The best time to post YouTube Shorts, and how to find your own

Why there is no single best time

Search for the best time to post Shorts and you will find confident answers that disagree with each other. They disagree because they are averages over different sets of channels, and your audience is not an average. A channel whose viewers are students in one country, one whose viewers are night-shift workers, and one whose viewers are spread across five time zones have three different best times.

Shorts also make timing matter less than in a chronological feed. The Shorts feed shows each viewer what it predicts they will watch, not what was posted most recently, and a Short can keep collecting views long after it is published. Posting when your existing viewers are online helps a Short get its first views sooner; after that, how the Short performs with the people it is shown to has far more weight than the minute it went up. A strong Short posted at a bad time still finds its audience. A weak one posted at the perfect time does not.

So the useful question is not "what is the best time" but "when are my viewers on YouTube, and does posting then make a difference for my channel?" Both have answers you can find yourself.

Step 1: find when your viewers are on YouTube

YouTube Studio has a chart for exactly this:

1. Open YouTube Studio on a computer and choose Analytics.
2. Open the Audience tab.
3. Find the card When your viewers are on YouTube. It is a grid of days and hours, darker where more of your viewers are online.

Things to know about that chart:

• It covers the last 28 days, across all devices, and shows when your viewers are on YouTube in general, not only when they watch you.
• It is channel-wide, not specific to Shorts. If most of your viewers come from long videos, it describes them. That is usually still the best starting point you have.
• It needs enough viewers to appear. On a new channel it may be missing; use the fallback below.
• Check the time zone the chart shows, and compare it with the one your YouTube Studio scheduler uses.

Read it for the pattern, not the single darkest square. Most channels show a daily rise and fall, often with a different shape at weekends. A common practice is to publish an hour or two before the start of the busiest period, so the Short has been out a little while when most of your viewers arrive.

If the chart is empty: start from geography

On a small channel, open the same Audience tab and look at the top geographies, or simply think about who you make videos for. Pick the time zone most of your viewers live in and start with two plausible slots in their day, such as early afternoon and evening. Scheduling-tool blogs often cite weekday early afternoons (around 12 to 3 pm) and evenings (around 6 to 9 pm) in the viewers' time zone, and late mornings at weekends. Treat those as starting slots for a test, not as rules: they are averages over other people's channels, and YouTube does not endorse them.

Step 2: test your time slots properly

A chart tells you when viewers are online. A test tells you whether posting then actually changes anything for your Shorts. A simple method that works without any tools beyond YouTube Studio and a spreadsheet:

1. Choose two or three slots from Step 1, for example 1 pm and 7 pm in your viewers' time zone.
2. Rotate them for three to four weeks, so each slot gets several Shorts and each weekday sees each slot. Posting one Short a day, alternating slots, is easy to keep up.
3. Keep everything else as steady as you can: similar kinds of Shorts, similar length, the same posting rhythm. If one slot gets all your best Shorts, you are testing the Shorts, not the time.
4. Compare at the same age. Record each Short's views, and if you can, its average percentage viewed and how many viewers chose to keep watching, at 48 hours and at 7 days after posting. In YouTube Studio, the Content tab lists your Shorts and each one's analytics shows those figures.
5. Compare medians, not totals. One Short that takes off can make any slot look like the winner. The median Short per slot is what tells you about the time.
6. Keep the winner and test again later. Audiences shift with seasons, school terms and your own growth; a test every few months keeps your slot current.

Expect the difference to be small. If two slots perform about the same, that is a useful result too: post at whichever time you can keep up.

Step 3: be consistent, then automate it

For most channels the biggest gain is not the perfect hour but a steady rhythm. A Short a day, or a few a week at similar times, gives the feed a regular supply, gives returning viewers something to expect, and makes your tests readable. Bursts (ten Shorts on Sunday, nothing for two weeks) are hard to sustain and hard to learn from.

