Monday Magic - YouTube Trick 2 Ways

Do you attend YouTube University? I do—just about every day of the week.

Of course, I mean learning how to do something from a YouTube video. My Darling Hubby has repaired more mechanical things than I thought possible just by watching videos on how to do it.

So far, he’s replaced sprinkler heads, repaired a sprinkler valve, figured out what was wrong with his pickup’s engine fan that 4 trips to the dealer—cost about $1K—didn’t properly diagnose it, replaced the blade on the riding lawn mower, and on and on.

I don’t know how much he’s saved us in repair bills, but I do know the cost of parts he ordered were a fraction of what a repair service wanted.

Me? I mostly watch videos for research, graphic design, using AI for graphics, and other information probably used mostly by authors.

I do find I go back to videos I watched for research to find a specific part of the video to make notes, and it takes time if you have to scroll from the beginning because many videos do not have time or subject matter stamps on them.

I discovered there’s a way to easily do this. So that and other tricks are the focus of today’s Monday Magic Tech Video.

1. Go to a specific part of a video by adding a bit of code at the end of the URL.

There are 3 simple ways to do this. When you open the video, go to the URL in the address bar (must be the actual URL and not one from a playlist. At the end of the URL, type the & sign followed by t (for time) then the = sign and the time you want the video to start. For instance, to start at the 1 minute 5 second mark, you’d type: 1m1s then copy that URL

When you paste it into a address bar, the video will start at that time stamp. Example: Here’s the URL for one of my videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8ZSIW3aBI

To start it at the 27 second mark, I added: &t=27s to the end of the URL which made it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8ZSIW3aBI&t=27s and then I copied that URL and saved it. I can now paste that URL into the address bar—without opening YouTube etc.—and the video will open at that time stamp.

Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y415Y-EqcUg&t=1m18s

2. Go to a specific part of a video by using the YouTube Share feature.

The second way is even easier, but by reading the first way you’ll understand what bit of code is added to make this happen.

This way is simply typing in the time and letting the YouTube feature add the code.

When playing a video and you reach the spot where you want to return to it again, pause it, go below the video to SHARE. 

In the pop-up box, there’s a little square that says START. Put a check mark in the box, and a time designation appears. If that’s exactly the point to return to in the future, click copy, and the link with that time stamp as the start is saved to your clipboard. Paste it anywhere you want.

If you want to start a few seconds before or after that or whenever, simply change the time stamp YouTube popped up to what you want and then copy, etc.

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

I hope this helps. If you like YouTube tricks, keep visiting on Monday. I’ve learned a bunch that saves a lot of time. I intend to add these to my Monday feature. That’s a wrap for Monday. Have a great week.

Joan Reeves aka SlingWords: The Word Slinging Adventures of Joan Reeves

Source: https://slingwords.blogspot.com/2025/04/monday-magic-youtube-trick-2-ways.html