Podcast timestamps: how to write them

Updated October 9, 2026.

Podcast timestamps are the list of times and titles in your episode description. Written in the right format, YouTube and Spotify turn them into clickable chapters, and listeners can jump straight to the part they came for. Below: the format, the rules each platform checks, where to paste them, and a full real example.

1. The format

One chapter per line: the time, a space, then the title. Use MM:SS under an hour and H:MM:SS after it. The first line is always 00:00.

00:00 [What actually happens first]
04:27 [Chapter title, 3-8 words, specific]
1:03:24 [Chapter after the one-hour mark]

2. Platform rules

Paste your list into the free YouTube chapters checker to catch a missing 00:00, a too-short chapter or an out-of-order line before you publish.

3. Where to paste them

• YouTube: anywhere in the video description, as plain lines.
• Your podcast host: in the episode description, so Spotify and most apps see them.
• Your website: in the episode's show notes. More on the rest of the notes in the show notes template.

4. Real example: a 70-minute episode

Villains and Virgins History Podcast, "Captain Morgan and the Pirates of the Caribbean" (70.7 minutes). Every start time was taken from the transcript, not guessed. See more samples.

00:00 Henry Morgan, the real Captain Morgan
02:21 From Welsh farm to the Spanish Main
04:27 Protestant pirates and Spain's trade monopoly
07:57 Letters of marque, privateers and buccaneers
13:04 Cromwell's Jamaica and Irish indentured servants
21:47 Pirate articles: shares and crew democracy
25:26 The sneak attack on Portobello
39:22 The Oxford explodes at dinner
42:42 Maracaibo and the burning fuse
46:46 Trapped in the lagoon by Don Alonso
59:44 The canoe decoy and the escape
1:03:24 Sacking Panama, knighthood and death by rum

Notice what the titles do: each one names the actual story or idea ("The Oxford explodes at dinner"), not a label like "Part 3". That is what makes someone click.

5. How to find the right times

1. Work from the final published file. If you trimmed the intro or inserted ads, times from the raw recording are wrong.
2. Get a transcript with segment timestamps (most hosts and editors can export one).
3. Mark where each topic really starts: the line where the new subject begins, not the end of the previous sentence.
4. Aim for one chapter every 4-8 minutes. Fewer is too coarse to help; many more gets noisy.
5. Run the list through the checker.

6. Common mistakes

• No 00:00 line. YouTube ignores the whole list.
• MM:SS past the hour. Write 1:03:24, not 63:24.
• Chapters too close together. Under 10 seconds breaks YouTube; under 30 seconds breaks Spotify.
• Labels instead of content. "Intro, Discussion, Outro" tells a listener nothing.
• Times off by the ad break. Dynamic ad insertion can shift times in some apps; check the file listeners actually get.