YouTube Shorts Size, Dimensions and Aspect Ratio (2026)

The right size for a YouTube Short is 1080 × 1920 pixels, a 9:16 aspect ratio. That is a vertical frame that fills a phone screen. Square 1:1 video also qualifies as a Short, and horizontal 16:9 video never does.

Below are the full export settings, the parts of the frame that YouTube's interface covers, and what to do when your source video is horizontal.

YouTube Shorts specs at a glance

Setting	Recommended
Resolution	1080 × 1920 px
Aspect ratio	9:16 (vertical). 1:1 (square) also accepted.
Minimum practical resolution	720 × 1280 px
Maximum length	3 minutes
Frame rate	Same as the source: 24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 fps
File format	MP4 (H.264 video, AAC audio)
Audio	Stereo, 48 kHz

YouTube decides whether an upload is a Short from its shape and length alone. A vertical or square video of up to 3 minutes becomes a Short. You do not need the #Shorts hashtag; our YouTube Shorts tags guide explains what tags and hashtags actually do. The length rules are covered in how long YouTube Shorts can be.

Aspect ratios compared: 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9

Aspect ratio	Pixel size	Counts as a Short?	How it looks in the Shorts feed
9:16	1080 × 1920	Yes	Fills the whole screen
4:5	1080 × 1350	Yes	Bands above and below
1:1	1080 × 1080	Yes	Large bands above and below; picture uses about half the screen
16:9	1920 × 1080	No	Published as a regular video

Use 9:16 unless you have a reason not to. In a feed where every other video fills the screen, a square video looks small, and the empty space gives viewers nothing to look at.

Shorts can now carry a custom thumbnail as well, in the same 9:16 shape. See how to add a thumbnail to YouTube Shorts, and the YouTube thumbnail size guide for regular videos. For horizontal uploads, the YouTube video size guide covers 1080p, 4K and export settings.

YouTube Shorts safe zone

YouTube draws its interface on top of your video. Anything important under those elements is hidden, and captions are the usual casualty.

YouTube does not publish exact pixel values, and the overlay shifts between devices and app versions. These margins on a 1080 × 1920 frame keep text and faces clear on current phones:

Edge	Keep clear	What sits there
Top	About 290 px (15%)	Search, camera and menu icons, the phone's status bar
Bottom	About 380 px (20%)	Channel name, Subscribe button, title, audio label, progress bar
Right	About 190 px (18%)	Like, dislike, comment, share and remix buttons
Left	About 60 px (5%)	Nothing, but text against the edge is hard to read

That leaves a safe area of roughly 830 × 1250 px, sitting slightly left of center. Put captions, on-screen text and the speaker's face inside it. Before you publish a batch, upload one Short as unlisted and check it on your own phone.

How to turn a horizontal video into a Short

Most long videos are 16:9. There are three ways to make them vertical, and they are not equally good.

1. Crop to the subject

Cut a 9:16 window out of the horizontal frame and keep the speaker inside it. This fills the screen and looks native. A 1920 × 1080 source gives you a 608 × 1080 crop, so record in 4K when you can: a 3840 × 2160 source yields a true 1215 × 2160 vertical crop.

With two or more people on screen, a fixed crop will cut someone out. The window has to follow whoever is talking. Doing that by hand means keyframing every speaker change.

2. Stack or split the frame

For interviews and gameplay, place two crops one above the other: speaker on top and guest below, or face cam on top and screen below. Each half is roughly square, so both stay readable.

3. Fit with a blurred background

Shrink the whole horizontal video to the width of the vertical frame and fill the rest with a blurred copy. Nothing is cut off, but the picture uses about a third of the screen. Keep this for footage where the full width matters, such as slides or wide gameplay.

The first option is the one worth automating. Short.now reframes horizontal video to 9:16 and tracks the active speaker, so the crop moves when the conversation does. It also places captions inside the safe zone. The full workflow is in how to make YouTube Shorts from long videos.

One size for Shorts, Reels and TikTok

Platform	Size	Aspect ratio	Maximum length
YouTube Shorts	1080 × 1920	9:16	3 minutes
Instagram Reels	1080 × 1920	9:16	3 minutes
TikTok	1080 × 1920	9:16	10 minutes in the app

One 1080 × 1920 file works on all three. The safe zones differ a little: Reels and TikTok both cover more of the bottom of the frame with the caption text. If you post the same clip everywhere, keep captions near the vertical center and they will be clear on every platform. Full specs for the other two: Instagram Reels size and safe zone and TikTok video size and length.

Common sizing mistakes

• Uploading 16:9 with black bars baked in. A horizontal picture inside a vertical file is a Short, but a tiny one. Crop or stack it.
• Captions on the bottom edge. They end up under the title and channel name. Move them up.
• Upscaling a low-resolution crop. A 608 × 1080 crop stretched to 1080 × 1920 looks soft. Start from the highest-resolution source you have.
• Exporting 1920 × 1080 by habit. Check the sequence settings before you export. Width and height swapped is the most common reason a clip does not land in the Shorts feed.