The simplest method is to add a timestamp using YouTube’s sharing options.

Manually Add a Timestamp to a YouTube URL

To add a timestamp manually, open the YouTube video in your browser, then locate the URL for this video in your browser’s address bar. This is the URL that shows near the top of the browser window when you’re watching a video on YouTube. Depending on the URL, there are two ways to add a timestamp to the video:

&t=1m30s or?t=1m30s

Use the ampersand example if the URL includes a question mark, like if it ends in watch?v=Sf5FfA1j590. Short URLs that are listed as youtu.be don’t have a question mark, so those would need to use the second example above. Here are two examples that jump to the same point in the video (using the two different timestamp options from above):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf5FfA1j590&t=1h10shttps://youtu.be/Sf5FfA1j590?t=1h10s

The time you choose can be anything: hours, minutes, or seconds. If the video should be started at 56 minutes in, t=56m is all you need to include. If it should be 12 minutes and 12 seconds, t=12m12s is how you’d write it. A 2-hour, 5-second timestamp can skip the minute field altogether: t=2h5s.