Blog · 7 March 2025

How to link to a timestamp on YouTube

Three ways to link to a specific moment in a YouTube video, on desktop and on your phone, plus the URL trick that works everywhere.

TLDR

• Desktop: pause where you want, click Share, tick Start at, copy.
• Faster on desktop: right-click the video and pick Copy video URL at current time.
• Anywhere, phone included: add ?t=90 (to a youtu.be link) or &t=1m30s (to a youtube.com link).

Desktop: the Share button

1. Pause the video at the moment you want.
2. Click Share under the video.
3. Tick Start at. It fills in the current time, or type your own.
4. Copy the link. It ends in something like ?t=754.

Desktop: right-click

Right-click anywhere on the video and pick Copy video URL at current time. One click, no dialog. Most people don’t know it’s there.

Phone: edit the link

The app’s Share sheet usually doesn’t have Start at. So:

1. Tap Share → Copy link. You get a youtu.be/... link.
2. Paste it somewhere and add ?t= plus the number of seconds. Twelve minutes 34 seconds is ?t=754.
3. If the link already has a ? in it, use &t=754 instead.

You can also write 1m30s instead of 90. YouTube understands both.

Keep the moments, not just the videos

A 45-minute conference talk with one great slide at 31:20 is useless as a bookmark if you don’t remember the 31:20. Save the timestamped link, and write down what’s there.

In Savepad, a YouTube link keeps the thumbnail, title, channel, and captions, so you can search the words people said in the video. Add a note like “31:20, the pricing slide” and it shows up in search too. Good for keeping talks, podcast clips, and product launch videos you want to come back to. Short videos have their own post: how to save TikToks and Reels. And if you need the thumbnail itself, there’s a free YouTube thumbnail grabber.

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