Each row links to the platform's own documentation. Values are quoted as published — not rounded, not paraphrased. Platforms change specs; the linked page always wins over this table.
| Field | Requirement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Aspect ratio (long-form, standard) | "The standard aspect ratio for YouTube on a computer is 16:9." | support.google.com |
| Aspect ratio handling (non-16:9, long-form) | "If your video has a different aspect ratio, the player will automatically change to the ideal size to match your video and the viewer's device." / "For some video and device aspects ratios like 9:16 vertical videos on computer browsers, YouTube may add more padding for optimal viewing. The padding is white by default, and dark gray when Dark theme is turned on." | support.google.com |
| Padding / black bars rule (the classic trip-up) | "For best results, avoid adding padding or black bars directly to your video. Padding interferes with YouTube's ability to change the player dynamically to your video size and the viewer's device." | support.google.com |
| Aspect ratio (Shorts) | "a square or vertical aspect ratio" — YouTube states the requirement qualitatively. No numeric ratio (e.g. 9:16) is published on the Shorts help pages checked. | support.google.com |
| Aspect ratio (Shorts, upload path) | Shorts are "Up to 3 minutes." "With a square or vertical aspect ratio" | support.google.com |
| Recommended resolutions (16:9), exact pixel dimensions | 4320p (8K) 7680x4320; 2160p (4K) 3840x2160; 1440p (2K) 2560x1440; 1080p (HD) 1920x1080; 720p (HD) 1280x720; 480p (SD) 854x480; 360p (SD) 640x360; 240p (SD) 426x240 | support.google.com |
| Max resolution (Shorts) | "You can upload Short videos with a maximum resolution of 1080p." | support.google.com |
| Min resolution (Shorts) | NOT PUBLISHED on the first-party Shorts pages checked (10059070, 12779649, 15424877). Left blank deliberately.⚠ could not confirm on the official page | support.google.com |
| Max duration (long-form, verified account) | "The maximum file size you can upload is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less." Also: "We've changed the limits on uploads in the past, so you may see older videos that are longer than 12 hours." | support.google.com |
| Max duration (long-form, unverified account) | "By default, you can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long." Verified accounts can upload longer than 15 minutes. | support.google.com |
| Max file size (all uploads) | "The maximum file size you can upload is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less." | support.google.com |
| Max duration (Shorts) | "up to 3 minutes long" / "up to three minutes in length" | support.google.com |
| Max file size (Shorts) | NOT PUBLISHED as a Shorts-specific limit on the pages checked; the general 256 GB / 12 hours upload limit is the only published file-size ceiling.⚠ could not confirm on the official page | support.google.com |
| Accepted containers / file formats | .MOV, .MPEG-1, .MPEG-2, .MPEG4, .MP4, .MPG, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, WebM, DNxHR, ProRes, CineForm, HEVC (H.265). "Audio files, like MP3, WAV, or PCM files, can't be uploaded to create a YouTube video." | support.google.com |
| Recommended container | "MP4" with "No Edit Lists" and "moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)" | support.google.com |
| Recommended video codec | "H.264", "Progressive scan (no interlacing)", "High Profile", "2 consecutive B frames", "Closed GOP", "CABAC", "Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0" | support.google.com |
| Recommended audio codec | "AAC-LC or Opus or Eclipsa Audio"; "Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1"; "Sample rate: 48kHz" | support.google.com |
| Audio bitrate (recommended) | Mono: 128 kbps; Stereo: 384 kbps; 5.1: 512 kbps | support.google.com |
| Frame rate | "Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded." Common frame rates: "24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60 frames per second". (Interlaced content should be deinterlaced before upload.) | support.google.com |
| Recommended video bitrate — SDR uploads | 8K: 80–160 Mbps (24/25/30fps), 120–240 Mbps (48/50/60fps); 2160p (4K): 35–45 / 53–68 Mbps; 1440p (2K): 16 / 24 Mbps; 1080p: 8 / 12 Mbps; 720p: 5 / 7.5 Mbps; 480p: 2.5 / 4 Mbps; 360p: 1 / 1.5 Mbps | support.google.com |
| Color space (SDR) | "BT.709 as the standard color space" | support.google.com |
| HDR — resolution / frame rate | Resolutions: "720p, 1080p, 1440p, 2160p" with guidance to "use UHD rather than DCI widths". Frame rates: "23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 48, 50, 59.94, 60" | support.google.com |
| HDR — bit depth, color, transfer, codecs, containers | Bit depth "10 bits or 12 bits"; primaries "Rec. 2020"; matrix "Rec. 2020 non-constant luminance"; transfer "PQ or HLG (Rec. 2100)"; codecs "VP9 Profile 2, AV1, HEVC/H.265"; containers "MOV/QuickTime, MP4, MKV". "PQ signaling should also contain information about the display it was mastered on (SMPTE ST 2086 mastering metadata)" | support.google.com |
