Turn any video into a formatted chapter list — correct timestamps, clear titles, ready to paste into your YouTube description exactly as YouTube expects it.
This one needs real processing — transcription, or a video render — so it runs in the app rather than in your browser tab. Free tier: 1 video per day.
1 video per day
How It Works
A public YouTube link, or paste a transcript directly if you already have one.
The transcript is read for where the subject actually changes, and each section gets a short descriptive title.
Formatted exactly the way YouTube requires — starting at 00:00, in order, ready to paste.
Chapters split a video's progress bar into labelled sections. YouTube creates them automatically when your description contains a list of timestamps that meets its rules — there is no separate chapters field to fill in.
The rules are strict and unforgiving. The first timestamp must be 00:00. There must be at least three of them. Each chapter must run at least ten seconds. They must be listed in ascending order. Break any one of these and YouTube silently ignores the whole list, showing no chapters and no error explaining why.
They earn their keep because long videos are rarely watched start to finish. Chapters let a viewer land on the part they came for instead of bouncing, and they show up in Google search results as jump-to links — which is extra surface area for the same video.
Why Use This Tool
Sections are placed where the subject actually changes, not at fixed intervals.
Starts at 00:00, ascending order, minimum ten seconds per chapter — the rules that make YouTube accept the list.
Works from a public YouTube link, or from a transcript you paste in yourself.
Chapter titles are a draft. Rewrite anything that does not sound like you.
Google surfaces chapters as jump-to links in search results, so good titles are a small SEO win.
One video per day, no account required.
Requirements
Break any one of these and YouTube shows no chapters at all — with no warning telling you why.
Almost always one of four things: the first timestamp is not 00:00, there are fewer than three, one chapter is shorter than ten seconds, or they are out of order. YouTube rejects the list silently in every case.
Three is the minimum. In practice one every two to four minutes reads well — enough to be useful, not so many that the progress bar turns into confetti.
Indirectly and genuinely. Google shows chapters as jump-to links in search results, which gives one video several entry points, and better navigation improves retention.
Yes, for any public video. Whether you use them is a question about your own description.
Shorts do not support chapters — they are too short and have no progress bar to divide. This is for long-form.
Yes, and you should. Generated titles are accurate but generic; your own phrasing will always read better.
A chapter list is a map of the moments in your video worth finding. Those same moments are the ones worth cutting vertically and posting. ShortsHero reads the same transcript and turns them into finished clips.
Turn chapters into clipsFree to start · No credit card required
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