Chapter & Timestamp Generator

Knowledge Base

How to Use the Chapter Generator

Add each chapter with its start time and a short title, drag rows to fix the order if you added them out of sequence, then export in the format your platform expects. YouTube wants a plain timestamp list pasted into the video description. Podcast apps that support Podcasting 2.0 chapters want a structured JSON file.

YouTube Chapter Rules

• The first chapter must start at 0:00. YouTube won't recognise the list otherwise.
• You need at least 3 chapters for YouTube to display the chapter bar.
• Each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long, shorter gaps get ignored.

This tool checks all three rules and flags anything that would stop YouTube from recognising your chapters.

Podcast Chapters (Podcasting 2.0)

Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and other modern podcast apps support an open JSON chapters format hosted alongside your episode. Export the JSON here and upload it wherever your podcast host lets you attach a chapters file, or reference it via a <podcast:chapters> tag in your RSS feed.

FAQ

Q: Can I use the same chapter list for both YouTube and my podcast?
A: Yes, build it once here and export both formats from the same chapter list.

Q: Why isn't my chapter bar showing up on YouTube?
A: Almost always one of the three rules above. Check the validation message this tool shows after you add your chapters.

Chapters that work on both platforms

YouTube turns a timestamp list in your description into chapter markers only when three conditions hold. The first timestamp must be 00:00, there must be at least three of them, and each chapter must run at least ten seconds. Miss any one and the list stays plain text, which is the usual reason chapters silently fail to appear.

Podcast chapters work differently. Podcasting 2.0 uses a separate JSON file linked from the feed, holding titles, start times and optionally images and links per chapter. Support varies by app, so treat chapters as an improvement for listeners who have them rather than as navigation your show depends on. Many hosts still expect timestamps in the episode description as well.

Write chapter titles as descriptions rather than labels. Introduction, Main topic and Conclusion tell a listener nothing about whether to skip. The question being answered in that section is far more useful, because chapters exist to let somebody find the part they came for without hunting through a slider.

Chapter density should follow content rather than a rule. A tightly argued twenty minute piece might warrant three, and a two hour interview covering eight subjects warrants eight. Chapters shorter than about a minute add clutter to the list without helping anybody navigate.

Chapters change what your analytics tell you. Once listeners can jump, a drop in retention partway through stops meaning people left and starts possibly meaning they skipped ahead to the part they wanted. Reading a retention graph without accounting for chapters leads to cutting sections that were being navigated past rather than abandoned.

Write chapter titles with search in mind as well as navigation. Chapter names are indexed on some platforms and appear in results, so a chapter named for the question it answers can bring in viewers who never searched for your video at all. This costs nothing beyond choosing words deliberately.

Vocabulary

Chapter marker. A labelled point in a recording letting a listener jump straight to a section. Shown as a list in supporting apps, and on YouTube as segments along the progress bar.

Timestamp. A time written as minutes and seconds, or hours, minutes and seconds, marking a position in a recording. Written in a YouTube description they become chapters, provided the platform's conditions are met.

JSON chapters. The Podcasting 2.0 method, where a separate file linked from the feed holds chapter titles, start times, and optional images and links. Richer than description timestamps and supported by fewer apps.

Progress bar segmentation. The visual division of a video's progress bar into labelled sections once chapters are recognised. A useful confirmation that your timestamps were accepted rather than treated as ordinary text.