How to use your Sky remote control

If you need help with understanding your Sky remote control or would like to learn some of the shortcuts it offers you, our guide to using your Sky remote has all the information you'll need.

Your buttons explained

You can use the buttons on your Sky remote to access your TV guide, pause, play, rewind or fast-forward live TV or recordings, change your volume, record a programme, and more.

Want to know more about the buttons on your remote? Check out our detailed breakdown.

Tips and tricks

As well as the basic controls, there are a few tricks you can do with your Sky remote:

• Return to live TV: Press sky when in any of the Sky Guide menus to return to live TV.
• Return to a viewed recording: After watching a recording in the Planner and switching back to live TV, you can return to the point you left the recording by pressing the play button three times.
• View and restore deleted recordings: Don't worry if you've deleted a programme from your Planner by mistake. Enter your Planner, then press the right arrow button until you navigate to the Deleted tab. Press the down arrow button to select a recording, then press the green button to restore the recording to your Planner.
• Create bookmarks in recordings: While watching a recording, press the pause button and then the red button to bookmark that point in the recording. While playback is paused, press the green button to display all bookmarks in the recording, which you can then select from to start viewing from that point. During playback, you can quickly jump between bookmarks by pressing and holding the rewind or fast forward buttons.
• Slow motion: Did you know you can create your own slow motion replays when watching live TV? Press the rewind button until you reach the point you want to replay, then press and hold down the play button for at least two seconds to watch your programme in slow motion. To go back to normal speed, press the play button again. This also works with any recordings in your Planner.
• instant rewind/fast forward: If you want to go to the beginning or end of your programme, there's no need to wait while you rewind or fast forward through the whole programme. Simply press and hold the rewind or fast forward button for at least two seconds and you'll be taken instantly to the furthest possible point of your programme in the direction you chose. You can change instant rewind settings by pressing settings on your Sky remote, pressing select, and then using the arrow buttons to navigate to Setup. You can then change what Instant Rewind is set to.

What TV functions can I access through my Sky remote?

Once your Sky remote has been set up to control your TV, you can:

• Change the volume: Press the vol +/- buttons to change the volume on your TV.

• Mute: Press the mute button to instantly turn off the volume on your TV.

• Turn the TV on and off: Press tv on your Sky remote and then the standby button to turn the TV on or off. After turning on the TV, press sky to regain control of the usual Sky functions.

• Switch input mode: If you’ve got other devices plugged in to your TV, such as a DVD player or games console, you can use your Sky remote to switch between your TV inputs. Press tv, then repeatedly press help to cycle through the available inputs on your TV until you find the one you’re looking for.

• Change the picture format: if your TV is on 4:3 format, you can change this to 16:9 very quickly using your Sky+ remote, simply press TV then Play and it will cycle through the picture formats available.

If your Sky remote won't allow you to change the volume of your TV, you'll need to program your Sky remote to control your TV.

Use your Sky remote to control a sound system

You can use your Sky remote to control audio-visual equipment, such as home cinema surround sound systems. We don’t currently support sound bars, but the manufacturer codes below may work.

1. Before you get started, check your Sky+ or Sky+HD remote is version Rev.6 or higher. The version number of your Sky remote is printed on a sticker on the inside of the battery cover.
2. Turn on your amplifier.
3. On your Sky remote press TV then hold down select and 0 together until the LED flashes twice.
4. You'll need your four digit Sky remote amplifier code. Use the numbers on your Sky remote to enter the code. The LED will flash twice.
5. Press the left arrow button. If the amplifier switches into standby, the correct code has been selected.

If you listen to sound through the amplifier, and not through the TV speakers, you can use the Sky remote to control the volume of the amplifier instead of the TV.

Using the Sky remote:

1. Press TV then hold down select and 1 together until the LED flashes twice.
2. If the remote flashes twice it will now control the sound of your amplifier when volume up, down or mute are pressed and your TV sound if arrow up, down or right are pressed.
3. If the remote only flashes once, or remains on steady, retry the procedure. If the remote still does not flash twice the remote does not support this feature.

To reverse the setting, using the Sky remote:

1. Press TV then hold down select and 2 together until the LED flashes twice.

Need more help with your Sky remote? Learn how to set up and fix problems with your remote in our Sky remote guide,