I spend most of my time covering what is new or has changed with Fire TV devices that I often forget that there are many minor things that the majority of users don’t know about. I want to do a better job of surfacing those things from time to time, so here’s how to skip the pre-roll video ads that occasionally play before Prime Video movies and TV shows on Amazon Fire TV devices.
To skip Prime Video ads, simply press the Fast-Forward button on the Fire TV remote. You don’t have to hold the button or press it multiple times, as you would normally need to do to skip ahead in a regular video. Just tap the button once, and the ad will be skipped. An alternative way to skip the ad is to press Up (to bring up video controls), press Right (to highlight the “Skip” control), and press Select (to execute the skip).
This tip might seem obvious to many people, but since there is no skip option on the screen while an ad is playing, many people think that they have no choice but to watch the entire ad. This only works for content played through Prime Video that happens to have an ad before the main video starts. This tip does not work within any 3rd-party apps.
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If only i could figure out how to skip the ads on youtube verbally (without remote) on my firetv cube.
Just use 3rd party app Smart YouTube TV. No ads.
The shear volume of commercials on network TV coupled with the shear number of commercials are serving to wear out the fast forward button on all my Fire Remotes. My Fire TV Recast is taking a real beating too. Being an old timer I recall the TV commercial breaks of old were about 1 – 2 minutes in length. Approximately 10 minutes out of each hour. Just enough time to run out to kitchen a grab a soda and a bag of chips and get back before the program resumes. Today you can use a commercial break to call a pizza place, place an order, go pick it up and get back home without missing a thing. Each press of that FF button = 30 seconds. 6-7 clicks is about average with 8-9 clicks being fairly common. It has gotten so pervasive that it rivals military grade brainwashing/mind control.
If I couldn’t skip these commercials I wouldn’t watch network TV at all. I wouldn’t have the time. These networks are poisoning their own well with this carpet bombing of mindless, repetitive sales pitches. They are turning people to DVRs, DVDs and back to actually reading books.
I have already purchased a few spare Fire Remotes just in case. I should probably think about getting a back up Recast as well.
This was largely why I dumped the Fire TV Recast DVR and went back to my TiVo. With TiVo, one click (on most Prime Time shows) jumps over all the commercials and returns you where you left off. With the Recast, it was click after click after click to get a 30-second jump, in the HOPE that you clicked the right amount of times to get past the commercials. Often, you had to click it a few more times, and worst yet, had to rewind if you clicked too many times. A royal pain. Amazon needs to implement a commercial skip button if it really wants to compete in the DVR market.
Does this work for the FreeDrive app, too?
No, only Prime Video ads.
Thanks!
Great Tip! I was just complaining about those damn “commercials” on a service I pay for mostly to avoid commercials! Thanks. It may seem obvious to some, but I’ve managed to miss it all this time. Thanks for this and all your content
Honestly I hate this! It started a few weeks back and is annoying like hell on purely prime service. The pre-rolls are so short that before you’ll manage to fish out the remote or shout at one of your Alexa devices they’re over. I find those highly disruptive and if no settings will be added to turn those off permanently I’ll cancel my Prime sub :( I NEVER watch live TV as I personally find any kind of commercials / breaks extremely disruptive to enjoy any “entertinmnet” they serve. And with Netflix milking their customers more and more aggressivly it will be back to my collection of DVDs and BRs instead.
Agree. I hate “the horrible Ms Maisel” ad.
Thanks!!
Pressing the Select/Ok button should work either.
Not obvious to me, so thank you. The adds don’t generally annoy me, but after I’ve seen them multiple times they get a little stale so it’s good to know they can be skipped.
No, I don’t want to find the remote and hit a button. I want it to keep playing until I turn it off.
OK, my firetv youtube playlist keeps pausing and making me find the damn remote and click a button. I hate this and I will not recommend this to anyone as long as it keeps happening
This didn’t work for me. I tried forward and “enter” button.