Watching long videos on YouTube and finding specific parts can be a hassle, especially if you need to scrub through content. Today, the video sharing service announced a new feature that will make it easier to locate a particular section of a video you want to watch.
YouTube has introduced video chapters, available from today on the web and its mobile app for Android and iOS. The new feature allows video owners to split the content into different parts.
0:00 We heard you and added Video Chapters.
— YouTube (@YouTube) May 28, 2020
0:30 You liked it.
1:00 Now it"s official: Video Chapters are here to stay.
1:30 Creators, try Chapters by adding timestamps starting at 0:00 to your video description. Viewers, scrub to find exactly what you’re looking for.
2:00 Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/bIHGsGVmyW
Content creators can insert chapters by adding timestamps to the video description, starting at 0:00. These will be visible in the form of breaks at the bottom of the media player, like how yellow markers appear for YouTube ads. You can tap on a chapter to skip right to the specific part you"re interested in.
Three conditions must be met, though, for a video to contain chapters (via Engadget): its first chapter must start at 0:00, the video description should display at least three time stamps, and each chapter must at least be 10 seconds in length. The tool is optional, however, so chapters won’t be available on all videos.