YouTube Link Shortener
Turn any YouTube link into a clean youtu.be one, timestamp intact.
- 100% success
Tool input
Overview
About this tool
Builds YouTube’s own youtu.be short link from a watch page, Shorts link, embed URL or bare video ID — carrying the timestamp across correctly, keeping or dropping the playlist, and stripping the tracking id YouTube attaches to a share.
Instructions
How to use it
Paste any YouTube link. Watch pages, Shorts, embeds, mobile links, music.youtube.com and a bare 11-character ID all work, and so does a link that already has a timestamp or a playlist on it.
Why youtu.be rather than a shortener
youtu.be is YouTube’s own domain. The link never expires, needs no account, cannot be rate-limited, and does not stop working because a shortening service changed its pricing. A bit.ly pointing at a YouTube video adds a redirect, a tracking hop and a single point of failure, and buys you nothing a first-party link does not already give you.
The timestamp trap
A watch page writes the timestamp as t=90s. A youtu.be link wants t=90 — bare seconds. Copy the parameter across unchanged, which is what people do by hand, and the video silently starts from the beginning. This converts it.
Questions
Frequently asked
Is youtu.be an official YouTube domain?
Yes. It is owned and served by YouTube, and it is what the platform’s own share button produces. It is not a third-party shortener.
Can I shorten a Shorts link?
Yes. A Shorts URL and a watch URL point at the same video, so the short link works for both — and on desktop it opens in the normal player, which is usually what you want when you are sharing it outside the app.
Why did my playlist disappear?
By default the short link points at the video on its own, because that is almost always what someone sharing from a playlist means. Turn on “Keep the playlist” to carry it across. Auto-generated mixes (list IDs starting RD or UL) are never carried, because they are personal to your session and would open as a dead link for anyone else.
Can I shorten a channel or playlist link?
No — youtu.be only serves videos. For a channel, the @handle URL is already the shortest official form.
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