YouTube banner dimensions: what each device actually shows

The short answer

Upload a banner at 2560 x 1440 pixels, under 6 MB. Put your channel name, logo and any text inside the center 1546 x 423 pixels, the safe area, because that is the only part that appears on every device. Everything outside it is background that some screens will crop.

The YouTube banner resizer does both halves of that: it fits your image to 2560 x 1440 and draws the safe area over it, in a phone view and a desktop view, before you upload.

What each device shows

YouTube publishes the part of the banner each kind of screen displays. All of them are centered in the uploaded image. Worked out as a share of the whole banner, the numbers are starker than the sizes make them look:

So a desktop visitor sees under a third of the image you made, and a phone visitor, who is most of your audience, sees under a fifth. Only a TV shows the whole 2560 x 1440. The banner is 16:9 because it has to contain the TV view; the part people actually see is a strip almost four times wider than it is tall on a phone, and six times on a desktop.

The safe area in pixels

If you are designing in Photoshop, Canva, Figma or anything else with guides, these are the lines to draw on a 2560 x 1440 canvas:

Left and right edges

507 and 2053 pixels from the left, so 507 pixels are lost on each side on a phone.

Top and bottom edges

509 and 931 pixels from the top, so about 508 pixels are lost above and below on every device except a TV.

At the minimum upload size, 2048 x 1152

Everything scales by 0.8, so the safe area becomes about 1237 x 338, starting 406 pixels in from the side and 407 pixels down.

Designing for it

Think of the banner as two layers. The center strip, 1546 x 423, carries everything that has to be read: your name, a tagline, an upload schedule, a logo. The rest is atmosphere: a photo, a texture or a color that continues outward so the wider views on desktop and TV do not look empty.

A photo works well for the outer layer as long as its subject is in the middle. A landscape shot with the interesting part near an edge will lose that part on a phone. If you are starting from a photo, drop it into the banner resizer and drag it until the subject sits inside the dashed box.

For text, go larger than feels necessary. On a phone the whole 1546 pixel strip is shown at the width of the screen, a few hundred real pixels wide, so text that looks bold at full size shrinks to a caption. Letters around 100 pixels tall in the 2560 wide design are a sensible minimum for anything that must be read.

The usual mistakes

• Designing a wide banner shape. Making a 2560 x 423 image and uploading it leaves YouTube to stretch or reject it. Upload the full 16:9 and put the strip in the middle.
• Text in the corners. Social handles and a tagline in the corners look balanced in the design and vanish on every phone.
• Judging it at full size. The whole image on a big monitor is the one view almost nobody sees. Check it the way a phone shows it.
• A file over 6 MB. A PNG at 2560 x 1440 can be. Save a photo banner as a JPG, or compress the PNG.
• Reusing another platform’s banner. An X header is 3:1 and a LinkedIn banner 4:1, so neither fits YouTube’s 16:9 without being rebuilt around the center strip. The social media resizer makes each from one image.

Frequently asked questions

What are the dimensions of a YouTube banner?

Upload 2560 x 1440 pixels, a 16:9 image, under 6 MB. The smallest YouTube accepts is 2048 x 1152. Only the full image appears on TVs; desktops show a 2560 x 423 strip across the middle, and phones show just the center 1546 x 423.

What is the YouTube banner safe area?

The center 1546 x 423 pixels of the 2560 x 1440 banner, from 507 to 2053 across and 509 to 931 down. It is the only part every device shows, so your channel name, logo and any text must sit inside it. It is about 18% of the banner.

Why is my YouTube banner cut off on mobile?

Because a phone shows only the middle 1546 x 423 pixels, which is 60% of the banner's width and 29% of its height. Anything outside that box, including text near the edges or a logo in a corner, is cropped away on a phone. Move it into the center strip.

What size is the YouTube banner on desktop?

A desktop browser shows the full 2560 pixel width but only a 423 pixel band of the height, from 509 to 931 down. That is 29% of the banner. The sides are visible on desktop but not on a phone, so they can hold decoration but nothing that must be read.

Why is a YouTube banner 16:9 if only a strip is shown?

Because TVs show the whole thing. YouTube asks for one image that works from a TV down to a phone, and the only shape that contains all of them is the TV's. The price is that most of the image is only ever seen on a TV.

Do I need a template to make a YouTube banner?

No. A template is just a picture of the safe area. Design at 2560 x 1440, keep what matters in the center 1546 x 423, and check it before uploading. The YouTube banner resizer on this site shows the safe area over your own image and crops it to the right size.