How do I turn my Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve markers into YouTube chapters?

Export the markers, open the file here and copy the chapters. In Premiere Pro choose File > Export > Markers and save a CSV. In DaVinci Resolve right-click the timeline in the Media Pool and choose Timelines > Export > Timeline Markers to EDL. The tool turns frame timecodes into video time at your frame rate, removes a 01:00:00:00 start and checks YouTube's rules: first timestamp 00:00, at least 3 chapters, each 10 seconds or longer, in ascending order. Nothing is uploaded.

Updated October 19, 2026 · Built by Kevin Tabares, long-form YouTube editor at Umbrella Creators. Chapter rules from YouTube Help, read October 19, 2026.

Open a marker file or drop it here
Premiere Pro marker CSV, DaVinci Resolve marker EDL, or any text list of timestamps. Or paste markers, a timestamp list or a YouTube description

Frame rate Your timeline's rate. Only used when the timecodes have frames.

Timeline starts at Subtracted from every marker timecode.

Video length (optional) Checks the last chapter and chapters past the end. Chapter titles from For marker files that have both.

Your file stays on your device. It is read in this tab; nothing is uploaded or saved.

YouTube chapters

YouTube chapters You can edit the titles here; the checks update as you type.

How each marker was converted

Line	In the file	Video time	Chapter	Title

How to use it

Premiere Pro. Put a sequence marker where each chapter starts and type the chapter title as the marker name. Select the sequence in the Project panel (or click in its Timeline) so its markers show in the Markers panel, choose File > Export > Markers, pick CSV and save. If you use Chapter markers for chapters and Comment markers for notes, the tool can keep only the Chapter markers.
DaVinci Resolve. In the Media Pool, right-click the timeline and choose Timelines > Export > Timeline Markers to EDL. This is a separate export from the normal EDL of the cut. Menu names can move between Resolve versions; the marker EDL itself has lines like |C:ResolveColorBlue |M:Intro |D:1.
Final Cut Pro or any other app. Paste a plain list, one chapter per line: 00:01:23 Title. Timecodes with frames (01:00:41:12 Title) work too; set the frame rate.
Chapters already in a description? Paste the whole description. The tool reads the lines that start with a timestamp and checks them against YouTube's rules.
Check the settings. Pick your timeline's frame rate and start timecode, and type the video length so the last chapter is checked too. Press a fix button if a rule fails.
Copy the chapters and paste them into the description in YouTube Studio: Content, click the video, add the list to the Description and click Save, the steps in YouTube Help.

Why the frame rate changes the chapter times

Timecode counts frames, not seconds. At 24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 fps the two match. At 23.976, and at 29.97 or 59.94 without drop-frame, each timecode second holds a little more than one real second, so the gap grows by 3.6 seconds every hour. Drop-frame timecode skips frame numbers to stay with the clock, so it barely drifts. These are the values the tool calculates for two markers on a timeline that starts at 00:00:00:00:

Timeline frame rate	Marker at 00:30:00:00	Marker at 01:00:00:00
24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 fps	30:00.00 in the video, chapter 30:00	1:00:00.00 in the video, chapter 01:00:00
23.976 fps	30:01.80 in the video, chapter 30:01	1:00:03.60 in the video, chapter 01:00:03
29.97 fps (non-drop)	30:01.80 in the video, chapter 30:01	1:00:03.60 in the video, chapter 01:00:03
29.97 fps drop-frame	30:00.00 in the video, chapter 30:00	1:00:00.00 in the video, chapter 01:00:00
59.94 fps (non-drop)	30:01.80 in the video, chapter 30:01	1:00:03.60 in the video, chapter 01:00:03

Video time is rounded down to the whole second for the chapter, so a chapter starts at, or just before, the frame you marked. For a timeline that starts at 01:00:00:00, the tool subtracts that hour first.

From the edit: markers that become good chapters

The advice I'd give any editor: put the marker on the first frame of the new segment, not on the line where the narrator announces it, and name it with the words you want viewers to read. Then the chapter list is ready when the edit is, instead of one more pass through a 40 minute timeline at the end.

The mistakes that break a chapter list are usually small: a forgotten 00:00, two markers a few seconds apart from a fix in the timeline, or chapter titles still called Marker 7. Each of those can stop YouTube from showing the chapters at all, which is why the checks run on every list the tool makes. For long videos, also look at the frame rate: on a 29.97 timeline without drop-frame, a chapter near the one hour mark lands about 3.6 seconds late if you copy the timecode as it is.

