Access to YouTube tools & features

YouTube Studio offers many tools and features to help you make the most of your content. To get access to these tools and features, you can choose how to verify your identity. 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.
    • Some 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 info from your ID or video verification is used.

 

Features

No verification

Verification via phone number

Verification via channel history OR identity

 

Standard

 

Upload videos

 Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Limited daily limit

 

Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Higher daily limit

Create a playlist

Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Limited daily limit

Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Higher daily limit for public playlists

Create a playlist in
YouTube Music

  Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Limited daily limit

 

 Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Higher daily limit for public playlists

 

 

Intermediate

Longer videos (>15 mins)

  Chrome mobile checkmark icon

 

Live streaming on a computer

 

 Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Limited daily limit

  Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Higher daily limit 

Custom thumbnails

 

Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Limited daily limit

   Chrome mobile checkmark icon

Higher daily limit

 
Create a podcast   Chrome mobile checkmark icon  

 

Advanced

Content ID appeal

    Chrome mobile checkmark icon 

Embed live streams

    Chrome mobile checkmark icon

 

Apply for monetization

   

Chrome mobile checkmark icon

+ Eligibility requirements

Add clickable links to your long-form video description and Community posts     Chrome mobile checkmark icon
Add a Related Video to your YouTube Short   Chrome mobile checkmark icon Chrome mobile checkmark icon
Pin comments on videos & Community posts     Chrome mobile checkmark icon
RSS Upload     Chrome mobile checkmark icon
Add clickable links to your channel details on watch page or posts      Chrome mobile checkmark icon
Add chapters     Chrome mobile checkmark icon
Add additional channels to your account   Chrome mobile checkmark icon Chrome mobile checkmark icon

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

Daily limits

There's a limit to how many times you can use certain features each day. You can see which ones in the table above—they're labeled as having a "limited daily limit" or a "higher daily limit.”

If you hit a limit:

  • Intermediate access: You might be able to verify your identity to upgrade to advanced access, which usually has higher limits.
  • If you already have advanced feature access: You'll need to wait 24 hours before using that feature again.

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, visit the Status and features page.

Verify your identity to use features

Note that ID and video verification isn't available to all creators. Learn how to unlock intermediate and advanced features.

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