The ideal YouTube title length is under 60 characters, with the searchable phrase in the first 40. Here is why, what gets truncated where, and a formula that works for videos and Shorts.
YouTube allows titles up to 100 characters, but almost nobody sees all 100. On a phone in the Home feed, titles are cut at roughly 40 characters. In search results and Suggested, you get around 60 to 70 before the ellipsis. So the practical answer is: keep the whole title under 60 characters, and make sure the part that matters fits in the first 40.
Where titles get cut off
- Mobile Home feed: about 40 characters, two lines of small text.
- Mobile search results: about 60 characters.
- Desktop watch page and Suggested sidebar: about 60 to 70 characters.
- Google web search: about 60 characters, same as any page title.
- Shorts feed: the title overlays the video and gets one line, so the first 30 to 35 characters carry all the weight.
Front-load the phrase people search
YouTube search and Google both read titles left to right, and so do humans scanning a feed. Put the phrase a viewer would actually type at the beginning, then add the hook. "Air fryer salmon in 12 minutes (crispy skin, no oil)" beats "You will not believe how easy this crispy salmon is" because the first one matches a real search and still promises a payoff.
A simple structure that keeps working: searchable phrase, then a colon or dash, then the specific angle. The specific angle is what earns the click once the phrase earns the impression.
What about Shorts?
Shorts titles should be shorter still. Aim for 30 to 45 characters, lead with the subject, and skip filler words. Shorts do rank in YouTube search and increasingly in Google, so a two-word emoji title wastes a real discovery channel. The description matters more for Shorts than most creators assume, because it is where the Shorts feed picks up context.
A checklist before you hit save
- Under 60 characters total.
- Searchable phrase in the first 40.
- Describes what actually happens in the video (retention drops and the algorithm notices when it does not).
- One specific promise, not three vague ones.
- No ALL CAPS beyond a single word, no keyword stuffing.
Doing this on every upload
Knowing the rules is easy. Applying them on a phone, thirty seconds after upload, is where most creators give up. ReeLoop drafts a title against live YouTube search phrases for your niche, keeps it under the limit, and applies it to the video in one tap. The title generator page explains how the research works.