How long can a YouTube Short be?

Short answer

Up to 3 minutes. Since 15 October 2024 YouTube counts a square or vertical video of up to three minutes as a Short; before that the limit was one minute. There is a catch: a Short longer than one minute with an active Content ID claim is blocked everywhere, so a longer Short needs music and footage you own or have cleared. A video longer than three minutes, or a horizontal one, is an ordinary YouTube video.

Written by the Mellow team · Updated October 1, 2026, sources read October 1, 2026

YouTube’s rules for a Short

From YouTube Help and its page on uploading Shorts, read on 1 October 2026:

Length: up to 3 minutes, for videos uploaded on or after 15 October 2024.
Shape: square or vertical. A horizontal video is not a Short, whatever its length.
Claims: a Short over one minute with an active Content ID claim is blocked on YouTube, whatever the claim’s policy.
Thumbnail: 2160 × 3840 at 9:16, added in YouTube Studio on a computer (YouTube Help).

What size should a Short be?

Vertical 9:16, as 1080 × 1920 or larger; YouTube asks only that it be square or vertical. A square video also qualifies, but it fills less of a phone screen. Keep text and faces away from the bottom and the right edge, where YouTube draws the title, the channel and the buttons.

Longer than three minutes

Upload it as an ordinary video. An unverified account can upload videos of up to 15 minutes; verifying the account lifts that, up to 12 hours or 256 GB, whichever comes first (YouTube Help).

Uploading Shorts with Mellow Hub

Hub uploads one video to YouTube, landscape or vertical, with a required title of up to 100 characters. YouTube itself decides whether a vertical video of three minutes or less becomes a Short; there is no separate Shorts switch in its API. The same file can go to Instagram Reels and TikTok in the same post, each counted as one publication.

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.

Questions people also ask

Are YouTube Shorts still limited to 60 seconds?

No. Since 15 October 2024, square and vertical videos of up to three minutes count as Shorts. Shorts over one minute are blocked if they carry an active Content ID claim, so the practical limit for music you don’t own is still one minute.

Can a horizontal video be a YouTube Short?

No. YouTube counts only square and vertical videos as Shorts. A horizontal video is uploaded as an ordinary video at any length.

What happens if my Short is longer than 3 minutes?

It is treated as an ordinary YouTube video, not a Short, and appears where ordinary videos do.

Can I schedule a YouTube Short?

YouTube’s scheduling steps apply to any upload: in YouTube Studio or the YouTube app, choose Schedule while uploading and set the date, time and time zone, and the video stays private until then. A tool that uploads through YouTube’s API can hold it and publish at the time instead.

Sources

Other companies’ features change. Every statement about them rests on these pages, as they read on the date above.