How to Add Chapters to Your Videos Using Timestamps

Have you ever spent time trying to find an exact moment in a video? Look no further! We’re introducing Video Chapters on Desktop, Android and iOS, which allows you to jump forward to a specific section of a video, rewatch a portion of a video, and more. Chapters appear at the bottom of the video player and use timestamps from the creator's video description. Note: chapters are only shown on videos if the creator has included them.

Chapters:
0:00 An intro to video chapters
0:23 How to set up video chapters
1:07 See video chapters in action

[youtubecreators]

Also (since we see some of you asking) -- sometimes we upload videos as Unlisted first, and have them embedded in our Help Center or in Playlists before we make them Public on our channel! Hope this helps clear up any confusion :)

[MadMovieMakers]

Video starts at 0:00, you're welcome guys

[HHS_pov]

You know this feature would be really amazing if it *actually worked for most of the people* or atleast if the solutions were more widely known

[hextree]

Unfortunately for a lot of people, this doesn't work. It has been bugged for about 3 years, with no fix in sight.

[vindi]

There are some things you never mentioned, but also some not on the support page too. for example, to make the chapters have other sections, you can do this:
Important mentions 0:00 Intro
Important mentions 1:27 A summary without spoilers
The video 2:20 The mystery
The video 2:56 Solving the mystery
The video 4:37 The end!
Outro 5:00 Full summary
Outro 6:00 This video is sponsored by...
Outro 8:20 Credits & Special thanks
This would replace the timestamps with a period and would look like this:
Important mentions.Intro
Important mentions.A summary without spoilers
The video.The mystery
The video.Solving the mystery
The video.The end!
Outro.Full summary
Outro.This video is sponsored by...
Outro.Credits & Special thanks
This would be as easy as doing this:
0:00 Important mentions.Intro
1:27 Important mentions.A summary without spoilers
2:20 The video.The mystery
2:56 The video.Solving the mystery
4:37 The video.The end!
5:00 Outro.Full summary
6:00 Outro.This video is sponsored by...
8:20 Outro.Credits & Special thanks
But if you want to do this method /\ then you are missing the point of this comment. That's all I wanted to say.
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Also, one last thing. I KNOW these timestamps work, but they are NOT for this video. They are a demonstrations for you to see. Hope that stops confusing you now.

[ErfMuck]

This is a really great feature. What would be even better is if you can watch the video in the editor tab and siimply click on a marker that automatically adds the timestamp to the description and then prompts to add a title.

[Smailjr]

I did it for one of my videos with the exact instructions but still couldn’t see chapters titles on the progressbar in the video. it works if you click on them in the description though

[unquixx]

I’m doing everything but it dosent work. It’s in the description but not on the video

[noahg]

All the educational channels who post long videos should follow this, it'd be very much helpful for the viewers.

[JonathanWinbush]

I was wondering how everyone was doing this earlier in the week

[TalesBeatz]

I've never tried to do this cause i always thought the procedures would be hectic 😅 surprisingly simple. Thank you

[buba]

You know this feature would be really amazing if it **actually worked for most of the people**

[TheBoyBreadYT]

I think YouTube should emphasize this error, because many channels do the steps exactly as suggested and still do not work.

[Doxuz]

Hope this helps anyone:
You cant use number as the first character in the chapter name
Example:
1:10 3 Ways to.. (wont register)
1:10 Three ways to.. (will register)

I've tried using ( and ► as the first character too and it didn't register, so possibly you can't use symbol too.
I really love this feature but kinda wished that they put a more detailed explanation/guide on it, because I was really confused for a while trying to figure out why some part of my chapters didn't work.

[Sinefilo]

I don't know why but this doesn't work for me

[PatricMelander]

Very easy and informative to follow. Thank you! 👍

[TheAlanski]

Currently, YouTube states: “We take a number of factors into account to determine if video chapters will display, such as whether there are timestamps in the description of the video, whether the channel has any active strikes, or if the content could be potentially inappropriate to some viewers.”.

YouTube, can we consider implementing one of the two suggestions:
* Allow chapters for all YouTube users instead of ones that are deemed risky (consider if the pros outweigh the cons over disabling it for other reasons)
* Explicit message somewhere on why it was disabled, e.g. your account is deemed risky and thus no chapter codes.

This would reduce the confusion and the number of comments/support-tickets that YouTube receives. It is otherwise not user friendly. Thanks!

[DogsDojo]

Whoa, this is a very nice feature! Thanks, YouTube team!

[Hanks_entertainment_channel]

Following all the instructions in this video does not create chapters, they used to work until something was changed. And it wasn't on my end

[Paradoxo]

Finally my video scripts will be more useful 😁