How to link to a specific time in a YouTube video

This feature has now been around for quite a while, but it’s not that well known. Also it can be hard to find information about it online as people often call it deep linking – which makes sense if you know the jargon but isn’t the sort of phrase you’d otherwise guess is the one to look for.

So here’s how to create a link to a YouTube film which, rather than start playing at the start of the film, will start playing at a specific moment part way through the YouTube film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4L0pWUNp08#t=0m39s

As you can see, it’s really very simple – the YouTube web address and then two variables, to select which film you want and at what specific time in the film you want it to start:

o4L0pWUNp08 – which is the unique reference code for the video. If you are watching a film on its own page on YouTube, you’ll find this in the URL (address bar). If you are, say, viewing the film on a channel page, click on the “View comments, related videos and more” link underneath the video and this will bring up the clip’s own YouTube page.

0m39s – which is the starting time; in this case it means start playing 0 minutes and 39 seconds in to the film.

Embedding YouTube in PowerPoint to start at a particular time

In the five years since I first published this post, it’s been a regular favourite in search traffic to this site. So here’s an extra related point which can also be hard to find the answer to online and which PowerPoint does not give you hints about how to do.

Q. How do I embed a YouTube video in a PowerPoint presentation so that it starts at a certain time?

1. Find the video you want on YouTube.
2. Find out how many seconds into the video you want to start.
3. On the YouTube video, go to Share / Embed and copy the code it offers, which will start <iframe…
4. Paste the code into something like Word or a text editor.Edit the code to add ?start=60 just before the closing quote marks on the src=”…” part of the code, e.g. <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/STXz6Ukkl4U?start=60″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>60 means it will start 60 seconds in. You can change this to any other number to start at another point.
5. In PowerPoint, go to Insert / Video and select Online Video followed by From a Video Embed Code. Paste in the edited code and hit enter.