YouTube Video Chapters: How to Skip through Relevant Sections in a Video

By John Onwuegbu Jun 3, 2020

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YouTube's recently launched "Video Chapters" uses timestamps that creators can apply to their videos to allow viewers to easily jump back or forward to a specific section of the video.

The feature works only when the creator input the timestamps, as such, you may not find it yet on all the videos for now. YouTube has a built in haptic feedback that let users feel a slight “thump” to notify them that they’re moving into a new chapter on mobile.

And for other platforms where haptic feedback is not available, there is a “snapping” behavior that indicates the start of the new chapter.

How to Make Videos Skippable with Video Chapters on YouTube

The videos will require at least three timestamps that are about 10 seconds or more long in order to use the video chapters feature.

While Video Chapters will automatically be enabled as a line of timestamps and titles when video creators add chapter information to their video’s description, with the first timestamp marked as 0:00, and separated by a space from the chapter’s title.

The next line will have the timestamp where the next chapter starts (for instance, let's say 1:45), then a space and the chapter’s title.

How to Skip through Relevant Sections in a Video

YouTube users on mobile devices can slide their finger up or down while scrubbing to reveal the scrubber bar and see where they’re putting on the playhead.

After the feature gained a lot of positive feedback during testing, YouTube increased the number of supported chapters across devices on realizing that it was helpful to users to allow devices to determine how many chapters can be shown, based on available screen size.

So, if you are using a tablet, you're sure going to get more supported chapters than someone on a mobile phone, which means in a video with lots of chapters, you'll see more on desktop than on mobile devices, and also when you’re full screen on your device than when viewing the video in a portrait player.