YouTube Chapter Generator

YouTube chapters break your video into navigable sections, appearing as visual markers on the progress bar and as a clickable table of contents beneath the video. Viewers can jump directly to any section, which reduces bounce rate and keeps people watching longer.

This tool lets you build your chapter list with real-time validation. It checks YouTube's exact requirements — a first chapter at 0:00, a minimum of three chapters, at least ten seconds between each, and no duplicate timestamps — and shows you exactly what needs fixing before you even open YouTube Studio.

• Build Chapters tab — Enter a timestamp (e.g. 0:00, 1:30, 1:05:20) and a title for each chapter. The first chapter must be 0:00.
• Add Chapter — Click the button to add more rows. You can add up to as many chapters as your video needs.
• Sort by Time — Click "Sort" to reorder the list by timestamp if you've entered chapters out of order.
• Import from Text — Have existing chapters? Paste your description or any text containing timestamps. The parser extracts them automatically. Click "Apply to Builder" to load them for editing.
• Copy to Clipboard — Once the validation box turns green, click Copy and paste the result into your YouTube video description.

The tool enforces YouTube's documented chapter requirements in real time:

• Minimum 3 chapters — YouTube ignores the chapter list entirely if fewer than three are present.
• First chapter at 0:00 — YouTube requires the very first chapter to start at the beginning of the video.
• 10-second minimum gap — Each chapter must be at least 10 seconds apart from the previous one.
• No duplicate timestamps — Two chapters at the same time conflict and will break the chapter display.
• Auto-sort output — The output is always sorted ascending by time, even if you enter chapters in a different order in the builder.
• Time normalisation — On blur, timestamps are auto-formatted to canonical form (e.g. 90 seconds → 1:30). Accepts M:SS or H:MM:SS formats.
• Flexible import parser — The regex /^\(?(\d+:\d{2}(?::\d{2})?)\)?\s*[-–—]?\s*(.+)/ matches timestamps in parentheses, with dashes, em-dashes, or plain spaces — covering every common YouTube chapter format.