Does the generator listen to my audio to find the timestamps?

No. Nothing is uploaded or decoded. The clock starts at the audio start time you enter and advances by either a fixed number of seconds per line or an estimate from the words in each line. That is why it returns instantly and works on a transcript alone, and also why the result is an estimate you should spot-check.

What does a timestamp actually look like?

Each output line is bracketed and zero-padded, always in hours, minutes and seconds: [0:00:30] for the first entry at thirty seconds, and [1:12:05] once the running total passes an hour. A leading zero hour is kept so every line lines up when the notes are pasted into a description.

Which timing mode should I use?

Use fixed seconds per line when you know roughly how long each segment runs and want predictable, even spacing, which suits a scripted interview with regular blocks. Use words per minute when the transcript lines differ a lot in length, since counting words approximates natural speech pacing better than a flat interval does.

Why did my first timestamp not start at zero?

Because the audio start time is set to something other than zero. That field exists for clips that begin partway into an episode, so a transcript for a ten-minute segment should start around 600 seconds. Clear it back to 0 if the transcript covers the episode from the opening second.

How accurate are the estimates?

Close enough for a first draft, not exact. Fixed mode drifts whenever entries are unevenly paced, and words-per-minute mode drifts whenever the actual speaking rate differs from the figure you typed. Spot-check a couple of middle timestamps against the episode and adjust the rate until the drift shrinks to a few seconds.

Show Notes Timestamp Generator

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Show Notes Timestamp Generator turns a plain-text transcript into timestamped lines you can paste straight into podcast show notes, prefixing every entry with a running time. The clock is estimated from a timing rate you choose rather than measured from the audio.

What is Show Notes Timestamp Generator?

Paste a transcript into the textarea, one paragraph or line per entry, and the tool prefixes every line with a bracketed hour, minute and second stamp so that a line reading Welcome to the show comes out as [0:00:30] Welcome to the show, ready for your show notes. Nothing is analysed and no audio is loaded: the clock is built from a start offset plus a duration you set for each entry, which makes it instant and predictable but means it assumes the pacing is roughly even from start to finish.

Two timing modes decide how the clock advances, and a summary line above the output reports the entry count and the final timestamp so the estimate can be sanity-checked at a glance:

Fixed seconds per line mode, defaulting to 30 seconds and clamped to a minimum of 0.5 seconds per entry.
Words per minute mode, defaulting to 150 wpm and clamped to a minimum of 60.
An audio start time in seconds, for transcripts that begin partway through an episode.
Bracketed h:mm:ss timestamps from the shared time formatter, so hours appear automatically once a file passes the one-hour mark.
A summary showing how many lines were numbered and the last timestamp generated.
A click-to-select output textarea, so one click selects the whole block for copying.

The timing maths is deliberately simple and pure. In fixed mode every entry advances the clock by the seconds-per-line value, floored at half a second so a mistyped zero cannot stack dozens of entries on the same second. In words-per-minute mode the tool counts the whitespace-separated words in each line, divides that by the words-per-minute figure to get a fraction of a minute, and adds the result to the running total. Both modes push the accumulated seconds through the same formatter used elsewhere in the domain, which floors to whole seconds and switches from m:ss to h:mm:ss at the hour boundary. Blank lines and lines that are only whitespace are dropped before numbering, so a stray empty paragraph cannot shift every timestamp that follows it.

What the tool genuinely cannot do:

It never listens to the audio, so every timestamp is an estimate from your rate rather than a measured position.
Fixed-rate mode assumes each entry takes exactly the same time, which drifts badly on episodes with variable pacing.
Words-per-minute mode is only as accurate as the value you type, and real reading speed changes with guests, ads and music beds.
Entries must be one per line; a pasted multi-paragraph blob becomes a single very long timestamped line.
It produces text only and writes no chapter markers or metadata into any file.
There is no round-trip, so you cannot import existing timestamps and correct them in place.

Use fixed-rate mode when you have a rough plan and want usable numbers in seconds, and switch to words-per-minute when the transcript came from a speech-to-text pass where line lengths vary wildly. Treat the result as a first draft either way: paste it out, spot-check two or three points against the real episode, and nudge the rate if the drift is consistent rather than random. When the timestamps have to be exact to the second, build the chapter markers alongside the finished file instead of estimating them from text.

How to use Show Notes Timestamp Generator

Paste your transcript into the large textarea, keeping one paragraph or line per entry you want timestamped.
Set the audio start time in seconds if the transcript begins partway through the episode, then choose a timing mode.
Enter seconds per line for fixed mode, or a words-per-minute figure for wpm mode; the label switches with the mode.
Check the summary line for the entry count and final timestamp, then click the output box to select the whole block and copy it.

When to use Show Notes Timestamp Generator vs related tools

Show Notes Timestamp Generator is the text-side timing tool: it works from a transcript you already have, with no audio involved. Podcast Chapter Marker Tool solves the opposite problem, writing real chapter markers into an MP3 so players show skip points inside your show notes player. Once the episode metadata is settled, ID3 Tag Editor fixes the title, artist and album fields on the finished file, and Podcast Recorder is where the raw take comes from in the first place. Together they cover the timeline from recording to published notes.

Privacy & Security

This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.