How to link to a specific time in a YouTube video

Ever wanted to link to a specific time-point in a YouTube video?

Well, you can, just by following the steps below, and link directly to a video, starting at the point you chose. Great for linking to TED Talks without the waffly intro part, or just to get to the clearest rendition of “all the ducks are swimming in the water”. Whatever outcome you are looking for, if it is a specific point in a YouTube video you wanted, the steps below will get you there.

How to link to a specific time in a YouTube video

  1. Navigate to the YouTube video in question, and copy the URL
  2. Work out the time you want to link to, in minutes and seconds. Like 1:28.
  3. Paste the URL somewhere (like notepad)
  4. Append (add to the end of) the URL, the following code: &t=1m28s – where the number before “m” is the number of minutes you wanted, and the number before “s” is the number of seconds. It will look like the example below:

https://youtu.be/YQziAomUCT4?list=RDYQziAomUCT4&t=1m28s

UPDATE – this is now even easier!

YouTube changed this a while back, and now you can right click, and see the option to “Copy video URL at current time” as in the below image:

copy video url at current time image

You can see an example of this video starting at this time, below, using the WordPress embed option, that is to say, simply pasting in the video URL with the time link, directly into the post edit screen. A lot of the hard work is now being done for you 🙂

Even better with WordPress – Embed this video simply by pasting

If you’re running a suitably enabled WordPress blog, this will be even better, as you can auto-embed a video, and kick it off at the point you wanted, just by pasting that URL in. Win. Win. Win.

Worked for you? Leave a comment

Leave a comment below, if this helped you do something. For now, just enjoy some ducks swimming in the water, as an example of the WordPress + YouTube + Timepoint URL technique described above!

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