Chapters exist as clickable links in the play bar and allow viewers to navigate to key points of your video. They can help increase engagement and accessibility while contributing to SEO benefits as well.
Note
This article discusses chapters for videos. To learn how to add chapters to audio files, refer to our audio player customization guide.
Add chapters to your video
To add chapters to your video, click "Customize" on a media page and select the "Chapters" tab. Once open, move the toggle to "On" to enable chapters, or click "Add chapter."
The first chapter will be called "New Chapter." Click into the text field to edit the chapter's title. Click into the timestamp field to adjust the timing. Alternatively, scrub to the desired time using the timeline at the bottom of the page. Click "Add chapter" to add a new chapter.
If your video is less than a minute long, chapter timestamps will be formatted as seconds.milliseconds. For videos longer than one minute, timestamps will be formatted as minutes:seconds.milliseconds. Videos longer than an hour will be formatted as hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds.
Once you've configured your chapters, click "Save" at the top right of the page to save your changes.
Tip
There is no hard character limit for chapter names, but longer titles may appear cut off in the player.
Chapters appear as clickable points on the play bar. Hovering over each chapter marker in the play bar allows you to see the name of the chapter. You can also open up the chapter menu to see the full list of chapters.
AI Chapters
The AI-powered chapter generator carefully reviews and analyzes your video’s transcript to create chapters for topic changes. To generate new AI chapters, click "Generate chapters." Once created, you can edit the title and timing of the chapters as needed.
Tip
Any users with Can Manage or custom Upload permissions can generate AI chapters.
Note
Your media must have a transcript before creating AI chapters. Generating new AI chapters will replace all existing chapters. Chapters cannot exist for multiple languages at once.
Tip
Just created your Wistia account? Automatic captions, transcripts, and chapters are enabled by default. You can disable these on your Account Settings page by opening up your account dropdown menu and selecting "Settings." Then, select "Account" from the lefthand side bar, and scroll down to the Automatic captions, transcripts, and chapters section. Only the Account Owner can update this setting.
Remove chapters
To remove a chapter, click the "X" next to any chapter title. This will remove just that chapter and will not delete any portion of your video.
Tip
If you're looking to trim your video or remove footage, you'll want to use the Editor.
If you've added several chapters and would like to start from scratch, you can click the "X" next to each one or click "Discard" at the top of the page to fully start over.
Note
The Discard button removes any unsaved changes, so if you've updated other customizations and haven't saved those yet, this button will also reset those. Be sure to save your other changes first, or you can use the Discard option to reset all of your customizations.
Still working on setting up your chapters but not ready to have them be public yet? You can toggle chapters to be off, while still keeping the ones you've added, so you can come back later and finish them up when you're ready! Be sure to click "Save" along the way.
Chapters FAQ
Can I link to chapters outside the Wistia player?
Chapter markers are clickable only inside the Wistia player. To build a clickable chapter list on your own webpage, use the Player API's Chapters plugin.
What happens to chapters when you replace or edit a video?
Chapters are timestamp-based. Replacing a video keeps your chapters, but if the new file has a different length or cuts, the markers may land in the wrong spots. As a result, you'll want to be sure to double-check them and adjust the timing or recreate them if needed. Editing a video can also shift or drop chapters depending on how much footage you trim and where, so re-check them after any edit.
Will my chapters translate based on a viewer's caption preferences?
A video can have only one set of chapters, and it isn't tied to caption language. Chapter titles won't translate when a viewer switches caption languages.