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, but design inside the central 1546 × 423. That centre rectangle is the only part guaranteed to show on every device — a TV shows the whole image, a phone shows almost nothing but the middle.
How to use the youtube banner size
This is the most aggressively cropped placement on any platform, and the reason is that the same file has to serve a television and a phone. A TV displays the full 2560 × 1440; a desktop browser shows a 2560 × 423 letterbox slice; a phone shows only the 1546 × 423 centre. Anything you actually need read — a channel name, a schedule, a handle — has to be inside that centre box, and the rest is decoration that most of your audience will never see. It is worth checking the result on a phone, because designing at full size on a large monitor makes the crop feel much less severe than it is.
Questions
2560 × 1440 for the upload, but design within the central 1546 × 423 safe area.