| Custom thumbnail — resolution | "Have a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels (with minimum width of 640 pixels)." | support.google.com |
| Custom thumbnail — aspect ratio | "Try to use a 16:9 aspect ratio as it's the most used in YouTube players and previews." | support.google.com |
| Custom thumbnail — file formats | "Be uploaded in image formats such as JPG, GIF, or PNG." | support.google.com |
| Custom thumbnail — max file size (device-dependent) | "Remain under MB limits. Limits depend on the device you're using to upload your thumbnail: Mobile: 2 MB for video thumbnails or 10 MB for podcasts. Desktop: 50MB for both video thumbnails and podcast thumbnails." | support.google.com |
| Podcast playlist thumbnail — aspect ratio exception | "For podcast playlists, upload a thumbnail with an aspect ratio of 1:1 instead of 16:9." | support.google.com |
| Shorts 3-minute limit — effective dates | Applies to videos uploaded on or after October 15, 2024 for standard channels; Official Artist Channels stated as December 8, 2025. Videos uploaded before the applicable date "will remain the same, as a long-form video on YouTube." | support.google.com |
| Shorts safe zone / UI-overlap area | NO first-party pixel or percentage safe-zone spec found on support.google.com. Not filled in from third-party sources.⚠ could not confirm on the official page | support.google.com |
SOURCING: every row above comes from a page I actually fetched on support.google.com. Rows marked "unverified" are gaps where YouTube does not publish a number — I left them empty rather than filling them from an SEO blog. WHAT I COULD NOT GET: 1. Shorts safe zone / UI-overlap dimensions. There is no first-party YouTube Help page publishing safe-zone pixels or percentages for Shorts (unlike Meta, which does publish Reels safe areas). Every "Shorts safe zone" number in circulation traces to third-party blogs or community measurement, not to Google. Marked unverified, left unfilled. 2. Shorts-specific max file size and min resolution — not stated on 10059070, 12779649, or 15424877. Only the max resolution (1080p) is published. 3. My WebSearch budget for this session was exhausted (200/200) partway through, so I could not do broad discovery for additional first-party pages. I worked around it by pulling the outbound link list off the Shorts hub page, which is how I found the two canonical Shorts articles (15424877, 12779649). There may be further first-party pages I did not reach. NO CONTRADICTIONS between official pages, but two things look like conflicts and are not: - 1722171 (encoding settings) gives bitrates and codecs but NO pixel dimensions; 6375112 gives the pixel-dimension table. They are complementary, not disagreeing. Do not cite 1722171 for resolutions. - The thumbnail size limit is device-dependent on a single page: 2 MB mobile vs 50MB desktop. The near-universally cited "YouTube thumbnails max 2MB" is only the mobile limit and is now wrong as a general statement. Published verbatim as "50MB" (no space) and "2 MB" (with space). CHANGES WORTH FLAGGING: - Shorts 3-minute limit: effective Oct 15, 2024 for standard channels, and Dec 8, 2025 for Official Artist Channels — the OAC date is inside the last ~12 months, so OAC catalogs uploaded before it still behave as long-form. - "Eclipsa Audio" now appears in the recommended audio codec list on 1722171 alongside AAC-LC and Opus. This is a recent addition; older copies of this spec list only AAC-LC. - The thumbnail desktop limit of 50MB is a substantial recent increase over the long-standing 2MB. I confirmed it on both the Desktop and Android platform variants of 72431, so it is not a rendering artifact. PRECISION CAVEAT: WebFetch summarizes pages through a secondary model. Values in quotation marks are reported as verbatim, but for anything you are going to hard-code into an encoder preset or a validation gate, re-read 1722171 and 6375112 directly — particularly the SDR/HDR bitrate tables, where I received the SDR table in full but only a description of the HDR table's shape rather than its cell values. I did not transcribe HDR bitrate numbers for that reason. SURFACE MAPPING (practical): long-form = any aspect ratio accepted, 16:9 is the norm, do not bake in padding. Shorts = square or vertical only, ≤3 min, ≤1080p. Thumbnails = 16:9 at 3840x2160, except podcast playlists which are 1:1.
Platforms can change them at any time. Every row here links to the source, so if something looks off, the linked page wins — and tell us. Checked: 2026-07-25.
Aspect ratio and duration are chosen before generating, and templates come preset to common platform ratios. Delivery parameters like codec, container and file size depend on what you do after export; this page lists the requirements so you can check them.
Yes. The template library includes a cross-platform adaptation that recomposes one key visual into 1:1 / 9:16 / 16:9 rather than cropping it.