YouTube Shorts safe zone previewer

YouTube Shorts safe area dimensions for captions and the like button

Shorts are the only major 9:16 player with a dislike control, a Subscribe chip, and a title that is not a caption. Treating them like TikTok leaves the title sitting on top of your lower-third and the dislike button on top of a face. FramePad draws the Shorts UI overlay template so educational creators can keep diagrams readable.

YouTube treats the Shorts title as metadata and as an on-player label. It sits above the channel row, left-aligned, in a well about 72% wide. It is not a social caption. Write it like a search result: noun-forward, keyword-honest, under 100 characters. Then design the burn-in as if that title will appear. If your explainer already has a big title card at the bottom, you now have two titles. Remove one.

The channel row includes a Subscribe chip that appears for non-subscribers. That chip is a wide pill. It will cover a lower-left logo. Move channel bugs to the inner third or accept that they exist only for subscribers who have already converted. Unlike TikTok, Shorts do not dedicate a large tab bar to the player. They do draw a thin scrubber at the bottom. End cards that sit on the last 50 pixels will be scored by the playhead. Keep end-card type above y = 90%.

Why is my text covered on YouTube Shorts?

The dislike control is unique in this set of destinations. It adds a fifth circular target to the rail and pushes the audio disc down. Channels that put a small diagram in the lower-right — a mini-map, a formula, a logo — lose it here first. Keep diagrams inside the dashed safe rectangle FramePad draws at 4% / 9% / 14% / 18% insets.

Remix is a rectangular control, not a circle. Outline-only mode makes that obvious. If you are designing a series meant to be remixed, leave that rectangle visually quiet so the control reads as an invitation rather than a collision. Search and camera live in the top-right. Intro slates that mimic YouTube’s own header will confuse the eye. Start content below y = 11%.

A 16:9 explainer that you pad instead of crop can work if the pad is a blur of the same board, not black. Black pillarbox on Shorts reads as “this was made for landscape.” Convert with the 16:9 to 9:16 video cropper when the subject survives a punch-in, or the vertical video padding tool when the whole board is the point.

CTR and the Shorts shelf

Shorts are discovered in a vertical shelf and in the For You-style swipe player. The shelf thumbnail is a 9:16 still, often the first frame. If you converted from 16:9 with a center crop, the thumbnail may be a pair of shoulders. Set an explicit first frame in FramePad, export a PNG, and upload it as the chosen thumbnail where YouTube allows.

Watch time on explainers dies when on-screen copy is covered. We reviewed Shorts on iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S24 Ultra: any formula or URL that sat in the right 14% was unreadable while the rail was visible. Moving the formula 160 pixels left recovered the read without changing the script.

If the same cut also ships as a TikTok, flip to the TikTok safe zone checker. The tab bar there is taller than Shorts’ scrubber; a lower-third that clears Shorts may still die on For You. One canvas, two overlays, still no server upload.

Chapters, cards, and the 60-second habit

Shorts may now run longer than a minute, but the swipe reflex has not lengthened. Front-load the proof, not the intro. Keep the first on-screen sentence inside the title-safe box so it survives both the rail and the title row.

YouTube cards and end screens from long-form do not port. Do not leave a 16:9 end screen in a Short — it will be cropped to a strip of icons. Rebuild the end card at 1080×1920 with FramePad’s generic title-safe overlay, then confirm it still clears Shorts chrome. Export is local: PNG from an offscreen canvas, video via MediaRecorder, H.264 via FFmpeg.wasm when the browser allows. A free 9:16 video editor with no watermark and no sign up.

Dislike, remix, and diagrams that belong in the centre

Educational Shorts fail in a pattern: a mini-map, a formula, or a URL parked in the lower-right because that is where a textbook puts a figure. Shorts puts dislike and remix there. Move the figure into the inner third. If the figure is the point of the cut, it should be the largest thing in the frame, not a bug.

Subscribe chips appear for non-subscribers and vanish for subscribers. Design as if the chip is present. A channel bug in the lower-left that is only visible to people who already subscribed is a bug you spent pixels on for no one new. The overlay’s subscribe pill is the pessimistic case on purpose.

If you also publish the same explainer as a TikTok, run the pre-publish checklist. Shorts’ scrubber is thinner than TikTok’s tab bar; clearing Shorts is not clearance on For You. One canvas, two overlays, still processed in this tab.