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How to Insert a Video in Google Docs

When working in Google Docs, you may want to embed a video into your document.

This can be a little tricky because there is not a built-in way to upload or insert a video into your file.

There are some good workaround methods though.

In this video, I will show you how to insert a video in Google Docs.

Table of Contents

 

How to Embed a Youtube Video in Google Docs

The only way to embed a youtube video into Google Docs that is playable is to use a combination of Google Slides and the Drawing feature in Google Docs to create your video link.

We can use this to create a clickable thumbnail that will open in the drawing editor and play directly from Google Docs.

Here are the steps to do this:

1. First open up a new Google Slides presentation

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2. Then in the top menu select Insert>Video

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3. You can either search for your video or copy and paste the URL. I have selected the “By URL” option and copied the URL of the youtube video that I want to embed and pasted it

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4. When you have the correct video here, press the Select button

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5. You should now see your video in your presentation. Click on the video until its outline is blue so that you know the video is selected. Then copy it by either pressing “CTRL + C ” on your keyboard, or right-clicking with your mouse and selecting “Copy”

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6. Now open the Google Doc that you want to embed your video into. Select in your file where you want the video to appear, and then in the top menu select Insert>Drawing>New

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7. In the Drawing editor paste your video by pressing “CTRL + V” on your keyboard or right-clicking and selecting “Paste”

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8. When you see that your video is in the Drawing editor press the Save and Close button

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9. You should now see your video embedded into your Google Doc. Right now it is just a preview thumbnail, but when you double-click on it, it will open up a playable link in the drawing editor.

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How to Insert a Non-Youtube Video in Google Docs

You don’t have to exclusively use youtube to get a video in your file.

You can also insert non-youtube videos. 

For example, if you have a video on your phone or computer that you want to embed into Google Docs, it is still possible.

The process is very similar, except first we have to upload our video to Google Drive.

Here are the steps:

1. First we need to get our video into Google Drive. If you are on your phone you can upload it to Google Drive, or text/email the video to your computer so you can upload it. Here I have opened Google Drive and selected New>File Upload

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2. Navigate to wherever the video is on your device and select it. In this example I have an MP4 video file on my computer and this is the one I want to upload

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3. Press Open (if you are on a computer). The video should be uploading now

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4. Open up a new Google Slides presentation

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5. In the top menu select Insert>Video

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6. Select the Google Drive option

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7. Find the video that you want to insert in your document and click Select

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8. You should now see the video in your Google Slide. Click on it so that its outline appears blue (to indicate it is selected) then copy it by either right-clicking and selecting copy, or pressing CTRL + C on your keyboard

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9. Open up your Google Doc and select in your file where you want the video to appear. Then in the top menu select Insert>Drawing>New

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10. Paste the video that you copied from slides into the drawing editor. Either by right-clicking and selecting Paste or by pressing CTRL + C on your keyboard. Select the Save and Close button when you are done

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11. You will now see your video in your Google Doc. When you double-click on it, it will open up the drawing editor where you can watch the video

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Closing Thoughts

As you can see the method works for both youtube videos and videos that are not on youtube, though with videos from your phone or computer you have to upload them to Google Drive first before you can get them into your document.

This is the best work-around method available at this time. The link that is inserted into the document is a thumbnail preview of the video, and when it is double-clicked it will open up the Drawing feature where the link is playable. 

Make sure to watch the video in this post if you are confused about any of the steps!

More Google Docs Tutorials:
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