Did you know that you can share a YouTube video at a specific time?

Why Should I Learn How to Create Links to Start and End a YouTube Video?

Linking to a particular time in a video can be really helpful and be very effective in presentations when you want to refer to something very specific.

For example, let’s say you to share a specific part of a really long TED Talk on YouTube. You can

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vOSYmLER664%3Fstart%3D553%26end%3D744

You can also use it to show a certain part of a compilation video. YouTube is famous for allowing users to gather short snippets of related videos and putting them into one big collection.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u0c0ZitlCmE%3Fstart%3D174%26end%3D182

Disclaimer: You Can Copy a YouTube Video Link in ‘Current Time’

For those of you who don’t know already, you can already copy video URLs (links) at a specific time. To do this, simply pause the video, right-click and select ‘Copy video URL at current time.’

You will get a new link that looks like this.
https://www.youtube.com/vk1vhJPHykQ?t=15

Compare that to the original URL:

There are two things that are different:
1) The link no longer has this part: ‘watch?v=’
2) The link now has something at the end: ‘?t=15’

The second part is important to note, because that’s how YouTube recognizes where you would like to start the video. In the example above, the video will start at the 15-second mark; ‘t’ is the variable for the ‘time’ to start the YouTube video.

That said, you can now refer to a certain segment in a YouTube video where it can both start and end at a certain time.
Here’s how you do it:

How to Create Custom ‘Start’ and ‘End’ Times for a YouTube Video

Step 1: Click on the original YouTube URL.
(Let’s stick to the example we used above.)

Step 2: Delete the ‘watch?’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk1vhJPHykQ

Step 3: Add ‘embed/’ right after the .com/

(At this point, you now have an updated URL that works again. However, you still need to add the start and end times in the end.

Step 4: Add ‘?start=&end=’ at the end of the URL.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vk1vhJPHykQ%3Fstart%3D%26end%3D

Step 5: Calculate the time intervals for the video.

(One quick tip to remember: make sure you calculate your start and end times into seconds; get a time calculator to convert your minutes into seconds. For example, if you want to start your video at 1 minute and 15 seconds, your start time will by 75: 60 seconds in one minute + 15 seconds.)

Step 6: Add the time intervals to your YouTube URL.

Step 7: Check to see if it works!

(It should show the start time and end time, as shown below.)

Conclusion

So, now you know how to create your own ‘Start ’and ‘End’ times for the YouTube videos you watch!
So next time you want to use a YouTube video for one of your presentations, or want to share a YouTube video with a friend via email or social media, refer to this cool trick. It will save them a lot of time and will let them know exactly what you wanted them to watch.