YouTube title length checker

What this tool does

It shows you where a YouTube title is cut off, and it tells you whether the words that matter are still visible. You type a title, and the tool draws it the way YouTube does on five surfaces: the mobile home feed, the desktop home grid, the suggested sidebar next to a video, desktop search and the TV app. On each one it marks the exact point where the text stops and the rest is hidden.

You need it when you are choosing between title ideas, or when a title you like is long. A viewer decides on the part they can read. If the hook or the keyword sits after the cut, most of them never see it. What to put in the part they do see is the subject of the titles module of our free course.

Why it measures pixels and does not count characters

YouTube does not cut a title after a set number of characters. It gives the title a box of a certain width, allows two or three lines, and replaces whatever does not fit with an ellipsis. How many characters fit depends on which characters they are. A capital W is about four times as wide as a lowercase i. Twenty capital W's and twenty lowercase i's are the same count and nowhere near the same width.

That is why other title checkers quote different numbers (50, 60, 70 characters) and none of them cites a source: a character count can only be an average. This tool sets your title in the same font (Roboto, which YouTube uses on the web), at the font size and box width we measured on YouTube's own pages, and asks the browser where the text breaks. The cut follows the browser's own rule: the text stops at the last word that fits on the final line, with room left for the ellipsis.

How to use it

1. Type or paste your title. You get a live count against the 100-character limit and five previews with the cut marked.
2. Add the key phrase. These are the few words a viewer must read for the title to work. You get a flag if they land after the cut on any surface, or later than the first 40 characters.
3. Add the thumbnail text (optional). You get a flag when the title only repeats the words already written on the thumbnail.
4. Paste more candidates, one per line. You get a table with the length, the visible characters per surface and the flags for each title. Sort it by any column.
5. Pick the window size. Switch between a 1280 px laptop window and a 1920 px monitor to see how the desktop surfaces change.
6. Copy the winner or share the set. The share link reopens the same titles for someone else.

The facts this tool is built on

Fact	Go deeper on this site	Source
A YouTube video title can be at most 100 characters and may not contain the characters < or >.	Title formats that keep working	YouTube Data API reference, videos resource, snippet.title. Checked October 2026.
YouTube tells creators that "viewers may only see part of your title", and to keep it short with the most important words near the beginning.	The title is a promise	YouTube Help, Thumbnail and title tips. Checked October 2026.
YouTube advises creators to "limit ALL CAPS and emoji" in titles.	Curiosity without clickbait	YouTube Help, Thumbnail and title tips. Checked October 2026.
YouTube advises creators to "save episode numbers and branding for the end" of the title.	Title formats that keep working	YouTube Help, Thumbnail and title tips. Checked October 2026.
YouTube does not publish the number of characters or pixels at which a title is cut on any surface.	Test the title before you publish	We found no figure in YouTube Help or the API reference. Checked October 2026.

The widths we measured

These are our own measurements, not YouTube figures. We opened each YouTube page signed out in Chrome on 4 October 2026 and read the title element's width, font size, weight and line limit from the page itself. Treat them as approximations: YouTube changes its layout without notice, and the box gets wider or narrower with your window, your device, your text-size setting and your language.

Surface	Title box	Text	Lines
Mobile home: m.youtube.com home feed in a 390 px wide phone viewport	322 px	16 px Roboto medium	2
Desktop home: youtube.com home grid in a 1280 px wide window (3 columns)	332 px	16 px Roboto medium	2
Suggested sidebar: watch page "up next" column in a 1280 px wide window	148 px	14 px Roboto medium	3
Desktop search: youtube.com search results in a 1280 px wide window	596 px	18 px Roboto regular	2
TV home: youtube.com/tv home shelf tile at 1920 x 1080	528 px	36 px Roboto bold	2
Desktop home: youtube.com home grid in a 1920 px wide window (3 columns)	489 px	16 px Roboto medium	2
Suggested sidebar: watch page "up next" column in a 1920 px wide window	208 px	14 px Roboto medium	3
Desktop search: youtube.com search results in a 1920 px wide window	686 px	18 px Roboto regular	2
Mobile search and "up next": m.youtube.com in a 390 px wide phone viewport (not previewed above)	278 px	14 px Roboto regular	2

