What Is a YouTube Timestamp Link?
A timestamp link is a regular YouTube URL with an added ?t= or &t= parameter specifying the number of seconds into the video the player should start at. When someone clicks the link, YouTube automatically seeks to that exact moment instead of starting from 0:00. This is one of the most useful and under-used YouTube features for sharing specific moments — a joke, a key explanation, a highlight, or an error you want someone to see.
URL Formats YouTube Accepts
YouTube recognises several timestamp formats: youtu.be/VIDEO_ID?t=90 (plain seconds), youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&t=90 (seconds with ampersand), and youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&t=1m30s (human-readable format with h/m/s suffixes). This tool generates the seconds-based format, which is universally supported and the most compact for sharing.
Common Uses
- Referencing a moment in a discussion: "Watch what he says at 12:34" becomes a clickable link that jumps straight there.
- Tutorial navigation: Link directly to the relevant step in a long how-to video instead of asking someone to scrub through it.
- Citing evidence: Journalists and researchers use timestamp links to cite a specific claim made in a video without requiring viewers to watch the whole thing.
- Highlighting content: Content creators share timestamped links to promote a specific highlight from a longer stream or podcast episode.
Embedding at a Timestamp
The embed code generated by this tool uses the start parameter, which works in YouTube's iframe embed player on any website. This is different from the sharing link's t parameter — both achieve the same result but use different parameter names because they apply to different YouTube systems (the watch page vs. the embed player).