What Fits Inside the YouTube Title Character Limit of 100 Characters

What is the YouTube title character limit?

Google sets the YouTube title character limit at 100 characters, and the YouTube Data API, the Help Center upload guide and the Shorts creation guide all give the same number. The API reference for the videos resource describes snippet.title this way: "The video's title. The property value has a maximum length of 100 characters and may contain all valid UTF-8 characters except < and >." The Help Center article on uploading videos repeats it: "Video titles have a character limit of 100 characters and cannot include invalid characters."

That agreement is rarer than it sounds. The field right below the title on the same object, the description, is capped at 5000 bytes in the API while the Help Center calls it 5,000 characters, a unit mismatch covered in the post on the YouTube description character limit. The title has no such split. One number, one unit, three official pages.

Field	Documented limit	Unit	Source
Video title	100	characters	Data API snippet.title
Video title	100	characters	Help Center, upload videos
Shorts title	100	characters	Help Center, get started with Shorts
Video description	5000	bytes	Data API snippet.description
Tag list	500	characters	Data API snippet.tags[]

Sources: the YouTube Data API v3 reference for the videos resource and the YouTube Help Center, read on 28 September 2026.

Does the title limit count characters or bytes?

The YouTube title limit counts characters, not bytes, because the API states the snippet.title ceiling in characters while it states the description ceiling in bytes. A Japanese, Hindi or Russian title gets the full 100, where the same script in a description burns through the byte budget two or three times faster.

Google does not define what "character" means for this field. The reference never says whether an emoji built from several code points, such as a skin-toned hand or a family emoji joined with zero width joiners, counts as one character or as several. The practical rule is to leave a margin when a title carries composed emoji, and to test a borderline title in a private upload before it goes into a launch schedule. Other networks do spell this out: Meta documents that Threads counts an emoji as its UTF-8 byte length, and TikTok measures its caption limit in UTF-16 runes. YouTube documents no unit rule for titles at all.

Which characters are not allowed in a YouTube title?

The Data API bans two characters in a YouTube title, the less-than sign < and the greater-than sign >, and accepts every other valid UTF-8 character. The Help Center says only that titles "cannot include invalid characters" and does not list them, so the API reference is the page that names the rule.

An upload that breaks it fails at the metadata check. The videos.insert error table lists invalidTitle under badRequest (400) with the message "The request metadata specifies an invalid or empty video title." Two facts sit in that sentence. A title with a banned character fails, and so does an empty one, which makes the title the one text field on an upload that has to hold at least one character. The message names neither the length nor the character that broke it, so check both before you resend.

Does the limit change for Shorts, live streams or translated titles?

The 100 character limit applies to Shorts, live streams and long-form uploads alike, because each of them is a YouTube video resource with the same snippet.title field. The Shorts guide says so directly for its creation flow: "From this screen, add a title (max 100 characters), and choose settings, like video privacy." Our post on how long a YouTube Short can be lists that title rule next to the Shorts duration limits.

Live streams inherit the rule through their video. The liveBroadcasts reference describes snippet.title as "The broadcast's title. Note that the broadcast represents exactly one YouTube video. You can set this field by modifying the broadcast resource or by setting the title field of the corresponding video resource." It lists no separate maximum, so the video title limit is the one in force.

Translated titles are the gap. The localizations.(key).title property is documented only as "The localized video title," with no maximum stated. Write each translation to 100 characters or fewer and you stay inside the one limit YouTube does document.

One limit, four surfaces

Long-form video100 characters, Data API snippet.title

Shorts100 characters, Help Center Shorts guide

Live stream100 characters, inherited from the broadcast's video

Translated titleNo maximum stated, keep it at 100 to be safe

Do hashtags in a title count toward the 100 characters?

Hashtags typed into a title count toward the 100 characters, because YouTube stores them as part of the title text. The Help Center tells creators to "Enter a # symbol in the title or description" to add one, and states that "Hashtags in the title and description will link to a results page featuring other videos sharing the hashtag." Every # and every letter after it spends title budget.

Hashtags placed in the description work differently. YouTube says that "Out of all the hashtags you add to the video's description, up to three hashtags that are considered most engaging will appear by your video title." Those three show up near the title without costing a single title character. The same page sets a ceiling across the whole video: "If a video or playlist has more than 60 hashtags, we'll ignore each hashtag on that content." Keep the title for words that sell the click, and move the topic hashtags into the description.

How much of a YouTube title shows before it gets cut off?

YouTube does not publish the point at which a long title is cut off in search results, on the home feed or on the watch page. The 100 character figure is the limit enforced at upload. The truncated line under a thumbnail is a layout outcome that changes with screen width, font size and the surface showing it, and neither the API reference nor the Help Center states a count for it.