Three things to know about these numbers. The mobile row is the mobile website in a phone-sized window, because the iPhone and Android apps cannot be inspected from a browser. The apps look close to it, but they are not identical. The TV preview is drawn at half size so it fits on your screen, which does not change where the text breaks. And the mobile search list is left out of the previews because its box and font shrink together, so it cuts at nearly the same place as the mobile home feed.

A worked example

Take the title Restoring a Rusty 1972 Honda CB350 Barn Find in My Garage for Only $900 | Garage Hours. It is 86 characters, so it is inside the 100-character limit and a character counter would call it fine.

Measured for a 1280 px laptop window in Chrome, desktop search shows all 86 characters, the desktop home grid and the mobile home feed each show 80, the suggested sidebar shows 61 and the TV tile shows 57. The key phrase "$900" ends at character 71. So in the sidebar and on TV, the two places where the next video gets chosen, the viewer reads "Restoring a Rusty 1972 Honda CB350 Barn Find in My Garage" and never learns the price, which was the whole hook. The tail "| Garage Hours" costs 15 characters and repeats the channel name that YouTube prints under the title anyway.

The second candidate, $900 Honda CB350 Restoration: Rusty Barn Find to First Ride, is 59 characters. It is shown in full on all five surfaces, and the key phrase is the first thing anyone reads. Same video, same facts, and the price is now visible everywhere.

The third candidate shows what capitals cost. RESTORING A 1972 HONDA CB350 FROM A BARN FIND TO A RUNNING BIKE is only 63 characters, shorter than the first title, yet the sidebar cuts it at 50 and the TV at 48. And the extreme case: a row of 60 capital W's is cut after 31 characters on the TV tile, while 60 lowercase i's fit on every surface with room to spare. Same count, different width.

What the checks mean

• Cut on N of 5. The title does not fit on that many surfaces. This is normal for long titles and only a problem when the hidden part matters.
• Key phrase. Whether the words you marked are hidden on any surface, and whether they finish inside the first 40 characters. The 40 is our rule of thumb, not a YouTube number: it is about one line of the mobile home feed, so a phrase that ends before it is on the first line nearly everywhere.
• Capitals. The share of letters in capitals. Capitals are wider and are cut sooner.
• Tail. A short segment after a pipe or dash, or hashtags at the end, and what it costs in characters.
• Repeats. A meaningful word used twice.
• Number and emoji. Whether there is a number, and how many emoji. These are notes, not verdicts.
• Thumbnail. Whether the title only repeats the thumbnail text. The course lesson Titles and thumbnails are one unit explains why that wastes one of the two.

There is no score out of 100 on this page, on purpose. Nobody outside YouTube can turn a title into a number that predicts clicks, and a score would only be our opinion dressed up as a measurement. You get what was found and why it matters, and you decide.

What this tool does not do

• It does not tell you whether the title is a good idea. A title can fit everywhere and still promise nothing. For that, read The title is a promise and Curiosity without clickbait, then run the three checks in Test the title before you publish.
• It does not write titles for you. If you want shapes to start from, see Title formats that keep working.
• It does not reproduce the iPhone, Android or smart TV apps pixel for pixel, and it does not know your viewers' text-size settings. Non-Latin scripts and emoji are drawn with your device's own fonts, so their width here can differ from another device.
• It does not look at the thumbnail image. To see your thumbnail at the sizes YouTube shows it, use the thumbnail preview tool.
• It does not predict click-through rate. The Vanpelt Studio desktop app goes further by drafting and critiquing title and thumbnail pairs against your actual video, but even that is judgment, not a forecast.