The link is built on this page from what you paste; nothing is sent to a server. The preview is the video's own thumbnail, not a frame from the chosen moment.
One moment per line, time first, then the title: 0:00 Intro. Get a link for every line and a check against YouTube's chapter rules.
This YouTube timestamp link generator makes a link that opens a video at the moment you choose. Paste any video link, type the time as 1:30, 90, or 1m30s, and copy the result in whichever of YouTube's three forms you need: the youtu.be/ID?t=90 short link that YouTube's own Share panel produces, the full youtube.com/watch?v=ID&t=90s link, or the /embed/ID?start=90 URL for a player on your own page. The comment form of the timestamp is shown next to the link, and the list builder turns a set of moments into chapter lines or a list of links. Everything is built in your browser from the text you paste.
youtube.com/watch?v=ID, youtu.be/ID, youtube.com/shorts/ID, a /live/ or /embed/ URL, or the bare 11-character ID. If the link already has a t= value, the time field is filled from it, so you can also use this page to convert one link form into another.1:30, hours as 1:02:03, plain seconds as 90, or YouTube's own 1m30s notation. The generator converts all of them to the seconds count YouTube expects.| Form | Example | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Short link | https://youtu.be/ID?t=90 | Chats, social posts, comments on other videos. This is what YouTube's Share panel gives you when you tick Start at. |
| Full link | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID&t=90s | Documents, emails, and anywhere a youtube.com address is clearer than a short link. The trailing s is optional; t=90 works too. |
| Embed URL | https://www.youtube.com/embed/ID?start=90 | The src of an iframe on your own page. The embedded player uses start=, not t=, and it is the only form that also accepts end=. |
| Comment timestamp | 1:30 | Typed in a comment or the description of the same video, YouTube turns it into a clickable jump. It is text, not a URL, and only works on that video's page. |
| Shorts link | youtube.com/shorts/ID?t=90 | Does not work: the Shorts player ignores t=. For a Short, the generator writes the watch form instead, which opens the video in the standard player on desktop. |
The t parameter takes a number of seconds (t=90), the same number with an s (t=90s), or the hours-minutes-seconds notation YouTube itself used to produce (t=1m30s, t=1h2m3s). It does not take the colon form: t=1:30 is the most common reason a hand-typed timestamp link opens the video at the beginning. The generator always writes plain seconds, the form YouTube's Share panel uses today, and shows the human-readable time next to it. A time past the end of the video is not an error; YouTube simply starts from the beginning.
On a desktop browser there are two built-in ways. Pause the video at the moment you want, click Share under the player, tick Start at, and the panel rewrites the link to youtu.be/ID?t=SECONDS. Or right-click the player and choose Copy video URL at current time, which copies the same short link straight to the clipboard. Both round to whole seconds. The YouTube mobile app has neither: its share sheet offers the plain link and nothing else. On a phone, copy the link from the app, note the time shown on the player, paste both here, and copy the result; or open the video in a mobile browser, where the desktop-style Share panel with Start at is available on the full site.
Inside a video's own comments and description you do not need a link at all. Type the time as m:ss or h:mm:ss and YouTube makes it clickable, jumping the player on that page to the moment. The link form is only needed when the moment belongs to a different video, or when the text will live outside YouTube.
A list of timestamps in the description also creates chapters, the named segments on the player's progress bar, when it follows YouTube's rules: the first line must be 0:00 (or 00:00), there must be at least three timestamps, they must be in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. The list builder above checks those four rules and, in the Description lines output, gives you the lines to paste; the other outputs add a link per chapter for a blog post, a forum reply, or show notes. Chapters can be turned off per video in YouTube Studio, and a channel with active copyright strikes cannot use them, so a list that passes the rules and still shows no chapters usually points there.
A Short is a normal video with the usual 11-character ID, but the vertical Shorts player ignores a start time. The generator therefore builds the watch?v=ID&t= form for any link that came from /shorts/; on desktop that opens the standard player, where the time works. For a live stream, timestamps apply to the replay: once the stream has ended and the recording is on the channel, its watch URL behaves like any other video's. While a stream is live, a t= value has nothing fixed to point at. A link copied from inside a playlist carries list= and often index=; the generator keeps the playlist ID when the box is ticked, so the video opens at the time you set with the rest of the playlist queued after it, and drops it when the box is unticked so the video opens on its own.
Links copied from the Share panel or the app carry ?si=, a share identifier that attributes later views to the share; older links carry feature=share or feature=youtu.be. Neither changes what plays, and the generator leaves both out, so the link you copy is the video ID, the time, and the playlist if you kept it. If a link you receive looks long, everything after the ID and the t= value can be deleted without changing where it opens.
An iframe on your own page uses a different parameter, start=SECONDS on the /embed/ID URL, and it is the only place YouTube also accepts end=SECONDS, so a clip from 1:30 to 2:45 is start=90&end=165. The Embed player URL option here writes the start= form; for the full iframe with a responsive wrapper, autoplay, and the no-cookie host, the YouTube embed code generator takes the same link and time and writes the code. The thumbnail URL guide covers what the same video ID gives you as images.
On desktop, pause the video at the moment you want, click Share under the player, tick Start at, and copy the link; YouTube gives you youtu.be/VIDEO_ID?t=SECONDS. Right-clicking the player and choosing Copy video URL at current time does the same thing. The YouTube mobile app's share sheet has no start-at option, which is why this generator exists: paste the link the app gives you and type the time.
The usual causes: the time was written with a colon (t=1:30 is not valid; YouTube wants t=90 or t=1m30s); the link points at a Short, whose vertical player ignores the start time; the link was opened inside an app that hands it to the YouTube app, which sometimes drops the parameter; or the time is past the end of the video, in which case playback starts at the beginning.
Not a share link: watch and youtu.be links only accept a start time. An end time exists only for the embedded player, as end=SECONDS on the /embed/ URL. If you need a clip that plays from one moment to another, generate an embed with start and end times instead of a link.
Type the time in m:ss or h:mm:ss form, for example 1:30 or 1:02:03, in a comment or in the video's own description. YouTube turns it into a link that jumps the video on that page to that moment. It only works for the video the comment or description belongs to; to point at a moment in a different video you need a full link with t=, which this generator makes.
Not in the Shorts player, which ignores the t parameter. Because a Short is an ordinary video with an 11-character ID, the generator builds the watch form of the link for Shorts, youtube.com/watch?v=ID&t=SECONDS, which opens the video in the standard player on desktop, where the start time is honored.
List the timestamps in the video's description, one per line, each followed by a title. YouTube's rules for chapters: the first timestamp must be 00:00, there must be at least three timestamps in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. The chapter list builder on this page checks those rules and also gives you a link for every chapter.
si is a share identifier YouTube adds to links copied from its Share panel and app. It does not change what plays; it lets YouTube attribute views to the share. It is safe to delete, and the links this generator builds leave it out. The feature= parameter that older share links carry is the same kind of tag.