How to Share a YouTube Video at a Specific Start Time

This article explains how to share a specific time in a YouTube video on a desktop browser, information on a workaround for mobile devices, and how to make a manual timestamp.

How to Create a Link to a Specific Time in a YouTube Video

Linking to a specific time in a YouTube video is a great trick for when you want to show a particular segment of a video—especially if the video is long and the part that you want to share comes several minutes after it starts playing.

It's easy to link to the exact part of any YouTube video on a desktop browser. Go to YouTube.com, find the video you want to share, and follow these instructions.

1. Click Share directly beneath the video.

2. In the pop-up box, check the box next to Start at.

3. Enter the time you want the video to start. The correct time may already be listed if you pressed the share button at the exact moment you want the video to start.

4. Select Copy to copy the time-stamped URL. You might notice that the link changed to include some extra characters. These extra characters are used to tell YouTube to link to the specific time that chose.

5. Paste the link wherever you want or select any of the social share buttons to share it. Anyone who opens your link will begin watching the video at the time you specified.

Link to a Specific Time in a YouTube Video by Creating a Timestamp

You can manually link to a specific time in a video by adding ?t=00m00s to the end of a short YouTube link. Replace 00m with the minute marker and replace the 00s with the second marker. For longer URLs that already have a question mark in the URL, add an ampersand (&): &t=00s.

Timestamping Videos Shorter Than One Minute

If the video doesn't go for longer than a minute, you can leave the "00m" portion out of it. For example, the link https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ turns into https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?t=42s when you add a time marker for it to start at 42 seconds.

Timestamping Videos Longer Than One Minute

For long videos, hours are supported, too, using 00h and, if needed, 00s. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkgTxQm9DWM&ab_channel=BufuSounds&t=8h10s

YouTube makes it fast and straightforward enough that you shouldn't have to do this manually at all, but there's no harm in learning anyway. Knowing how this works manually also gives you a better understanding of what those extra characters mean.

Share a Link to a Specific Time in a YouTube Video

On the official YouTube mobile app for both iOS and Android devices, you might notice that there's a share button that allows you to copy the video link and share it to social apps, but no Start at check box or field. This feature is only available when you watch a YouTube video from a web browser.

So if you want to link to a specific time in a YouTube video while using your smartphone, you have a couple of options:

• Open the video from your browser app, like Chrome, and change the browser's settings so that it loads YouTube's desktop site rather than its mobile version (choose Desktop site from Chrome's menu). Then, follow the steps as they're listed above to create the time-stamped URL.
• Link to a specific time by manually creating a time stamp (see below).
  

Why Linking to a Specific Time Matters

Internet users have short attention spans, so forcing someone to sit through even a 4- or 5-minute video where the best portion doesn't start until the halfway mark can be enough to make them give up and impatiently close the video out of frustration.

YouTube hosts thousands of videos worth sharing that can be several minutes or several hours long (these are our favorite 10-hour videos). If you're sharing a video of an hour-long public speaking presentation on Facebook, your friends will appreciate that you linked to the exact time in the video when something interesting is happening.

More people are watching YouTube from their mobile devices now more than ever (which largely explains the shorter attention spans). They don't have time to sit through a lengthy introduction and other irrelevant bits before getting to the good stuff.

When you decide to share a video at a specific time, viewers can restart the video if they want to watch the entire thing, so you're not doing anyone a disservice by linking to a relevant point. The YouTube video player starts buffering and playing when you set without any modification to the video.