YouTube Shorts length: how long can a Short be?

The answer: three minutes, for a vertical or square video

A YouTube Short can be up to 3 minutes long. YouTube classifies as a Short any vertical or square video of 3 minutes or less uploaded on or after October 15, 2024 on a standard channel.

The one-minute limit that many pages still quote is the rule from before that date. YouTube has only counted new vertical videos of 1 to 3 minutes as Shorts since October 15, 2024. The change was announced on the YouTube blog on October 3, 2024.

The minute still matters. It splits copyright claims into two regimes, and YouTube's Edit into a Short tool, started from a video you already published, still stops there. The sections below take each rule in turn, with its help page.

What makes a video a Short

Three conditions, all published by YouTube:

• Aspect ratio. The video is square or vertical. To keep a video out of Shorts, YouTube suggests a wider ratio such as the 16:9 of long-form videos.
• Length. 3 minutes or less.
• Upload date. October 15, 2024 or later on a standard channel. A video uploaded earlier keeps its long-form status. For Official Artist Channels, the date is December 8, 2025.

YouTube's own tools follow the same ceiling. The Shorts camera in the app records videos of 3 minutes or less. When you upload from a phone, a video of up to 3 minutes opens a trim editor for the start and end points; a longer one gets trimmed to 3 minutes or less.

What changes past one minute

A two-minute Short is still a Short. Three rules depend on its length all the same.

Copyright claims. Past one minute, a Short with an active copyright claim of any kind is blocked globally; the guide on Shorts blocked by a claim explains why and what to do. When a claim is found as you upload a Short of 1 to 3 minutes, YouTube sends you a notification.

Music. In the Shorts Audio Library, most songs can be used for up to 90 seconds in a 3-minute Short, some for only 60 or 30 seconds. When you pick the audio, you see how many seconds it will cover. YouTube does not give the same figure everywhere: its page on uploading a Short from Android limits library audio to 15-second clips. So one track will not always run from the first second of a long Short to the last. Royalty-free music from the YouTube Audio Library gets no Content ID claim.

Monetization. Shorts that show up in the Shorts Feed can be monetized. A Short blocked globally cannot.

This guide is not legal advice: it reports what YouTube applies, based on its help pages.

Edit into a Short from a published video: one minute at most

From the watch page of one of your long-form videos, the Remix button offers Edit into a Short. The tool selects up to 60 seconds of the video. If you take less, you fill in with the Shorts camera, still up to 60 seconds.

It has conditions too. The video must be one of your own public long-form videos: not private, not unlisted, not claimed by a third party. It must also be opted in to sampling.

For a clip that runs past the minute, go through the upload instead. In the app, a vertical or square video longer than 3 minutes gets trimmed to 3 minutes or less, with a button that has the same name, Edit into a Short.

The length to aim for: what YouTube does not publish

The help pages read on October 22, 2026 give maximum lengths, never an ideal one. The October 2024 post only added that YouTube was working to improve recommendations for longer Shorts.

Any length sold as "the one that works" therefore comes from somewhere other than YouTube. On your channel, the answer sits in your Shorts analytics, which YouTube offers to help you understand how each video performs.

What Stratos·Clip does with this rule

Stratos·Clip turns your long videos into Shorts, added by their YouTube link or as a file. The length of each clip is decided in two steps.

First, the target length follows the channel's content type:

Then the 58-second cap, by default. By default, Stratos·Clip treats every source as carrying claimable audio. Before rendering, each moment is cut to 58 seconds: the end is trimmed, the start kept. Why 58 and not 60? A safety margin: snapping to the transcript and rounding in the video file can each add a fraction of a second. The cap wins over the target: on Educational / Business, a 70-second moment comes out at 58. For series, the audio is always treated as claimable.

In practice, Stratos·Clip does not make Shorts of 1 to 3 minutes by default. If your clips need several unbroken minutes, editing by hand is the right tool.

The number of clips follows the length of the source video. A 10-minute video gives 6 Shorts, an hour gives about 16, and the longest ones 24 at most. An hour costs about 22 credits, analysis included. The Shorts calculator runs the numbers for your own video.

After rendering, each clip joins its channel's queue. You set the queue up once, as fixed slots or a number of posts per day, and a scheduler draws from it every hour. Stratos·Clip posts to YouTube Shorts only, directly on your channels. Each published Short then shows its second-by-second retention, so you see on your own channel which length holds viewers.

The interface is in French, and detection and titles have only been measured on videos in French. To try it, the free plan gives 30 credits a month, one channel and up to 2 posts a day, with a watermark, while seats last.