Learn how to share at YouTube video at a specific timestamp from your computer or mobile device.
Imagine there is a long YouTube video, but you only want to share it from a specific time — say 11 minutes and 34 seconds. To make it easy, YouTube allows you to copy video links from a specific time. When the recipient opens the link, the video will play not from the beginning but from that specific time you selected.
Share a YouTube link from a certain time on computer
Here are two ways to do this.
Use the right-click feature
1) Open the YouTube video in a desktop web browser.
2) On the time bar, click the position from where you wish to share.
3) Right-click on the video and select Copy video URL at current time.
4) Share the link copied to your clipboard via Mail, Messages, Slack, or the medium you want.
When your friend opens this link, it will not play from the beginning of the video but the time you set in step 2.
Use the share button
1) Open the YouTube video on a computer browser like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.
2) Below the video, click Share.
3) Check the “Start at” box, change the time to anything you like, and press the enter key.
4) Click Copy and send this link.
When someone clicks this link, this YouTube video will start playing from the time you set.
Share a link to a specific part of a YouTube video on mobile
You can also use your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone to send someone a YouTube video link that plays from a certain point.
Use desktop mode in iOS Safari
1) Open the YouTube video in Safari.
2) Tap the options button, followed by the three dots icon > Request Desktop Website.
3) Now, follow the same steps we’ve mentioned in the computer section above: tap Share > check and set the “Start at” point > tap the enter key > copy the link and share it.
If you use Chrome or some other browser on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, the steps to request the desktop version of YouTube will be different. Please explore the browser to find this option.
Manually insert the timestamp
1) Play the video inside the YouTube app and tap Share.
2) Tap Copy link.
3) Paste the copied link in iMessage, WhatsApp, Mail, or other app you like.
4) At the end of the URL add ?t=2m30s or ?t=150s.
In this example:
- ?t= signifies the timestamp.
- 2m30s means the video will start playing from 2 minutes (m) 30 seconds (s). If you convert this into seconds, it’s 150s. You can use any format you like. If the video is longer, you can use h to signify hour. For example, https://youtu.be/e419Lx-fZ7k?t=2h39m34s means the video will start playing from 2 hours 39 minutes and 34 seconds.
You can obviously change the time to the number you like.
Short vs. full YouTube links
When you copy the video link from the app, it’s shortened and starts with https://youtu.be/abcd123, and you can use ?t= to set the timestamp.
If the YouTube URL isn’t shortened, it’ll start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcd123. In this case, don’t use ?t= but &t=. That is, replace the question mark (?) with the ampersand symbol (&). The rest of the rules for minutes and seconds are the same.
All four links below are for the same video and will start playing from the same time (that is, 2 minutes and 50 seconds). The first two are short YouTube links, and the other two are long YouTube links.
https://youtu.be/DLF9FPxGVwI?t=2m50shttps://youtu.be/DLF9FPxGVwI?t=170shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLF9FPxGVwI&t=2m50shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLF9FPxGVwI&t=170s
Now you know all the methods to share a YouTube video from a specific part using your computer or mobile. Which one are you going to lose?
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