YouTube Timestamp Link Generator

This tool has two parts. The first turns any YouTube link plus a time into a link that starts playback at that moment: a short youtu.be/VIDEO_ID?t=SECONDS link and the full youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&t=SECONDSs version. Type the time however you think of it — 4:05, 1:02:03, 1h2m3s or plain seconds — and it is converted for you. Watch, youtu.be, Shorts, live, embed, mobile (m.youtube.com) and YouTube Music links are all recognized, extra parameters such as list, feature or si are ignored, and the bare video ID works too.

The second part checks a chapter list before you publish it. YouTube turns timestamps in a description into chapters only when the list follows the rules in its Help Center: the first timestamp starts at 00:00, there are at least three timestamps in ascending order, and each chapter is at least 10 seconds long. If a list breaks one of them, the chapters may not appear at all, which is easy to miss. Paste your lines and every problem is pointed out on the line where it happens, such as a first chapter at 0:05, two timestamps out of order or a 6-second chapter. Add the video length to check the last chapter too.

The checker is flexible about what it accepts: the timestamp can come before or after the title, sit in brackets, or follow a dash or bullet. The copied block is tidied into one format, 00:00 Title, with hours shown only where needed. Lines without a timestamp are left out and marked in gray, so you can paste a whole description and take just the chapters.

Everything runs in your browser. The link you paste is only read for its video ID and the page doesn't load anything from YouTube. Chapter rules can change, so the chapter help page on support.google.com (linked below the checker) has the final word. YouTube can also show chapters it generates automatically, which creators can turn off in YouTube Studio.