Chapters are how a listener skips to the part they came for. They are also how YouTube builds the progress-bar markers. The format is plain text: a timestamp, a space, and a short title. The first line has to be 0:00 or YouTube ignores the list.
Titles people can scan
Write the title as the thing that happens, not 'Part two' or 'Continued'. Seven words is plenty. 'A nicer mic hears more of the room' is a chapter. 'Discussion' is not.
- Aim for a new chapter every few minutes, not every sentence.
- Start at 0:00 even if the cold open is short.
- Keep the titles parallel. All of them should sound like the same host.
- Paste the same list into your podcast host and your YouTube description.
If you already have a transcript, you do not need to upload audio to draft chapters. The free chapter tool on this site splits pasted text into timestamps. For a full crate, including clips, run the episode through PodCrate.
Where the times come from
Word-level timestamps from the transcript are what make the chapters honest. Guessing from a summary drifts. If a chapter says the blanket story starts at 1:52, a listener who clicks there should hear the blanket story.