How to check your YouTube Shorts safe zone
- Add your picture or video. Pick it, drop it or paste it. It’s read on your device and never uploaded. No file yet? Try a sample.
- Check the phone. It shows your Short exactly where YouTube shows it, under YouTube’s own buttons, channel name and title.
- Look at the red stripes. Everything outside the dashed box can be covered. Hide the buttons to see your whole frame, or name each area.
- Download the overlay. A transparent PNG at the real size, to put on top of your design in Canva, Premiere, CapCut or Figma. The template version names each area.
The safe area here is the same one aiCarousels uses for its video posts, so a Short made in the app keeps its words inside it.
The YouTube Shorts safe zone in pixels (2026)
| Area | On 1080 × 1920 |
|---|---|
| Top | Keep 154 px clear (search and menu) |
| Bottom | Keep 461 px clear (channel, title, sound) |
| Right | Keep 173 px clear (like, dislike, comment, share, remix) |
| Left | Keep 65 px clear |
The safe zone template (PNG)
Download the transparent overlay, the template with each area named, or your frame with the safe zone on it, all at 1080 × 1920, to use as the top layer in your editor.
Tips for Shorts
- Shorts show more text at the bottom than TikTok: the channel name, the Subscribe button and the title. Keep subtitles above it.
- Faces in the upper half. That’s the part nothing covers.
- Check on a phone too. The buttons take more room on smaller screens.
Free, and what the app adds
The checker and templates are free. aiCarousels designs vertical posts with the text already clear of each app’s buttons.
Carousels work on YouTube too: an image post of up to 10 pictures people swipe, or your slides as a Short. See how to make a carousel on YouTube.
