How do you cross-post a TikTok to YouTube Shorts?

Step by step

1. Save the video from TikTok. Open it, tap Share, then Save video, or save a draft with More, then Save to device. TikTok says a draft is saved without a watermark by default (TikTok Help). How to post a TikTok on Instagram has the TikTok side in full.
2. Upload it in YouTube Studio. From YouTube’s upload page, read on 10 October 2026: sign in to Studio, click Create, then Upload videos, and choose a file that is up to 3 minutes long with a square or vertical shape.
3. Finish each draft. You can pick up to 15 files at a time, but each needs Edit draft to complete its details before it can be published.

A video that is longer than three minutes, or horizontal, uploads as an ordinary video instead. YouTube Shorts length has the dates and the sizes.

What YouTube asks about music and copyright

YouTube’s upload page tells you to make sure any copyright-protected material in a video made elsewhere is approved for use on YouTube; otherwise you may get a Content ID claim, and a valid takedown notice can lead to removal and a copyright strike.

The Shorts page adds a rule that matters for a TikTok built on a trending sound: a Short over one minute with an active copyright claim of any type, including a manual claim, is blocked globally on YouTube (YouTube Help). Neither page says whether a sound from TikTok’s library is cleared on YouTube. Don’t assume it is.

Is re-uploading your own TikTok “reused content”?

Reused content is a monetization rule, not an upload rule. YouTube’s Shorts monetization page lists reuploading other creators’ content from YouTube or other platforms as non-original (YouTube Help). YouTube’s own FAQ defines reused content as content that is not clearly your own original creation, and lists short videos compiled from other social media and content copied from another source without substantive changes among the examples (TeamYouTube).

Your own TikTok is your own creation. Whether YouTube treats an unchanged re-upload of it as reused, we haven’t verified, and the pages we read don’t say. If monetization matters to the channel, read the FAQ above first.

A watermark on the file

YouTube’s help pages we read say nothing about another app’s watermark. Instagram’s do say it shows Reels with watermarks less, and that a Reel downloaded from Instagram includes an Instagram watermark, your username and audio attribution (Instagram Help). A TikTok saved from a draft has no watermark by default. A Reel downloaded from Instagram does, so for a Reel going to Shorts use the file you edited, not the downloaded copy.

Shorts to TikTok, the other way

YouTube lets you download your own videos from Studio: Content, choose the video, Menu, Download. You can’t download other people’s videos. The file is an MP4 in 720p or 360p, depending on the video, and one video can be downloaded up to five times a day (YouTube Help). The page doesn’t say whether Shorts are included. How long a TikTok can be lists TikTok’s own limits.

One post to both with Mellow Hub

Hub sends one video to YouTube and TikTok in the same post, each with its own caption. For YouTube it needs a title of up to 100 characters; the caption becomes the description, up to 5,000. YouTube itself decides whether a square or vertical video of three minutes or less is a Short: Hub has no separate Shorts switch. TikTok takes up to 2,200 characters, and Hub can send the video to your TikTok inbox as a draft.

Hub publishes the file you give it; it doesn’t pull a video out of TikTok.

1. Create a Hub account.
2. Connect your accounts in Channels. Each network’s own sign-in screen opens, so Hub never sees a password. Bluesky is the exception: Hub connects it with your handle and an app password, which you can revoke in Bluesky’s settings.
3. Write the post in Compose, choose the channels and add the media. Where one network’s limit is shorter, give that network its own caption. The composer can shorten it for you.
4. Hub checks every network’s rules before anything is sent: caption length, media count and type, a required title or board. It lists every problem at once, naming the network.
5. Publish now or pick a time. Each network succeeds or fails on its own and returns its own link.

Hub is paid: plans start at $19 a month (Solo), after a 7-day trial with a card on file that costs nothing if you cancel before it ends, and a monthly plan's first month is 20% off. Publishing is unlimited on every plan, under a fair-use ceiling that stops automated floods (900 publications a month on Solo). One publication is one post on one account, so a post sent to five networks counts as five. There are no automatic overage charges.