Upload videos

You can upload videos to YouTube in a few easy steps. Use the instructions below to upload your videos from a computer or from a mobile device.

Upload videos in YouTube Studio

  1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
  2. In the top right-hand corner, click CREATE  and then Upload video.
  3. Select the file you’d like to upload.

Note: You can upload up to 15 videos at a time. Be sure to click Edit  on each file to edit your video details.

​If you close the upload experience before you finish choosing your settings, your video will be saved as a draft on your Content page.

Details

Add important details to your video.
Title The title of your video. This field is required.
Description Info that shows below your video.
Thumbnail The image viewers will see before clicking your video.
Playlists Add your video to one of your existing playlists, or create a playlist.
Audience To comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), you’re required to tell us whether your videos are made for kids.
Age restriction Age-restrict videos that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
At the bottom of the Details page, select MORE OPTIONS to choose your advanced settings.
Paid promotion Let viewers and YouTube know that your video has a paid promotion.
Tags

Add descriptive keywords to help correct search mistakes. 

Tags can be useful if the content of your video is commonly misspelled. Otherwise, tags play a minimal role in your video's discovery.
Language, subtitles, and closed captions (CC)  Choose the original video language and caption certification. 
Recording date and location Enter the date the video was recorded and the location where your video was filmed.
License and distribution

Choose your license type and distribution.

Select if your video can be embedded on a different website. Indicate if you’d like to send notifications to your subscribers for your new video.
Category Select the category of your video, such as education or comedy.
Comments and ratings Choose whether viewers can leave comments on the video. Choose whether viewers can see how many likes and dislikes are on your video.

Monetization

If you're in the YouTube Partner Program, you can turn monetization on or off for your video, choose your advertising format, and manage mid-roll ad breaks.

Ad suitability

If you're in the YouTube Partner Program, you can use the ad suitability page to rate your videos against our advertiser-friendly content guidelines. This helps us make monetization decisions faster and accurately. Learn more about Self-certification.

Video elements

Add cards and end screens to show your audience related videos, websites, and calls to action.
End screen Add visual elements to the end of your video. Your video must be 25 seconds or longer to add an end screen. This option is available after your video is done processing.
Cards Add interactive content to your video. This option is available after your video is done processing.
Checks
We're slowly rolling out this feature. If you have access, you'll see checks as an option in the upload flow.

You can use the checks page to screen your video for copyright claims and if you're in the YouTube Partner Program, ad suitability. The Copyright check allows you to dispute a claim or edit and fix your video if issues are found. The ad suitability check allows you to request human review if you think our systems made a mistake. These checks help you learn about potential restrictions so you can address them before publishing.

Note: Copyright and ad suitability checks results aren’t final. For example, future manual claims, copyright strikes, and edits to your video settings may impact your video.

Visibility

Open the Visibility page to choose your video’s privacy setting and pick your video’s publish time. You can also share your video privately.
  • To publish your video now: Select Save or publish and choose your video’s privacy setting.
  • To publish your video later: Select Schedule and pick the date you want your video to be published. Your video will be private until that date.
    • To set up a Premiere, check the box next to “Set as premiere”. Unlisted and private videos can also be converted to Premieres after upload.
Before finishing, preview your changes and make sure they follow YouTube policies.

Watch how to upload videos

Check out the following video from the YouTube Creators channel on how to upload videos.

How To Upload Videos with YouTube Studio

Learn more about uploading videos

How many videos you can upload per day

There's a limit to how many videos a channel can upload each day. If you get an error saying “Upload limit reached” when trying to upload a video, try again in 24 hours. 

Limits may vary by region or channel history. Copyright strikes may impact channel history eligibility. Community Guidelines strikes will affect how much you can upload.

Upload audio files

You can’t upload audio files to YouTube. See a list of supported file formats that can be uploaded to YouTube.
To add your content to YouTube, try converting your audio file to a video file by adding an image. YouTube doesn’t have a tool to do this, but you can try other video editing software. 

Learn the difference between “upload” and “publish”

When you upload a video, the video file is imported to YouTube.
When you publish a video, the video is made available for anyone with access to watch it. 

Upload vertical videos

When you upload and publish your video, YouTube will figure out the best way to display the content. For the best experience, don’t add black bars to the sides of your vertical video. Whether the video is vertical, square, or horizontal, the video will fit the screen.

Figure out why your video’s upload date and publish date are different

  • Upload date: The date you uploaded your video. Shows next to your video on your Videos page.
  • Publish date: The date your video became public. Shows beneath your live video and is always in Pacific Standard Time (PST). 

These two dates can be different if:

  1. You uploaded your video as private or unlisted, and made it public later. 
  2. You’re in a time zone that’s ahead of PST.
Tip: You can always schedule your video to be published at a specific time.

Understand video quality processing

When you upload a video, it will initially be processed in low resolution. This process helps you complete the upload process faster. When the upload flow is complete, your video will be available to stream in low resolution, on a wide variety of devices.
Higher resolutions, such as 4K or 1080p, can take more time to process. While this processing happens, your video may seem to be missing higher resolutions for several hours. Once high-resolution processing is finished, higher resolutions will be available on your video. Learn more about video processing after upload.

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