How to share a specific part of a YouTube video

“Skip to 4:32” is a small act of faith. Maybe they skip there. Maybe they watch from the start, or stop at 4:40, or keep going into something you never meant to send. What you wanted was to send a part: a start, an end, and nothing else.

YouTube only half supports that. Here are the three ways to do it, from least effort to most control, and what each one can't do.

1. A link that starts at the right moment

This is built in. On a computer, pause at the moment and either right-click the player and choose Copy video URL at current time, or click Share and tick Start at. On phones and tablets, the share sheet has a timestamp toggle, which YouTube began rolling out in April 2026.

You can also write one by hand. Add t= and a number of seconds to any watch link:

• https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID?t=272 starts at 4:32
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&t=4m32s does the same in minutes and seconds

What it can't do: stop. The video plays on past your part, and the other person can't tell where your part ends unless you say. So say it in the message: “from 4:32 until the applause”.

2. An embed link with a start and an end

YouTube's embedded player, the one websites use, accepts both a start and an end in seconds:

• https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID?start=272&end=305

Both numbers count from the beginning of the video, so end=305 means 5:05, not 305 seconds after the start. Put that URL in an <iframe> on a web page, such as a course page, a blog post or internal docs, and the player starts at 4:32 and stops at 5:05.

As a link to send, though, it no longer works. YouTube's embedded player now requires the page it sits on to identify itself through the browser's Referer header. Open an embed URL on its own, by pasting it into the address bar or tapping it in an app that doesn't pass that header along, and you get Error 153: Video player configuration error instead of the video.

Even where it plays, the player stops at the end rather than repeating, and it won't play at all if the uploader has turned off embedding.

3. A clip link

A clip link stores the start, the end and a title together, and opens a page that plays just that stretch. YouTube used to make these with its Clip button until it removed viewer Clips in April 2026. An extension can do the same job from inside the player.

With YTMark, press X on the video in Chrome, drag the ends of the clip to fit the part, and save it. The link icon beside the clip copies a share link. Here is what the other person gets:

• A page that plays only your part, on repeat, from its first second. Its controls run from 0:00 to the clip's length, so the rest of the video isn't a stray click away.
• Your note as the title, and a button through to the full video when they want the context.
• A preview in chats and social posts that shows the video's thumbnail with the clip's title and time range.
• No account and no extension needed, on a computer or a phone.

You keep control after sending it. Each shared clip shows its view count, and Stop sharing turns the link off for everyone.

What it can't do: clips are made in Chrome on a computer. And because a clip plays the video through YouTube's embedded player, a video whose uploader has turned off embedding shows a link to YouTube instead of playing.

Which should you send?

• “Watch from here”: a timestamp link. Nothing to install.
• A part inside your own web page: an embed with start and end, in an <iframe>.
• “Watch just this”: a clip link, so it ends where you meant it to.
• Something worth watching twice: a clip link, because it loops.

If the part is for you rather than someone else, like a riff to learn or a phrase to repeat, see how to loop part of a YouTube video. For saving single moments to come back to, bookmarking a timestamp is the lighter tool.