FAQ

How do I export markers from Premiere Pro for YouTube chapters?

Select the sequence in the Project panel or click in its Timeline so its markers show in the Markers panel, choose File > Export > Markers, pick CSV and save. Open that file here. Adobe lists a bug in Premiere 25.6.1 and 25.6.2 that wrote the CSV with tabs instead of commas (fixed in 26.2), and users report UTF-16 text from older versions. The tool reads all of these.

How do I export timeline markers from DaVinci Resolve?

In the Media Pool, right-click the timeline and choose Timelines > Export > Timeline Markers to EDL. Each marker becomes a one-frame event with its color, name and duration in frames (the |C:, |M: and |D: fields). Open the .edl here: the marker name becomes the chapter title, or the notes, when the EDL has them, if the name is still the default Marker 1, Marker 2 and so on.

What are YouTube's rules for chapters?

YouTube Help lists three: the first timestamp must be 00:00, the video needs at least three timestamps in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. The list goes in the video description. Chapters are not available on channels with active strikes or on videos that may be inappropriate for some viewers.

Why are my chapters a few seconds off?

Usually the frame rate. Timecode counts frames, so at 23.976, or at 29.97 and 59.94 without drop-frame, one hour of timecode lasts 3.6 seconds longer in real time: a marker at 01:00:00:00 on a 29.97 non-drop timeline that starts at zero is at 1:00:03.6 in the exported video. Pick your timeline's frame rate and the tool converts it. The other common cause is a timeline that starts at 01:00:00:00; the tool subtracts that start.

Why don't my chapters show up on YouTube?

First check the three rules: a missing 00:00, one chapter under 10 seconds or only two timestamps is enough for YouTube to ignore the list. YouTube Help also says that if you don't have access to chapters yet, you apply for access to advanced features, and that chapters are not available on channels with active strikes. Chapters you add in the description replace automatic chapters.

Is my marker file uploaded?

No. The file is read inside your browser and the chapters are built on your device. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is saved.

Sources

YouTube Help, Video chapters: first timestamp 00:00, at least three timestamps in ascending order, chapters at least 10 seconds, the steps to add them in YouTube Studio, the strikes note and that manual chapters override automatic ones. Read October 19, 2026.
YouTube Help, Edit video settings: video descriptions have a limit of 5,000 characters. Read October 19, 2026.
YouTube Help, Spreadsheet formatting guidelines: angled brackets (< or >) are not allowed in video titles or descriptions, so the tool removes them from chapter titles. Read October 19, 2026.
Adobe, Known and fixed issues in Premiere: marker exports to comma-separated CSV came out tab-delimited in 25.6.1 and 25.6.2, fixed in 26.2. Read October 19, 2026.
Adobe, Premiere Pro feature summary, archived copy on the Internet Archive: Select File > Export > Markers, then choose the file type (CSV or HTML); it exports the markers loaded in the Markers panel. Read October 19, 2026.
Adobe, Overview of markers: marker types Comment, Chapter, Segmentation, Web Link and Flash Cue Point. Read October 19, 2026.
Adobe Community, encoding of the marker CSV: a user reports UTF-16 LE with BOM from 24.6.5 and UTF-8 with BOM from 25.6.2. Read October 19, 2026.
Blackmagic Design Forum, Exporting Marker list with timecode: right-click the timeline in the Media Pool, Timelines > Export > Timeline Markers to EDL. Read October 19, 2026.
Blackmagic Design Forum, EDL file format?: a Blackmagic support engineer explains the marker lines, C: for color, M: for the name and D: for the duration in frames. Read October 19, 2026.
OpenTimelineIO, CMX 3600 EDL adapter: the * LOC: locator line (timecode, color, name) that the tool also reads. The drop-frame conversion was checked against OpenTimelineIO's timecode functions. Read October 19, 2026.

Who made this

I'm Kevin Tabares. I've edited long-form YouTube videos since 2015 (1,277 videos and 152.2M+ views tracked on YT Jobs), mostly Roblox and Minecraft gaming, plus narrated documentaries like The Spy Show. Chapters are one of the last things a long video needs before it goes out, so I built the step that turns timeline markers into the list YouTube accepts. If you want an editor for your channel, get in touch.

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