Have you ever wanted to share a YouTube video with someone but wanted it not to start over from the beginning? For example, if you want someone to see something that happens 6 minutes 23 seconds after the start of the video, you should either let them watch it from the beginning, or tell them that they need to get to that point.
Instead, you can look cool and tech-savvy by sending them a link to a video that starts exactly where you want. In this article, I will share three times when you would like to provide a starting point for a YouTube video: when you send someone a link, when you embed a YouTube video on a webpage, and when you post a comment on a YouTube video.
Share YouTube links
Click on the little Share icon below the Subscribe button and a small section will open below. The Share tab should already be selected and you will see a link to the YouTube video. Below you will see a small “Start with” checkbox that you can edit. Enter the starting point in the following format: hh: mm: ss.
So, if the video is 1 hour 32 minutes long, you can enter 1:14:30 so that the video starts after 1 hour 14 minutes 30 seconds. The link will change and you will see a parameter added to the end of the URL 😕 t = 1h14m30s.
“Https://youtu.be/lwVW-zWdfjA?t=1h14m30s”
Note that you can also add this to the regular URL that appears in your browser’s address bar as shown below, but you must use the & character instead of the question mark.
“Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwVW-zWdfjA&t=1h14m30s”
In addition to the ampersand character, you can also use the hashtag character, but only for a regular URL, not for a short URL.
“Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwVW-zWdfjA#t=1h14m30s”
So these are pretty much all the ways you can share a YouTube link and specify a time to start the video. Now let’s talk about inline code.
Use embed codes
If you want to embed the video on your website, click the Share icon again, but this time go to the Embed tab. By default, only the code that needs to be copied is displayed, but you can click Show More to see all the options.
Once you have customized the options to your liking, copy the code and paste it into your HTML editor. In inline code, we must specify the starting point using a slightly different parameter. Instead of adding? T =, & t = or # t = at the end of the url should we add? Start =.
Instead of specifying the time in hours, minutes, and seconds, as we did for YouTube URLs, we must enter the time in seconds for the embed code. So if you want your video to start at 7 minutes 29 seconds, you have to do a little bit of math. (7 * 60) + 29 = 449 seconds. So our parameter will be? Start = 429. The equation is simply the number of minutes multiplied by sixty plus the number of seconds.
You will add this parameter to the end of the YouTube embed url. Here is some sample code pasted into the HTML of my web page.
The video URL in the inline code is https://www.youtube.com/embed/lwVW-zWdfjA, which is slightly different from the share URLs. Finally, let’s talk about adding time to YouTube comments.
YouTube Comments
If you want to put the exact time in a YouTube comment, all you have to do is enter the time, for example 13:45. When you do this and post your comment, the time will automatically become a link, and if anyone clicks on it, the video will start playing from the exact time.
Of course, your comments may never be read by all spammers and trolls, but you can try! Anyway, if you have personal YouTube videos that you’ve shared with friends and family, this is a great way to comment on a specific part of the video without recording which part you’re talking about.
So these are all the ways you can choose a starting point for a YouTube video you want to share with someone else via text message, email, or website. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to leave comments. Enjoy!
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