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About this tool
Turn rough episode notes into formatted show notes with normalised timestamps, a links list and YouTube chapter validation.
Podcast Show Notes Formatter turns the rough lines you type during an edit into publishable show notes: timestamps are parsed from m:ss or h:mm:ss, sorted and re-rendered consistently, URLs are lifted into a labelled links list, and the remaining bullets become the episode summary section. The chapter list is checked against YouTube's published requirements — the first timestamp must be 00:00, there must be at least three, and each chapter must run for at least 10 seconds — and the finished text is measured against the 4,000-character Apple Podcasts and Spotify limits and the 5,000-character YouTube limit. Output is available as Markdown, plain text, a YouTube description and Podcasting 2.0 chapters JSON.
Open Podcast Show Notes Formatter on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Paste or type the text you're working with.
Choose how it should be transformed or analyzed.
Copy the finished text into your document or post.
Flags the exact reason YouTube would refuse to build chapters from your description.
Markdown, plain text, a YouTube description and chapters JSON from the same notes.
Mixed m:ss and h:mm:ss input is parsed, sorted and re-rendered in one consistent format.
Put timestamps in the video description with the first one at 00:00, list at least three in ascending order, and make every chapter at least 10 seconds long. YouTube then converts them into clickable chapters automatically — if any of those three conditions fails, it silently leaves them as plain text.
Apple Podcasts and Spotify both cap an episode description at 4,000 characters, and a YouTube video description at 5,000. Front-load the useful text: most apps only show the first two or three lines before a "more" link.
An episode summary, timestamped chapters, guest names with where to find them, and every link or resource mentioned. Chapters and links are what listeners actually come back to the page for, and they give search engines something concrete to index.
It is a JSON file, referenced from the RSS feed, holding a version string and an array of chapter objects each with a startTime in seconds and a title. Supporting apps use it to draw a chapter list without the host having to duplicate timestamps in the description.