Is there a way to open the sidebar when in full screen video mode?

[Ifty-Rahman]

I am playing a Youtube video full screen and I can't access the sidebar when I am full screen anymore. I have to close full screen and then access the sidebar. I could do it in Arc browser. Is there a setting or hack to enable this feature?

[dosubot[bot]]

Hi @Ifty-Rahman! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the desktop team.

There isn't a way to open or access the sidebar while in full screen video mode in zen-browser/desktop right now. When a video is full screen (like on YouTube), the sidebar can't be triggered by hover or keyboard shortcuts—you have to exit full screen to use it. This is a known limitation and matches how most browsers handle full screen, mainly because full screen mode gives exclusive control to the video and suppresses browser UI elements for immersion and technical reasons like z-order restrictions [source].

Arc browser does allow the sidebar to appear on hover in full screen, but Zen doesn't currently support this, and there isn't a setting, flag, or hack to enable it as of the latest versions [source]. Some users use Picture-in-Picture mode as a workaround to keep the video visible while accessing the sidebar, but this isn't the same as true full screen [source].

If sidebar access in full screen is important to you, it's an area of active feature requests, but maintainers have said the current behavior is expected and there are no plans to change it for now [source].

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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