Nothing kills a video's performance faster than wrong dimensions. If your vertical video exports as 1080×1080 (square) or 1280×720 (landscape), platforms will either letterbox it, crop it, or bury it in the feed. This cheat sheet has the exact specs for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels in 2026 — save it before your next export.
The universal rule: export vertical video at 1080×1920, 9:16 aspect ratio. That one setting works correctly on all three platforms. Everything else in this guide is about the details that separate a clean upload from a compressed, cropped, or rejected one.
The specs at a glance
| Platform | Aspect ratio | Resolution | Max length | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok | 9:16 (vertical) | 1080×1920 | 10 minutes (60 min max since 2025) | MP4 (H.264), up to ~500MB |
| YouTube Shorts | 9:16 (vertical) | 1080×1920 | 3 minutes | MP4 (H.264), up to 256GB |
| Instagram Reels | 9:16 (vertical) | 1080×1920 | 3 minutes | MP4 (H.264), up to 4GB |
If you only remember one number
1080×1920 at 9:16. Every platform accepts it, and it is the maximum resolution they all render without upscaling. Higher resolutions (4K) get compressed anyway, so 1080×1920 is the sweet spot for file size and quality.
Aspect ratio and resolution explained
Aspect ratio is the shape of the video — width divided by height. 9:16 means 9 units wide for every 16 tall, which is why vertical video fills a phone screen. Resolution is the number of pixels: 1080×1920 is Full HD in portrait orientation.
- 9:16 vertical (1080×1920) — the standard for all three platforms.
- 1:1 square (1080×1080) — still works on TikTok and Reels but wastes screen space; not recommended for new uploads.
- 4:5 vertical (1080×1350) — a legacy Reels-friendly size, now unnecessary since full 9:16 is supported everywhere.
- 16:9 landscape — fine for regular YouTube videos, but it will be letterboxed or cropped as a Short.
Can you post a square or landscape clip? Technically yes on most platforms, but you are giving up screen real estate to competitors who fill the phone. Full 9:16 always performs better in vertical feeds. If you are clipping long-form content, make sure the tool exports true 9:16 with the subject framed for vertical — our guide to clipping YouTube videos into Shorts covers this.
The safe zone: where captions and UI live
Even at the right size, platforms overlay their own UI on your video: TikTok's caption and button column on the right, Reels' icons on the right, and progress bars at the bottom. Anything under those overlays gets hidden or tapped accidentally.
- Keep faces and key subjects in the center two-thirds of the frame.
- Keep captions within the middle ~80% of width so the TikTok/Reels right-side UI never covers them.
- Leave breathing room at the very bottom — the caption bar and progress UI live there.
- On desktop previews, videos are letterboxed; test on a phone before publishing.
OwlClip exports safe-zone-ready clips
Clips generated by OwlClip come out in true 9:16 with captions placed in the safe zone, so nothing gets hidden behind platform UI when you post to TikTok, Shorts, or Reels.
Codec, frame rate, and file size best practices
Getting the dimensions right is step one; these export settings keep quality high and uploads fast:
| Setting | Recommended | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Codec | H.264 (MP4) | Universally supported; H.265/HEVC causes compatibility problems on some platforms |
| Frame rate | 30 or 60 fps | Match the source video; 60 fps is smoother for fast-moving clips |
| Bitrate | ~8–16 Mbps for 1080×1920 | High enough for clean text and faces, low enough for fast uploads |
| Audio | AAC, 44.1–48kHz | Add captions anyway — most viewers watch muted |
| File size | Under 500MB | Under TikTok's upload cap and avoids long processing on every platform |
How to make a 9:16 clip from horizontal footage
If your source is a landscape podcast or webinar, you cannot just crop the middle — you will cut off faces. The reliable options:
- Reframe the shot: track the speaker and crop a vertical window around them.
- Blur-background: center the landscape video with blurred fill above and below.
- Text-first: use the vertical space for large captions with the video as a background layer — common for podcast audiograms.
- Let AI do it: OwlClip outputs clips already framed and captioned for 9:16, built for exactly this workflow.
For content that should also exist as regular long-form video, check our platform comparison of YouTube Shorts vs TikTok vs Reels for length and format strategy.
Vertical video is not a crop of your horizontal video — it is a different frame, designed for a different screen, watched by a different posture.
Quick export checklist
- Aspect ratio: 9:16
- Resolution: 1080×1920
- Codec: H.264, MP4
- Frame rate: 30–60 fps
- Captions: inside the center ~80% safe zone
- Test: preview on a phone before posting
Skip the manual reframing entirely
Paste a long video into OwlClip and get true 9:16 clips with safe-zone captions — ready for TikTok, Shorts, and Reels.
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