The way to keep a rhythm is to stop depending on being online at the right moment:

• YouTube Studio lets you schedule a Short: when you upload, choose Schedule on the Visibility step and pick the date and time. The mobile app offers scheduling too.
• OpenShorts can schedule a whole batch: after it cuts the Shorts from a long video, Schedule a week posts one a day, starting the next day, at the time you choose in your own time zone, to YouTube Shorts and, if you want, TikTok and Instagram.
• Autopilot (on paid plans) goes one step further: it clips each new upload on your connected channel on its own and, with autopublish on, schedules the best clips of each video one a day at the hour you pick, in your time zone. It only picks up videos published after you switch it on.

What matters more than the time

• The first second. Viewers decide in the feed. Open on the point.
• Retention. A Short that people watch to the end, or twice, is shown to more people. Cut the slow parts.
• One idea per Short. A moment that stands alone works for strangers, who are most of the Shorts audience.
• Captions. Many viewers have the sound off.
• Volume you can sustain. A steady supply of good Shorts is what a posting time optimises; without it there is nothing to optimise.

Next step: a week of Shorts, posted at your time

The hardest part of posting at a consistent time is having a Short ready every day. If you publish long videos, OpenShorts cuts several Shorts from each one and can schedule them one a day at the hour your viewers are online. See the YouTube Shorts maker for the clips and posting, auto clip for clipping every new upload on its own, and YouTube automation for Autopilot, n8n and the API.

OpenShorts Cloud has a free plan: your first video is clipped whole up to 60 minutes, then 20 minutes a month, with a watermark and no credit card. Paid plans start at $12/month with no watermark, and the self-hosted edition is $0 under the MIT licence (all plans).

Common questions

What is the best time to post YouTube Shorts?

There is no single best time that holds for every channel, and YouTube does not publish one. The best time for you is shortly before your own viewers are most active, which YouTube Analytics shows in the "When your viewers are on YouTube" chart. Then test it.

Does the time you post a YouTube Short matter?

Less than for most formats. Shorts are shown by a recommendation feed and can keep picking up views for days or weeks, so a good Short posted at an odd hour still finds viewers. Timing mostly affects how quickly the first views arrive from people who already watch you.

How do I find when my viewers are on YouTube?

In YouTube Studio, open Analytics, then the Audience tab, and look for "When your viewers are on YouTube". It is a chart of days and hours, darker where more of your viewers are online, based on the last 28 days. It covers your whole channel, not only Shorts, and needs enough viewers to appear.

What times are commonly recommended for Shorts?

Scheduling-tool blogs often cite weekday early afternoons (around 12 to 3 pm) and evenings (around 6 to 9 pm) in the viewers' time zone, and late mornings at weekends. Those are averages over other channels, not YouTube guidance. Use them as starting slots for a test if your own chart is empty.

How often should I post YouTube Shorts?

As often as you can keep up good ones. A steady rhythm, such as one Short a day or a few a week at similar times, is easier to test and to sustain than bursts. Several weak Shorts do not help a channel.

Should I post Shorts in my time zone or my viewers'?

Your viewers'. Check the top geographies in YouTube Analytics, and if most viewers are in another time zone, plan around their day. YouTube Studio's scheduler uses the time zone it shows next to the date and time, so check it before you schedule.

How long should I wait before judging a time slot?

Compare each Short at the same age, such as 48 hours and 7 days after posting, and only after several Shorts per slot. One Short going well or badly says more about the Short than about the time.

Can I schedule YouTube Shorts?

Yes. In YouTube Studio, set the visibility to Schedule and pick a date and time when you upload; the mobile app offers scheduling too. OpenShorts can schedule a batch of Shorts one a day at the time and time zone you choose.

Sources

• YouTube Help: Understand your YouTube audience ("When your viewers are on YouTube", last 28 days, all devices).
• Commonly cited posting windows are from social-media scheduling blogs that aggregate other channels' data; YouTube does not publish a best time to post.
• Schedule a week (one clip a day at a chosen time and time zone) is ScheduleWeekModal.jsx; Autopilot's rules are in cloud/autopilot.py at github.com/mutonby/openshorts.

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