Paste a YouTube URL, or upload the video before you publish. Castmagic transcribes it with word-level timestamps, detects where the conversation changes topic, and writes the chapter list in YouTube’s exact format. Copy the block, paste it into your description, and YouTube does the rest.
Want Shorts from the same video? Use the YouTube clip maker →
Paste a YouTube link, or upload the video before you publish.
Import URL
Works with 1,800+ platforms — or upload files directly. Prefer a walkthrough? Book a demo.
No watermark on exports. Speaker labels, timestamps and 60+ languages on every transcript.
Drop the video’s YouTube URL into the field above, or upload the file if it hasn’t been published yet — handy for adding chapters from day one instead of retrofitting them.
The audio is transcribed with word-level timestamps and speaker labels, with auto-detection across 60+ languages.
The chapter preset reads the transcript for genuine subject changes — a new section, a new question, a new demo — and writes a short descriptive title for each, anchored to the second the topic starts.
Copy the block and paste it into the description in YouTube Studio. With three or more timestamps starting at 0:00, YouTube renders them as clickable chapters automatically.
The output is a plain text block in YouTube’s expected format: 0:00 Intro, then a line per chapter, a timestamp followed by a short descriptive title. Timestamps come from the word-level transcript, so each chapter starts at the moment the topic actually changes, not a rounded guess. Titles are written from what’s said in that segment, which makes them specific enough to be useful in search rather than generic labels like “Part 2”.
Generate timestamps
For videos already on YouTube, paste the URL and Castmagic pulls the audio for transcription. For videos still in production, upload the file directly and generate the chapter list before launch, so the video goes live with chapters from its first view. Either route also gives you the full transcript, downloadable as TXT, SRT, VTT, PDF, DOCX or CSV.
Upload a video The transcript that produces your timestamps can produce the rest of the publishing checklist too. Castmagic’s presets generate a video description draft, title options, a summary, pull-quotes and social posts from the same source, so the chapter list is the entry point, not the whole story.
Draft the description A YouTube URL, or the video file before you publish. Castmagic transcribes it, finds the topic changes and writes the timestamp block, ready to paste.
Import URL
Works with 1,800+ platforms — or upload files directly. Prefer a walkthrough? Book a demo.
Prices and limits taken from each vendor's pricing page on 7 October 2026. Vendors whose pricing we could not verify are not listed. Inputs and chapter output are from each vendor’s own tool and help pages. VideoTok’s paid plans are for its ad maker; its timestamp generator is a separate free tool.
| Castmagic | Exemplary AI | Zubtitle | VideoTok | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | $29 / month, or $239 / year (Hobby) | $29 / month, $19 billed yearly (Pro) | $19 / month, or $190 / year (Guru) | $39 / month, $31.20 billed yearly (Creator) |
| Free option | No free plan | Free plan: 500 one-time credits, about 50 min | Free plan: 2 videos a month, up to 20 min, watermark | Free timestamp tool, no login, 5 a day |
| Limit on that plan | 30 transcribed hours in the library | About 5 hours of transcription a month, videos up to 4 h | 10 videos a month, up to 20 min each | Credits for ads and videos; timestamps not listed |
| Input | YouTube link or upload | Upload, or a YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo or X link | Upload only | YouTube link only |
| Where chapters start | At topic changes, from word-level timestamps | Up to 10 chapters, split by transcript length | A timeline from the editor; format not stated | Format not stated |
| Also from the same video | Description, title options, summary, posts, clips | Summary, titles, description, blog post, posts, clips | Description, titles, hashtags, captions, .srt | Titles, tags, descriptions |
For a 40-minute video, writing chapters by hand means scrubbing end to end, noting every topic change, and typing out each time — and one wrong minute mark sends viewers to the middle of the wrong segment. Castmagic builds the list from the video itself.
Paste the video’s YouTube URL into Castmagic (or upload the video file if it isn’t published yet). The video is transcribed, the AI detects where topics change, and you get a chapter list in YouTube’s exact format — 0:00 followed by a title, one chapter per line. Paste that block into your video description and YouTube renders clickable chapters.
YouTube requires at least three timestamps in the description, and the first must be exactly 0:00. Meet those two rules and YouTube automatically segments the progress bar into named, clickable chapters. Castmagic’s output always starts at 0:00 and lists every detected chapter, so it satisfies the requirements as generated.
YouTube chapters are driven entirely by the text in your video description. When the description contains a list of timestamps that meets YouTube’s rules, YouTube segments the progress bar into named chapters. Viewers can click between them, see the chapter name as they scrub, and jump straight to the section they want.
No. Chapters are controlled entirely by the text in your description, so nothing about the video file changes. Castmagic generates the timestamp text block; you paste it into the description in YouTube Studio yourself. Castmagic never posts to or modifies your channel.
The transcript behind them has word-level timestamps, so each chapter is anchored to the second the topic actually starts rather than a rounded minute. You can verify any chapter against the timestamped transcript before pasting the list, and adjust a boundary or title if you’d cut the video differently.
Yes. Review the titles against the transcript, adjust anything you’d phrase differently, and copy the block.
Yes. Upload the video file directly instead of pasting a URL. Castmagic transcribes the upload the same way and produces the same chapter list, so the video can go live with chapters in the description from the first view.
They can. Chapter titles give YouTube a text outline of your video, and chapters can surface as ‘key moments’ in Google and YouTube search results — letting your video rank for the specific topics inside it, not just the overall title. Descriptive, specific chapter titles (which Castmagic writes from the transcript) do this better than generic ones.
An hour of video typically transcribes in about 3-5 minutes, with the chapter list generated from the transcript right after. The manual alternative — scrubbing the full video and typing out each timestamp — usually takes about as long as the video itself.
Yes. Castmagic transcribes videos in 60+ languages and detects the language automatically, so the chapter list comes from what’s actually said.
A description draft, title options, a summary, pull-quotes and social posts, plus captioned clips for Shorts, all from the same transcript. The full transcript downloads as TXT, SRT, VTT, PDF, DOCX or CSV.
Castmagic plans start at $29 a month, or $239 a year. Timestamps come with every plan, along with the full transcript and the rest of the content from the same video.
