YouTube Time-Offset Links

point to minute-second times in videos

Apil 26, 2024 @ 20:31

YouTube

You can share links to specific hour-minute-second points in YouTube videos by adding some numbers and letters to the ends of the URLs.

For example, here is the URL for a video demonstrating bristle mounting by Kazuma Nishimura:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo

I can link specifically to the part where he starts demonstrating mounting fishing line, rather than a boar bristle, like so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo&t=11m37s

The difference is the bit at the very end:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo&t=11m37s

The format of that little bit looks like:

&t=XhYmZs

Where X is the number of hours, Y the number of minutes, and Z the number of seconds. Note that you should not add zeroes before any of these numbers. So a link for 11:01 would be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo&t=11m1s

and not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo&t=11m01s

When someone visits a link with this kind of time-offset tacked on, YouTube will change the URL to one with just seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4B8TyPnpfo&t=697s

This is also how YouTube formats the links if you if you click “Share” and tick the “Start at” box:

start at checkbox — the “Start At” checkbox in the Share pop-up

start at checked — Having checked the “Start At” box, YouTube adds a seconds offset to the link.

However, I find clicking through all that less convenient than just noting the time and adding to the links, especially when taking notes with lots of time offsets.