Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts Video Specs (2026): Size, Length, Safe Zones

Checked September 2026. Where a figure applies only to ads, the cell says so; “not stated” means the platform does not publish one.

Sources: Instagram’s help pages on Reel length and Reel size, Meta’s Reels ad specs, TikTok’s In-Feed ad specs and camera help, and YouTube’s pages on three-minute Shorts, upload settings, upload limits and Shorts ads.

YouTube sets the length. A Short can run three minutes, but Google says only the first 60 seconds of a Shorts ad play in the feed, and recommends ads under a minute. Instagram lets a Reel run 20 minutes, yet stops recommending Reels over three minutes to new audiences. TikTok is the most generous: 60 minutes for uploads, 10 for ads.

YouTube sets the resolution too. Shorts go up to 1080p, so 1080 × 1920 is the largest size that suits all three. Meta’s Reels ad spec recommends 1440 × 2560: if your footage is sharper, use it in a separate Meta export.

TikTok sets the file size. Ads Manager takes up to 500 MB, the smallest cap here. A 60-second 1080p file capped at 14 Mbps, as ours are, stays under about 105 MB.

All three want it vertical. Anything wider than square stops being a Short, horizontal Shorts ads play with blurred bars above and below, and Reels accept 1.91:1 but only 9:16 fills the screen. Make the vertical cut on purpose. Our guide to turning a website into a video shows how to plan one story for every shape.

Each app lays its interface over your video. On Reels it is the profile icon, caption and call-to-action. On TikTok, the account name, ad caption and call-to-action run along the bottom, with the action buttons on the right. On Shorts, it is the channel name, caption and engagement buttons. Anything underneath is hidden.

The safe-zone row in the table gives each app’s official margins at 1080 × 1920; on Reels, 14% and 35% come to about 270 and 670 pixels. Meta’s figures come from its Reels ad specs, TikTok’s from the safe-zone file on its In-Feed ad specs page (drawn at 720 × 1280, scaled here) and YouTube’s from Google’s Shorts ads page. TikTok adds that its zone grows with the length of your ad caption.

The bottom-right corner is the worst place for anything, because the caption and the buttons meet there on every app. Stories and feed ads have margins of their own; our Facebook and Instagram ad specs cover them.

TikTok and Shorts expect sound: TikTok lists sound or music among the basics of a good ad, and Google calls Shorts “a vertical, sound-on environment”. Some viewers will still have the sound off, so make the video work both ways.

• Put the words in the picture. Automatic captions depend on speech and on the viewer’s settings: Instagram makes them with speech recognition, in some locations. Text you place in the frame shows for everyone.
• Show each line as it is said. A few words at a time, big, inside the safe box. TikTok’s creative best practices also ask for captions or text overlays to give an ad context.
• Clear the music for ads. Meta says Reels ads should not use licensed music; use original audio or its Sound Collection. TikTok points advertisers to its Commercial Music Library.

That is how we build our own ads: no subtitle track, and every spoken line appears once as animated text, timed to the voice. The MNM Nexus demo below works the same way, with a hook for drivers on the first frame and big captions for sound-off feeds.

These are the settings behind our own 9:16 master, the ad at the top of this post. It meets every requirement in the table above.

1. 1

   1080 × 1920, square pixels, progressive

   Every app takes it, and Shorts go no higher than 1080p.

2. 2

   30 fps, constant

   Instagram asks for at least 30 fps, Meta for a fixed frame rate, and YouTube for the rate you made it at.

3. 3

   H.264 in an MP4, with fast start

   High profile, 4:2:0 colour, the file index at the front. We cap the bitrate at 14 Mbps; YouTube recommends 8 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps, and TikTok ads need at least 516 kbps.

4. 4

   AAC stereo, 48 kHz, 192 kbps

   Meta asks for AAC at 128 kbps or more, YouTube for 48 kHz.

5. 5

   −14 LUFS, true peak under −1 dBTP

   Voice at −16 LUFS, music at −22 and ducked under speech, the mix mastered to −14. The ceiling leaves headroom for each app’s own re-encode.

6. 6

   Under 60 seconds

   Ours runs 19. Under a minute plays in full as a Shorts ad and sits well inside every other limit.

Export a different file only when a platform needs a different cut, not a different setting. On Instagram, add a cover too: its help centre recommends 420 × 654 pixels.

If you would rather not set any of this by hand, loudscene exports H.264 MP4s with AAC audio, at 24, 30 or 60 fps. Our Hook in 2 seconds template is built for vertical feeds: the strongest fact about you lands first, then up to four more in big captions. The formats docs list every shape it renders.

• 1080 × 1920, 30 fps, H.264 MP4 with AAC audio.
• Every word, price and logo inside x 120 to 960 and y 270 to 1248.
• Nothing important in the bottom-right corner.
• The first two seconds say what it is, with the sound off.
• Every spoken line also appears on screen.
• Music you own, or music cleared for ads.
• Under 60 seconds, or a clear reason for the longer cut.
• Under 500 MB if it goes into TikTok Ads Manager.
• Watched on a phone, in each app’s preview, before it goes live.