How to Use YouTube's Built-in Link Shortener to Get Compact URLs

Get an easy-to-send URL for your long YouTube links

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Last Updated: November 18, 2024 Tested

YouTube offers a built-in link shortener that can be extremely helpful because it's simple, short, and you don't need to use another website. Shortening a YouTube video link will make the beginning portion of the link appear like youtu.be/. Adding shortened links plays a huge role in helping direct traffic to videos, making it easier for viewers to access and share content. This wikiHow article will show you how to shorten a YouTube video link.

Quick Steps

Navigate to your desired YouTube video.
Click the Share button.
Copy the "youtu.be" link.

Steps

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1
Go to a YouTube video. This can be done by visiting youtube.com in your web browser and selecting a video or using the top search bar to find one.
2
Click the SHARE button. Doing so will prompt a box to appear. The new YouTube design will have an all-caps share button under the video towards the right. The old design will place it under the channel name to the left.

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3
Set the link to start at a specific timestamp (Optional). Check the Start at box and tweak the timestamp. This will be located at the end of the Share panel.
- When anyone accesses the video, it'll automatically jump to that timestamp of the video.
4
Copy the short link. You can copy the link by clicking the COPY button or right-clicking it and selecting Copy from the context menu.

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Tips

If you want to manually shorten a YouTube video's link, replace the replace the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= part of the URL of a video with http://youtu.be/

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