How it works
Upload a frame of your Short — a screenshot, an export still, or your design mock — and the checker renders it inside a phone frame with YouTube's Shorts interface layered on top: the like/comment/share rail on the right, the title and channel block at the bottom, the search bar at the top, and the seekbar. Toggle the safe-zone outline to see the region no UI ever touches, in light and dark mode.
Why Shorts text keeps getting covered
A Short fills the entire phone screen, and YouTube draws its interface directly over your video — there's no letterboxing to hide in. Roughly the top tenth, the bottom fifth, and the right sixth of the frame sit under interactive UI. Captions placed low get buried under your own title bar; end-screen text drifts under the seekbar; anything on the right edge fights with the like button. Checking one frame before you publish takes seconds and saves a re-render.
Designing for the safe zone
Keep faces, captions and product shots inside the central-left region, put burned-in subtitles at the vertical midpoint rather than the bottom, and leave the right rail clear. If you design in 1080×1920, the numbers below are the margins to respect — they match what this checker draws.
Worked example: safe margins on a 1080×1920 canvas
The checker's overlay corresponds to these pixel margins on the standard Shorts canvas:
Canvas: 1080 × 1920 (9:16)
Top overlay: ~192 px (search bar, camera)
Bottom overlay: ~384 px (title, channel, audio, seekbar)
Right rail: ~162 px (like · dislike · comments · share · remix)
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Safe area: ~918 × 1344, starting 192 px from the top,
flush to the left edgeAnything critical — subtitles, product close-ups, a call-to-action — belongs inside that ~918×1344 window. Decorative background can extend to the edges freely.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Shorts safe zone?+
The region of a vertical video that YouTube's interface never covers. Shorts UI overlays the top (~10%), bottom (~20%) and right edge (~15%) of the screen, leaving a roughly 918×1344 pixel window on a 1080×1920 canvas where captions and key visuals stay fully visible.
Does my video get uploaded when I check it?+
No. The preview runs entirely in your browser — the frame you pick never leaves your device.
Do the same margins apply to TikTok and Instagram Reels?+
Approximately. All three platforms overlay a right-side action rail and a bottom caption block, but the exact sizes differ — TikTok's caption area is taller, Reels' rail sits slightly higher. Content that respects the YouTube margins here is safe on the other platforms in most cases, but check natively before a big campaign.
Where should I put burned-in subtitles in a Short?+
Vertically centered, or just below center — roughly 40–65% down the frame. That clears both the bottom UI block and the top search bar, and matches where viewers' eyes already rest on a phone.
What resolution should a YouTube Short be?+
1080×1920 (9:16 vertical) is the standard. YouTube accepts other vertical sizes but displays them in the same full-screen layout, so the same proportional safe margins apply.