YouTube launches “Video Chapters” for easy navigation through videos

YouTube on Thursday launched its ‘Video Chapters’ feature on its platform that lets users skip to a particular part of the video based on time stamps.

The chapters feature allows the viewer to skip ahead to a particular section of the YouTube video or rewatch a specific section.

“0:00 We heard you and added Video Chapters.0:30 You liked it. 1:00 Now it's official: Video Chapters are here to stay.1:30 Creators, try Chapters by adding timestamps starting at 0:00 to your video description. Viewers, scrub to find exactly what you’re looking for. 2:00 Enjoy!” YouTube had tweeted from its official account.

The platform has been testing this feature since April. It is now live for all users based on the feedback received.

Video Chapters are enabled as a series of timestamps and titles. These are created by the video creator while uploading. Creators can add chapter information to their video’s description.

The first timestamp needs to be marked as 0:00. The chapters can be titled as the time stamp followed by a space and the title of the chapter. In the next line, creators need to add the time stamp where the next chapter begins and add the title in a similar way.

Once the uploader lists the chapters and saves the changes, the video chapters will be listed for viewers as they scrub through the video.

For now, in order to add chapters to a video, creators will need at least three timestamps that are 10 seconds long.

The platform has enabled haptic buzz for videos so that viewers can easily know when they’re on to a new chapter. Where haptic feedback in unavailable, the video progress bar will automatically snap to where a new chapter starts.

The feature is available for all users on iOS, Android and desktop.