How to Use a YouTube Link Shortener for Shareable URLs

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Make and share shorter links for YT videos with our complete guide

Co-authored by Hunter Rising

Last Updated: August 19, 2025 Fact Checked

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Using the Share Button

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Manually Shortening Links

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Link Shorteners

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Why use shortened URLs?

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Restoring Shortened Links

Shorter YouTube links are easier to share and get more people to click on them. Luckily, YouTube makes it easy to reduce a URL’s character count just by using the Share button. If you need the link even shorter, there are many link shortening services you can use for free online. Keep reading, and we’ll walk you through how to trim your YouTube links and share them with the world.

Easiest Way to Shorten a YouTube URL

Click the Share button under the YouTube video.
Adjust the timestamp to where you want the video to start.
Select Copy or highlight and copy the shortened link in the text box.
Use a URL shortening service to reduce the character count even more.

Section 1 of 5:

How to Share a Shortened YouTube Link

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Find the YouTube video that you want to share and open it. Look for the Share button underneath the video next to the thumbs up and thumbs down icons, and click on it to open the pop-up in the middle of the screen.
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Enter a timestamp to start the video at a different spot. Check the "Start at" box at the bottom of the pop-up in the middle of the screen, and type in the timestamp you want. If you were already in the middle of watching the video, the current timestamp will already be listed, but you can adjust it.^{[1]
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- Whenever someone clicks the link you shared, the video will start playing from the timestamp you listed.
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YouTube automatically generates a shortened link that will appear in the text box near the bottom of the pop-up. Click the COPY button, or highlight the URL and copy the text to paste it wherever you want to share.

Section 2 of 5:

Manually Shortening a YouTube URL

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Replace "www.youtube.com/watch?v=" with "youtu.be/" in the URL. When you open a YouTube video, click on the URL in the address bar. Delete the first half of the link and put in the shortened "youtu.be/" text instead. Make sure all of the numbers and letters after the "watch?v=" are still in place. Copy the new, shorter URL so you’re able to share it.^{[2]
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- YouTube introduced the "youtu.be" link shortener so you can share videos online without going over a post’s character limit.
- The "youtu.be" short link only works for YouTube videos, so if you see it in a URL, you know it’s not spam or a malicious link.

Section 3 of 5:

YouTube Link Shorteners

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y2u.be is a third-party service that only works for shortening YouTube links. Simply copy the URL for the YouTube video that you want to share and paste it into the text box on the page. Then, click "Shorten URL" to generate the shortened link.
Bitly allows you to shorten 5 links for free per month, and you’re able to customize the back half of the link to whatever you want. While you do need to make a free account, you’ll be able to see how many people click the link that you’ve shared.
TinyURL lets you shorten up to 100 links per month and use custom text on the back half of the URL. The links never expire when you use the free version, but you can access premium analytic features with a paid subscription.
Rebrandly shortens your YouTube URLs so they’re only around 12 characters long. While you can only create 10 shortened links a month and can’t edit them with a free account, the shortened URLs are some of the shortest available.
T.LY calls itself the "world’s shortest link shortener" and it creates a URL that’s about 10 characters long. T.LY also creates a QR code for your shortened link and allows you to track how many clicks it’s received. With a paid account, you can also access more shortened URLs every month with more advanced analytics.

Section 4 of 5:

Why should you use shortened YouTube links?

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YouTube links copied straight from the address bar have a lot of extra characters, so you’re more likely to hit the character limit in a post or message. With a shorter link, you have some extra room to write the post or message you want to accompany your video.^{[3]
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Section 5 of 5:

How to Restore a Shortened YouTube Link

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Replace "youtu.be/" with "www.youtube.com/watch?v=" in the link. If you ever want to switch to a regular URL for any reason, copy the shortened link into a text editor. Delete "youtu.be/" from the link and type in "www.youtube.com/watch?v=" instead.
- Copy and paste the link into a browser to test that it still plays the correct video.