How do you make a YouTube Short?

In the YouTube app, tap the plus button and choose Create a Short, record or pick a vertical video, add sound and text, tap Next, add a title and upload. Or upload any square or vertical video up to 3 minutes from YouTube Studio: it becomes a Short automatically.

How do I make a YouTube Short from a long video?

For your own videos, the YouTube app can turn part of an upload into a Short (Remix, then Edit into a Short, where available). Or cut the segment yourself, reframe it to 9:16 and caption it, or let an AI clipper such as OpenShorts pick the moments and cut several Shorts at once.

How long can a YouTube Short be?

Up to 3 minutes for videos uploaded from 15 October 2024. A Short longer than one minute with an active Content ID claim is blocked worldwide until the claim is resolved.

Can I make YouTube Shorts on a computer?

Yes, by uploading. In YouTube Studio choose Create, then Upload videos, and pick a square or vertical video up to 3 minutes. The Shorts camera, the music library and the Shorts effects are in the mobile app only.

Do I need #Shorts for a video to be a Short?

No. YouTube classifies a video as a Short from its shape and length: square or vertical and up to 3 minutes. The hashtag does not make a horizontal video a Short.

What size should a YouTube Short be?

1080 x 1920 pixels, 9:16 vertical. Square 1080 x 1080 is also accepted. Keep text out of the bottom strip and away from the buttons on the right edge.

Can I add music to a YouTube Short?

Yes, from the sound library in the YouTube app's Shorts editor. Music added outside YouTube can bring a Content ID claim, and a claimed Short over one minute is blocked, so use cleared or royalty-free music for longer Shorts.

Can I link a Short to my long video?

Yes. In YouTube Studio or the app you can set a related video on a Short, which shows a link to that video from your channel under the Short. It is the simplest way to send Shorts viewers to the full episode.

Home Guides How to make YouTube Shorts

How to make YouTube Shorts: with the camera, an upload or a long video

By the OpenShorts team· Published 2026-10-29· Updated 2026-10-29

There are three ways to make a YouTube Short. 1. Film it in the YouTube app: tap the plus button, choose Create a Short, record, add sound and text, tap Next and upload. 2. Upload a vertical video: any square or vertical video up to 3 minutes, from the app or YouTube Studio, becomes a Short automatically. 3. Cut it from a long video you already made.

The third is where most channels find their Shorts: one long video holds several moments that stand on their own. You can cut them by hand, use YouTube's own tool for your uploads, or let an AI clipper find and cut them for you.

Make it 9:16, 1080 x 1920, put the point in the first seconds and caption it for viewers on mute. Steps as of October 2026.

Shape9:16Or square; never horizontal

Max length3 minUploads from 15 Oct 2024

Size1080 x 1920Pixels

HashtagNot neededShape and length decide it

Next step Turn a long video into Shorts with AI

Paste a YouTube link and get several 9:16 Shorts with captions, ready to post. Cloud free plan with a watermark, paid plans from $12/month, self-hosted $0 under MIT.

Paste a link

What makes a video a Short

YouTube's help pages define a Short by two things: a square or vertical aspect ratio and a length of up to 3 minutes (the limit for videos uploaded from 15 October 2024; it was 60 seconds before). Any upload with both is a Short, whichever way you made it, and appears on the Shorts shelf and in the Shorts feed. A horizontal video is a regular video at any length, and a #Shorts hashtag does not change that. The full specs, with safe zones, are in YouTube Shorts aspect ratio and size.

Method 1: film a Short in the YouTube app

The Shorts camera in the YouTube app for iPhone and Android is the quickest route when you are filming something new. As of October 2026:

Tap the plus button at the bottom of the YouTube app and choose Create a Short (on some versions, Short).
Choose the length with the duration control at the top of the camera, if you want a Short longer than the default.
Add a sound first if the Short is set to music: tap Add sound and pick a track from the library, so you can film to the beat.
Record. Hold the record button, or tap to start and stop. You can film in several clips; the bar at the top shows how much time is left. Use the timer for hands-free takes, and the speed, filter and green-screen tools if you need them.
Tap the tick to finish, then edit: add text and time it to the right moments, a voice-over, filters, or trim the clips on the timeline.
Tap Next, write a title (it is what most viewers read, keep it short), choose the visibility and whether it is made for kids, and tap Upload Short. You can also schedule it instead of publishing straight away where your app offers it.

