When we talk about an online video streaming platform, the first name that comes to everyone’s mind is YouTube. YouTube is the biggest and most successful free video-sharing platform out there, YouTube was created in 2005, and since then, it has amassed 6 billion hours of watch time every month. It is also said that, on average, around 100 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute; due to the massive amount of content being uploaded on the platform, YouTube is also considered a search engine by many.
Like YouTube is a search engine, it is also a social media influencer’s paradise. Since Google has started adding YouTube videos to its search results, more and more social media influencers are moving towards YouTube. Another reason so many people are shifting towards YouTube is that almost anyone can create a free account on the platform and start earning money from uploading videos.
Sharing YouTube Videos at Specific Times
There are countless reasons why YouTube is as big as it is today; however, the main reason why this video streaming platform has become so massive is that it provides an extremely easy way for its users to share videos. You can easily copy the video link and share it with anyone; however, there are times when you don’t want to share the entire video but need to point to a specific piece of information that appears at a specific time in the video. In such cases, all you need to do is create and share the YouTube timestamp link.
Creating a timestamp might sound easy, but it does confuse many people, and if you, too, are a netizen and have friends with a short attention span, then you have come to the right place. Today, we will help you with ways to share a YouTube video at a specific time in the YouTube app.
Using the Share Button
The easiest way to share a YouTube video at a certain time is by simply using the share button under the YouTube videos. Since this method only works on the YouTube desktop website, it will not work on the YouTube application on your mobile phone. To ensure this trick works on your mobile phone, you would have to open YouTube on your mobile browser and follow the steps below.
- The first thing that you must do before accessing YouTube on your mobile phone is first to select the three vertical buttons on the top-right corner of the mobile browser and choose the Desktop Site option.
- Now open the desired video on YouTube and move to a specific time on the video.
- Once you have reached your desired timestamp, stop the video and click the SHARE button under the playback window.
- After selecting the SHARE option, you will see a pop-up, and at the bottom of the pop-up window, check the box next to Start.
- Now the video link is ready to be shared; the timestamp would be when you click the share button. However, you can also manually change the start time next to the check box.
Using the Chapters
YouTube has also recently introduced a feature allowing users to share videos at specific parts easily. However, a problem with this feature is that it works in some regions and only on videos marked with chapters by the content creators.
The chapter feature on YouTube is extremely easy to use; however, if it isn’t available in your region, you can connect to a reliable Black Friday VPN before opening the YouTube application on your mobile phone. You choose any paid VPN service, such as Nord VPN or Ivacy VPN. To share a video with chapters, follow the steps below.
- Open the YouTube app on your mobile phone and select any video you want to play.
- After playing the video, click on the arrow next to the video’s title. This will expand the video description section and show the available chapters on the video.
- Select the “View All” option next to the Chapters heading, this would open a vertical list of all the chapters, and next to each chapter, you would see a share button.
- Clicking on a specific share button would open the same pop-up that opens when you want to share a YouTube video; however, what would be different this time is that you would be sharing the link of a specific timestamp.
Manually Append the URL
The last option you can try is to append the URL with a specific timestamp manually. The process could be irritating for some, but it does the job. You must first understand how the URL works to append a timestamp manually. The YouTube URL explicitly allows you to add a timestamp at the end of the URL and is often denoted as “t=00m00s”. To add a specific timestamp, you must replace “00m” with the minutes you want to start the video from and replace the “00s” with the seconds. However, you must remember to add a “?” before you append the timestamp notation.
For videos with a question mark, you can add an ampersand (&) and the time in seconds like “&t=00s”. In this method, you must convert the total minutes into seconds and add them to the URL.
