How to add chapters to a YouTube live stream replay

A three hour replay with no chapters is a wall. Chapters turn it into a menu of your best moments, and help new viewers find them.

When a live stream ends, YouTube keeps the replay on your channel as a normal video. Most people who find it later will not watch three hours from the start: they skim for the good parts. Chapters give them a map. Each chapter shows up as a labelled section on the progress bar, and YouTube can show key moments from them in search.

YouTube's rules for chapters

• The first timestamp must be 0:00.
• There must be at least three timestamps, in order from earliest to latest.
• Each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long.

Write each one on its own line in the video description: the time, a space, then a short title. For example:

0:00 Starting soon
12:41 First win of the night
47:05 Chat picks my loadout
1:32:18 The 1v4 clutch

Adding chapters to a replay

1. Open YouTube Studio and go to Content, then Live.
2. Open the replay's details and paste the timestamps into the description.
3. Save. The chapters appear on the progress bar once YouTube has processed the change.

You can edit the list later as often as you like, so start with the obvious moments and add more as you find them.

Picking the moments

• Mark where each story starts, not where the payoff lands: a chapter that opens on the setup lets the moment play out.
• Name chapters like titles, not like log entries. "The 1v4 clutch" beats "Round 14".
• Keep them spread out. A chapter every few minutes is noise; every 15 to 30 minutes in a long stream reads well.
• The same moments make good Shorts. A chapter list is a ready-made list of what to clip.
• Streamed on Twitch too? The free Twitch VOD moment finder lists where your viewers clipped a past broadcast, and its "Copy as YouTube chapters" button gives a chapter list that follows these rules, ready for the description of the VOD's YouTube upload.

Getting the timestamps automatically

When EasyClippers records your stream, it already knows where the strong moments are: it listens for reactions, laughter and voice excitement, watches the screen, and an AI judge picks the moments worth a short. Every recording in EasyClippers comes with a YouTube chapters list built from those moments: 0:00 first, then each strong moment at the second its story starts, at least a minute apart, ready to copy into your description. Making the list uses no credits.

The same moments become captioned vertical shorts, ready while the stream is still live. See turning YouTube live streams into Shorts.

Questions

Why are my chapters not showing?

Check the three rules above: the list must start at 0:00, have at least three timestamps in order, and no chapter can be shorter than 10 seconds.

Does YouTube make chapters by itself?

YouTube can add automatic chapters to some videos, but you cannot choose the moments or the titles. Your own list in the description takes their place.

Do chapters work for Twitch VODs?

Chapters are a YouTube feature. If you upload Twitch streams to YouTube, the same list works there.

Updated 2026-11-03. Questions: support@easyclippers.com.