Access to YouTube tools and features

The following Help Center article covers an update visible to a subset of creators. We're testing out additional eligibility criteria for certain features to reduce abuse. If you're part of this update, we may request additional optional verification information when accessing features.

 

You can learn more and ask questions on this Community Forum thread.

YouTube Studio offers many tools and features to help you make the most of your content. You can choose how to verify your identity to gain access to these features. Verifying your identity helps us reduce abuse and spam on YouTube.

You have a few options for accessing features:

• Standard features: Creating a channel gets you these features immediately as long as you have no active Community Guidelines strikes. Use these features to begin growing your audience and developing your channel.
• Intermediate features: If you want a wider set of tools to continue growing your audience, you can choose to access intermediate features. To do so, you must verify your phone number.
• Advanced features: Most active creators seeking to use advanced features for the first time will qualify automatically, having already established sufficient channel history.
  • In some instances, new creators or those wanting to unlock advanced features right away can choose to verify their identity with a valid ID or through video verification. Read more here about how the information from your ID or video verification is used. 

	Features	No verification	Verification via phone number	Verification via channel history OR identity
Standard	Upload videos	Limited daily limit		Higher daily limit
	Create a playlist
Intermediate	Longer videos (>15 mins)
	Live streaming on desktop		Limited daily limit	Higher daily limit
	Custom thumbnails		Limited daily limit	Higher daily limit
Advanced	Content ID appeal
	Embed live streams
	Apply for monetization			+ Eligibility requirements
	Add clickable external links to description
	Community Posts

Note: In addition to the above, make sure to follow YouTube’s Community Guidelines. Violations of our policies may result in a strike and/or block your access to features.

See what features you have access to

You can see what features you currently have access to by following the instructions below.

1. On a computer, sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Channel.
4. Click Feature eligibility.

You’ll see “Enabled” next to the features you have access to. Note that not all YouTube features are managed from within the Feature eligibility tab, and some features may have separate eligibility requirements. To learn more about other features, see the Status and features page.

Verify your identity to use features

For instructions on how to unlock intermediate and advanced features, check out this Help Center article. Note that ID and video verification isn't available to all creators.