Chapter Maker

Want to save time while editing and uploading your YouTube videos?

This is a free tool that takes the output of File > Export > Markers in a csv file format from Adobe Premiere Pro and transforms it into a format that you can copy and paste into your YouTube description so that YouTube can generate video chapters. See instructions below if you need help.

Instructions to create YouTube chapters from Adobe Premiere Pro markers.

1. Create markers in Premiere Pro and name them for chapter titles.

Screenshot of Premiere Pro showing Marker screen — Add your chapter title in the name of the marker and change color.

As you edit the video and bring in new footage, add markers that denote the topic of that section of the video. Give markers a name that will become a YouTube chapter. Here are a few tips:

Attach the markers to the main timeline, ie. don't have any clips selected when you add markers.
Press key m to add a marker. Press m again to bring up dialog to enter the marker title.
For the most part, as you edit, the markers should move with the footage and thus stay relatively in the same place.
You can color markers in different colors. For example, chapter markers in blue, TODOs in red, etc.

2. When you are done editing the video, check all markers look ok.

Screenshot of Premiere Pro timeline with markers — Make sure markers are attached to timeline, not individual clips.

Don't forget to add a marker at 00:00 (YouTube's rules).
Make sure there are at least 3 markers (YouTube's rules).

3. Export markers and save them to a csv file.

Screenshot of Premiere Pro export menu — File > Export > Markers.

If you don't see the option (it is greyed out) make sure you are on a Program window.
If you have markers of multiple colors, select the Window > Markers and filter only the color you want.

Screenshot of Premiere Pro selecting CSV option for export file — Select CSV file type option.

Screenshot of Premiere Pro selecting markers of color blue — You can select markers of certain color, for example blue.

4. Open the csv file, then copy the contents and paste it into the left hand side text area above.

Screenshot of file opened in Notepad and contents selected — Select contents of the file and copy them.

You can open the file in a text editing app, for example Notepad on windows (Right click on the file, then select Open with… and choose Notepad) or TextEdit on Mac (Right click on the file, then select Open With and choose TextEdit).

5. Copy and paste the result from the right hand side text area into your YouTube video description.

Make sure the first line starts with the 00:00 marker.

6. Profit!

Well done! See you next time!

About

Hi! I'm Diana and I'm a YouTuber - one half of Adventurous Way. I'm also a software engineer.

This combination of skills allowed me to make Chapter Maker to make my video editing workflow faster so that I have more time for adventures.

I hope you enjoy it too! If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback email me at [email protected].

Hey, did you find this useful?

If you found this app useful, consider saying thanks. You can do that via email [email protected] or if you are feeling especially generous, consider buying me a coffee so that I can devote more time to support and improve this project.