YouTube has a built-in feature that lets you share a video: The wider industry impact

‘The Times of India’ has launched a new series called ‘Hack of the Day’, designed to provide quick and practical solutions to common challenges faced by users. This weekday initiative focuses on leveraging accessible tools and features, ranging from government websites to popular apps. Each hack aims to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and alleviate stress, offering straightforward fixes for a more streamlined lifestyle.

Interviews and podcast clips work just as well, especially when a guest says something particularly sharp or useful at the one-hour mark. Turn that on. The link in the share panel will update automatically to include the timestamp in the URL. Copy it or send it directly through WhatsApp, iMessage, email, or wherever you are sharing it, and that is it. Whoever opens the link will be dropped straight into the video at that exact moment. On desktop, there is also a slightly faster route. Right-click anywhere on the video while it is playing, and you will see an option that reads “Copy video URL at current time. Click that and the timestamped link goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste. The difference between a timestamped link and a plain video link is the difference between someone actually watching what you wanted them to see and someone abandoning the video after thirty seconds of confusion. When you send a full video with no context, you are placing the burden on the other person to figure out where the good part is. Most people will not bother, and honestly, you cannot blame them. A timestamped link removes all of that friction. It respects the other person’s time, it makes your recommendation land the way you intended, and it makes you look like someone who actually thought about what they were sharing before hitting send. This works brilliantly across a wide range of situations. Tutorials are an obvious one — when you want to point someone to a specific step in a long how-to video rather than making them sit through the whole setup. Recipe videos, where the real question is usually about a specific technique or a step people tend to get wrong, become instantly more useful when you can drop someone right into the relevant moment. The same goes for lectures, speeches, product reviews, and news clips, where the headline moment is often buried minutes into the video. It is also just a more considerate way to share. Sending a timestamped link signals that you have already done the work of finding the good bit, and you are not asking the other person to go on a search themselves.

You watch a 45-minute interview, find the one two-minute segment that is genuinely worth someone else’s time, and then send them the full video with a vague “watch from around the 32-minute mark.

When the share menu appears, look for a checkbox or toggle that says something along the lines of “Start at” followed by the current timestamp. We have all been there. ” Half the time they never get there. The other half, they give up somewhere in the middle and miss the point entirely. There is a better way, and it takes about ten seconds to set up. YouTube has a built-in feature that lets you share a video from a specific timestamp, so whoever receives your link lands exactly where you want them to, no scrubbing required. It is one of those small things that makes a surprisingly big difference, especially when you are trying to share something useful without wasting anyone’s time. Open the YouTube video you want to share and move the playhead to the exact moment you have in mind. Do not worry about being perfectly precise down to the millisecond — getting within a second or two is more than good enough. Once you are at the right spot, tap the Share button. On mobile, this usually appears as an upward-pointing arrow. On desktop, it sits just below the video alongside the like and save buttons. The feature has been around for a while, but a surprising number of people still default to sharing plain links out of habit. Once you start using timestamps, it becomes second nature almost immediately. It takes no extra time, costs nothing, and makes everything you share on YouTube noticeably more useful. Small habit, big difference.