YouTube banner size
Only the marked centre shows on every device. Everything outside is cropped on something.
Cropped in your browser · your image is never uploaded
Upload at 2560 × 1440 and design inside the central 1546 × 423. That rectangle is 654,000 pixels of a 3.7-megapixel canvas, so under 18 percent of what you upload is guaranteed to be seen. A television shows the whole file; a phone shows almost nothing else.
How to use the youtube banner size
One file has to serve a television, a desktop browser and a phone, and the three crops have almost nothing in common. A TV displays the full 2560 × 1440. A desktop browser keeps a 2560 × 423 letterbox slice. A phone keeps only the 1546 × 423 centre of that slice. The canvas is 16:9 and the safe rectangle is 3.65:1, which is why a composition laid out on the canvas never survives: the two shapes are not related.
The practical version is to treat everything outside the centre as bleed. Flat colour, a texture, the continuation of a photograph — anything that can be cut at an arbitrary line without looking cut. The channel name, the handle, an upload schedule and any face that has to be recognised all belong inside the centre box. YouTube accepts a minimum of 2048 × 1152 and a maximum of 6 MB, but there is no reason to upload the minimum, because the television crop is the one that uses resolution and it is also the crop with the most pixels in it.
Designing this on a large monitor consistently understates the crop, since at full size the safe rectangle looks like a generous band across the middle rather than the sliver it becomes. Check the mobile row before publishing; it is the one most subscribers see.
What people use it for
- Fitting a channel name and handle inside the mobile safe rectangle
- Deciding what to put in the outer area that survives an arbitrary cut
- Checking a finished banner against the phone crop before publishing
- Getting a photographic banner under the 6 MB upload limit
- Rebuilding a banner whose text is cut off on everything but a television
Questions
2560 × 1440 for the upload, designed inside the central 1546 × 423.
Under 18 percent of it on every device. The 1546 × 423 safe rectangle is 654,000 pixels of a 3.7-megapixel upload.
2048 × 1152. There is no reason to use it: the television crop takes every pixel you give it.
6 MB.
It sits outside the centre box. Desktop keeps a 2560 × 423 letterbox slice, and a phone keeps only the middle 1546 of that.
Only inside the safe rectangle, and remember that rectangle is then rendered into a phone-width strip, so it has to survive being small as well as being centred.