Read in your browser: nothing is uploaded and there is no length limit. The titles are written by AI from short excerpts of each chapter.
Where to get YouTube’s transcript
- On the video’s page: open the description (“…more”), press Show transcript, select all of it and copy. Paste it here, times and all.
- In YouTube Studio (your own videos): Content → the video → Subtitles → the language → ⋮ → Download, as .srt or .vtt. Open the file here.
- Not on YouTube yet? Choose Upload the recording and Slice transcribes it first.
How do I add chapters to a sermon on YouTube?
Open the sermon on YouTube, open the description (…more), press Show transcript and copy all of it, then paste it here. Slice finds where the sermon moves on, names each chapter for what is preached in it, and puts the passage read in that part in the title, like “Jesus laid down his life for his friends (John 15:14)”. Music in a livestream becomes its own Worship chapter, so people can skip to the preaching. It checks YouTube’s rules (the first chapter at 00:00, at least three, each at least 10 seconds), lets you edit every title and time, and gives you the lines to paste into the video’s description. Free, with no account, for a service of any length. A sermon that is not on YouTube can be uploaded and transcribed first (free once a day, up to 90 minutes).
A real run: a 40-minute sermon on YouTube
Tim Keller’s “Let the Psalms Teach You to Pray” (39:46), from its transcript, on 5 October 2026. Balanced, nothing edited by hand. The titles are Slice’s, written by AI from what is said in each chapter, with the passage read there; the drafts are what the page shows when the AI is not available. The titles cost $0.0047.
| Time | Slice’s title | Draft, without AI |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | The Psalms teach you how to pray (Psalm 25:14) | Aristotle (Psalm 25:14) |
| 06:48 | God is a friendship from all eternity | Triune God |
| 10:05 | Jesus laid down his life for his friends (John 15:14) | Become (John 15) |
| 16:47 | Obedience and faith alone are necessary for friendship (Psalm 1) | Boss (Psalm 1) |
| 19:29 | Delight and meditate on God's law (Psalm 1) | Law (Psalm 1) |
| 25:07 | God's word is active power in your life (Psalm 29) | Eugene Peterson (Psalm 29) |
| 28:53 | Seeking God's face means real experience of his presence (Psalm 27) | Seeking God (Psalm 27) |
| 30:57 | Taste and sense that the Lord is good (Psalm 63) | Hands (Psalm 63) |
| 36:20 | Friend, where are you | Monster |
For comparison, the only example output we found on another generator’s page reads 00:00 Introduction · 03:45 Getting Started · 08:22 Advanced Techniques · 10:13 Conclusion (source). Titles like those tell a viewer nothing, so this tool throws them away.
About this example. The sermon is Tim Keller’s “Let the Psalms Teach You to Pray”, published by The Gospel Coalition on YouTube. We use it only to show how the tool works. It is not an endorsement by Tim Keller (1950–2023) or by The Gospel Coalition.
YouTube’s chapter rules
YouTube reads chapters out of the video’s description. Break one rule and it shows none of them, with no error. In YouTube’s own words (YouTube Help):
- “Make sure that the first timestamp you list starts with 00:00.” This tool always starts at 00:00, and that time cannot be moved.
- “Your video should have at least three timestamps listed in ascending order.” Times cannot pass each other here, and fewer than three is flagged.
- “The minimum length for video chapters is 10 seconds.” A chapter under 10 seconds turns red; Fix it joins it to the one before and says so.
- Eligibility. “If the channel has any active strikes, or if the content may be inappropriate to some viewers, the video chapters feature won’t be available.” No tool can fix that one.
Chapters you write replace YouTube’s automatic ones. Two more things the description box itself refuses, also checked here: the characters < and >, and more than 5,000 characters.
How this compares
Read on each tool’s own page on 5 October 2026. Prices and limits change, so check theirs before you rely on them.
| Tool | Input | Free | Sign-up | Editing | YouTube’s rules | Preview |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slice | Paste YouTube’s transcript or captions; or upload the recording | Free. Pasting has no length limit | No | Titles, times (±1 s or typed), split, join, fewer or more chapters | All four, live after every edit, with a fix that says what it changed | Yes: the progress bar and the description list |
| VideoTap | YouTube link | 10 free uses | Yes | Not stated | Explains 00:00 | No |
| Timestamp Maker | YouTube link | 3 AI tries, up to 20 min; then $3.99 for up to 2 h | No | Rename, delete, reorder | Sets 00:00 | The video, in the page |
| ScreenApp | Link or upload | 2 runs of up to 45 min | Yes | Titles, times, merge | Format, three or more | No |
| ChapterGen | Upload only | 2 videos up to 20 min; then $5 for 5 | No | Titles and times | Says it follows them | No |
| SocialCal | Link, SRT/VTT, transcript or a list | Free (a per-IP limit on links) | No | Titles, times, shift all | Six checks, one-click fixes | No |
Chapters for a whole service
A livestream is often ninety minutes of which the sermon is forty. Without chapters, someone who wants the sermon scrubs through the worship set to find it, and most give up. With them, the progress bar shows Worship, the reading, the sermon’s movements and the response, and one tap goes there.
YouTube’s own captions write music as [Music]; those stretches become Worship chapters here, and the preaching is chaptered where the sermon moves on. Choose Balanced or Detailed for a whole service, Fewer for the sermon alone.
The passages, in the titles
When a passage is read or named in a chapter, it goes in that chapter’s title, in brackets at the end: “Taste and sense that the Lord is good (Psalm 63)”. Members search for the passage later, and a small-group leader can find the part where it was preached.
The references are found by plain matching, not AI, so it never invents a verse. It can miss one the captions spelled wrong; the passage shows under each chapter, so you can see what it found.
Before you publish
Read the titles once. They are written by AI from the preacher’s words, and the preacher should recognise them. Take out anything said for the room only (a prayer request, a member’s name) that the AI may have picked up. Want the words as well? Sermon transcription gives you the sermon as text.
How to add chapters to a sermon video
- 1Copy the transcriptOn the sermon’s YouTube page: …more, then Show transcript, then select it all and copy. Or download the .srt from YouTube Studio, Subtitles.
- 2Paste and press Make chaptersFewer suits a sermon with three movements; Balanced or Detailed for a whole service.
- 3Check the passages and namesEach chapter shows the passage read and its first words. Fix any name the captions got wrong.
- 4Paste into the descriptionCopy description, then in YouTube Studio: Content, the video, Details, Description, Save.
Questions
Our livestream is the whole service. Will it find the sermon?
How does it know which passage was read?
Is it free? Do we need an account?
YouTube’s transcript spells the names wrong. Does that matter?
Why do chapters matter for a sermon video?
Can I change the titles?
Related
- Sermon clips for churches — Sunday’s sermon into a week of captioned clips.
- How to turn a sermon into short clips — Step by step, with a real sermon.
- Sermon transcription — The sermon as text, for notes and small groups.
- YouTube chapters generator — The same tool for any video.
More Free Tools
Shorts by Slice
From the team behind these free tools
One video. A week of posts.
Upload an episode and get back the moments worth posting, cut and captioned.
- Reads the whole episode, then picks the excerpts worth posting
- Captions burned in and framed vertical, ready to post
- Your first clip is free, no card