Method 2: upload a vertical video you already have

If you edit somewhere else (CapCut, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, your phone's editor), export a 9:16 file at 1080 x 1920, no longer than 3 minutes, and upload it. There is no separate Shorts upload: shape and length are enough.

From your phone

Tap the plus button and choose Create a Short.
Tap the gallery thumbnail in the bottom-left corner and pick the video.
Trim it if needed, add sound or text, tap Next, add the title and upload.

Choosing Upload a video instead of the Shorts camera works too: a vertical video up to 3 minutes is still published as a Short.

From a computer

Open YouTube Studio and choose Create, then Upload videos.
Pick the vertical or square file, up to 3 minutes.
Add the title and description, choose the audience, and on the Visibility step publish it or set a date and time to schedule it.

The Shorts camera, the sound library and the Shorts effects are only in the mobile app; on a computer you upload a finished file.

One rule for both routes: YouTube blocks a Short longer than one minute worldwide while it has an active Content ID claim, for example from a song you added in your editor. Keep claimed music out of longer Shorts, or use the sound library in the app.

Method 3: make Shorts from your long videos

A long video you already published is the best source of Shorts most channels have: a 40-minute podcast or tutorial often holds half a dozen moments that make sense to someone who has never seen the channel. There are three ways to get them out.

YouTube's own tool, for your uploads

In the YouTube app, open one of your own long videos, tap Remix and then Edit into a Short where it is available. Choose the segment, and it opens in the Shorts editor, where you can reframe it, add text and publish. It is free and stays inside YouTube, but you pick the moment yourself and make one Short at a time, and the tool's segment length and availability can differ from the full 3-minute Shorts limit.

By hand, in an editor

Download your own upload from YouTube Studio (Content, three-dot menu, Download) or use the original file, then for each Short: find the moment (the transcript makes this faster: search for a phrase and jump to its timestamp), cut it on sentence boundaries, crop the 16:9 frame to 9:16 so the speaker fills it, burn in captions, and export at 1080 x 1920. It gives you full control, and it takes most people well over ten minutes a Short. The detailed steps, including the ffmpeg commands, are in how to clip a YouTube video.

With an AI clipper

An AI clipper does the slow part: it reads the whole video and returns the strongest moments already cut, reframed and captioned. With OpenShorts:

Paste the YouTube link, or upload the file.
The video is transcribed word by word, and Gemini scores every stretch of it for how well it would stand alone.
The best moments are cut on sentence boundaries, 15 to 60 seconds by default or up to 3 minutes if you raise the maximum.
Each is reframed to 9:16: the speaker tracked, two people stacked, or a screen kept readable beside the presenter. Captions are burned in from the transcript and a hook is drawn over the first seconds.
Publish them to your channel, schedule a week of them, or download the files.

Use it on your own videos, on channels you manage, or on footage you are licensed to clip; each job asks you to confirm that.

What makes a Short work

The first second. Viewers decide in the feed whether to stay. Start on the point, not on a greeting or a logo.
One idea. A Short that needs the previous ten minutes of context loses a stranger. Pick moments that stand alone.
Captions. Many people watch with the sound off. Burn subtitles in, above the bottom strip where the title and channel name sit.
A clean ending. End on the payoff. A Short that loops smoothly back to its start often gets watched twice.
A link to the long video. Set the Short's related video to the full episode, so viewers who want more find it.
A steady rhythm. One Short a day from last week's long video does more than ten on one day and nothing after.

Next step: make a week of Shorts from one video

If you already publish long videos, your next Shorts are in them. Paste a link and OpenShorts returns several 9:16 Shorts with captions, a hook and a title written for the Shorts feed, and can post them to your channel one a day. The details are on the YouTube Shorts maker; for any YouTube source, see the YouTube clip maker; and for the one-link flow, the YouTube to Shorts converter.

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).

Next step Paste a YouTube link, get Shorts

The AI picks the moments, reframes them to 9:16 and captions them word by word.