I wanted to create a YouTube Short today. A YouTube Short is like a TikTok or Instagram Reel video and is sized for mobile phone consumption. I have access to a video editing tool called Camtasia that also does easy screen recording. I wondered what the appropriate dimensions are for YouTube Shorts so that my video shows up on the viewer’s phone correctly.
It turns out that the dimensions are just Full HD (1920 x 1080) dimensions flipped. We are used to wide screens, but our phones are vertical. So, YouTube Short video dimensions are 1080 x 1920. I tried that on my computer to record a section of my screen, and I couldn’t get this flipped dimension to fit since I have a wide-screen monitor. I settled on 540 x 960 as the appropriate Camtasia dimensions for creating YouTube Shorts. This is just half of the flipped Full HD dimensions, but it fits on my wide-screen monitor.
When you go to export the video, remember to keep these dimensions and output the video as an MP4. Share with me your next viral YouTube Short.
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