign.

Chrome publishes automatically after review approval. Firefox receives a listed update with source code and release notes. Store listing text and graphics are maintained manually.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.