YouTube Shorts Size: Resolution, Ratio and the Parts of the Frame to Keep Clear

For YouTube Shorts size, 1080 × 1920 pixels at 9:16 is a practical vertical export setting. Resolution alone does not determine how the result looks in the app: the player places buttons and descriptions over the picture. Check important text, captions and faces in the actual Shorts preview before repeating the layout across a batch.

The YouTube Shorts size to export

Export vertical video at 1080 × 1920 pixels, which is a 9:16 aspect ratio. It matches the common vertical format, though phones with other screen ratios may display it differently. Smaller files such as 720 × 1280 have the same shape and will play, but look softer on large phones, so use 1080 × 1920 whenever your source allows it.

A square video can qualify as a Short too. YouTube currently categorizes square or vertical videos up to three minutes as Shorts for standard channels when uploaded on or after 15 October 2024; older uploads may be treated differently. Check the current YouTube Shorts rules if the upload date or channel type affects your video. Landscape 16:9 video is a poor fit for the Shorts feed, so if your source is landscape, reframe it to vertical rather than uploading it as it is.

Shorts can now run up to three minutes, but length is not the same as a good length. Choose a length that preserves the explanation. A short answer may fit under a minute, while a demonstration may need longer; the platform limit is not a target length.

Keep the edges clear

The Shorts player lays its interface on top of your video. The right side carries the like, comment, share and remix buttons. The bottom holds the channel name, the description and the subscribe button. A strip at the top is covered by the search and menu icons.

So treat roughly the middle of the frame as the safe area. Keep captions, faces and on-screen text inside it, lift captions into the lower third rather than the bottom edge, and do not put your key line of text on the right where the buttons sit. A quick check is to pause your clip on a phone in the actual app before you publish more of them in the same style.

Turning landscape footage into a Short

Most source material, from webinars to podcasts to screen recordings, is 16:9. The simple conversion scales the frame up until it fills 9:16 and crops the sides, which works when the speaker sits near the centre of the shot. When two people sit at opposite edges of a wide shot, one of them will be cropped out, and a different source shot, a landscape version or manual reframing in another editor may be needed. Selecting the moment when one guest speaks does not move that guest into the centre of the frame.

Exporting the right size from ToClips

In ToClips you pick the output ratios before rendering, and the 9:16 version comes out at 1080 × 1920. You can render the same clips at 4:5 or 1:1 for feeds and 16:9 for regular uploads in the same batch, so one long video becomes a Shorts version and a feed version without exporting twice. The Shorts platform preset sets sensible defaults for the vertical version.

What this can't do yet

ToClips uses scaling and centre cropping without speaker tracking, and does not upload to YouTube. Reframe a wide two-person shot in another editor if needed. Batch mode caps at 200 clips per task, with five fixed aspect ratios: 9:16, 3:4, 1:1, 16:9 and 4:5. YouTube’s platform rules and interface layout are separate from the rendering presets.