Character counts for "the visible part of a title" circulate in creator guides as though Google published them. Google has not. Put the words that decide the click, the subject and the promise, at the start of the title, and let any qualifier sit at the end where a narrow screen can drop it without losing the meaning.

How do you write a title that fits the limit?

A title that fits the limit starts with the subject, holds its hashtags in the description and gets checked against the API rules before it is queued. Follow these steps for each upload:

1. Write the subject and the promise of the video in the first words of the title.
2. Count the full title, spaces and punctuation included, and keep it at 100 characters or fewer.
3. Remove any < or > character, since the API rejects both.
4. Move topic hashtags into the description, where up to three of them appear by the title for free.
5. Leave a margin when the title carries composed emoji, since YouTube does not define how they count.
6. Check that the title delivers what the video shows. YouTube's spam policy lists "Using maliciously misleading titles, thumbnails, descriptions, or imagery to trick users into clicking on a video that does not deliver what was promised" as malicious clickbait.

Titles also carry text formatting limits of their own, and YouTube's formatting rules explain what renders and what shows as literal characters.

Can you test more than one title on a video?

YouTube lets eligible channels A/B test up to three titles on a long-form video from YouTube Studio on a computer. The Help Center describes the flow as "In the Title box or under Thumbnail, click A/B Testing," then "Upload up to 3 thumbnails and/or titles to test." At the end of the test, "the title or combination of title and thumbnail with the highest watch time will be shown to all viewers."

The eligibility rules are narrow. The feature is "only available on computers through YouTube Studio," the channel needs advanced features enabled, and "A/B testing is not available for Shorts." Premieres become eligible only after they end and convert to a long-form video, and changing the title during a test stops it automatically. Each variant goes into the same Title box, so write every version to the 100 character limit.

Where AdaptlyPost fits

AdaptlyPost publishes YouTube videos through the same Data API that sets the 100 character rule, so the limit holds whether a title comes from YouTube Studio or from a scheduled upload. The YouTube video scheduler lets you upload videos and set titles, descriptions, tags, thumbnails and a publish time ahead of release. Through the YouTube video upload API, videoTitle carries a 100-character ceiling, and a videoTitle past 100 characters comes back as a 400 on the create call itself, with no post record written and nothing to retry. That means an overlong title fails before it reaches YouTube instead of failing after the video has been queued.

Frequently asked questions

What is the maximum length of a YouTube title?

A YouTube title holds up to 100 characters. The Data API, the Help Center upload guide and the Shorts creation guide all state that number. The limit is counted in characters, not bytes, so non-Latin scripts get the full 100.

Is the YouTube Shorts title limit different from a regular video?

No. The Shorts creation guide says "add a title (max 100 characters)," the same limit as a long-form upload. A Short is a video resource with the same snippet.title field, so the API enforces the same ceiling on it.

Can a YouTube title include emoji?

Yes. The API accepts every valid UTF-8 character in a title except < and >, and emoji are valid UTF-8. YouTube does not document how a composed emoji counts against the 100, so leave a few characters spare when a title carries several.

What happens if a YouTube title is too long or empty?

The API rejects the upload with an invalidTitle error under badRequest (400). The message reads "The request metadata specifies an invalid or empty video title," and it does not say which rule failed. Check the length, the banned characters and whether the field is empty.

Do hashtags in the description take up title characters?

No. Hashtags in the description cost description space, and YouTube shows up to three of them by the title without adding them to the title text. Hashtags typed into the title itself count toward the 100 characters.

How many characters of a YouTube title show in search results?

YouTube publishes no number for this. The visible part of a title depends on screen width, font size and the surface showing it, and the Help Center and API reference state no truncation point. Put the subject and the promise at the start of the title so the key words survive any cut.

Does the YouTube title character count include spaces and punctuation?

YouTube does not define what counts as a character in a title, so count every space and punctuation mark along with the letters and digits. A title that stays at 100 or fewer by that count fits the limit the API and the Help Center state.

Is there a character limit for translated YouTube titles?

The localizations.(key).title property is documented only as "The localized video title," with no maximum length stated anywhere in the API reference. Keeping each translation at 100 characters or fewer keeps it inside the one limit YouTube actually documents.

How many titles can you A/B test on a YouTube video?

Eligible channels can test up to three titles on a single long-form video through YouTube Studio's A/B testing tool, run only from a computer. The channel needs advanced features enabled, Shorts don't qualify, and changing the title mid-test stops it automatically.

What happens if a title exceeds 100 characters when scheduling through the API?

A videoTitle past 100 characters sent through the YouTube video upload API comes back as a 400 error on the create call itself. Nothing gets queued and no post record gets written, so the overlong title fails before it ever reaches YouTube instead of failing after the upload has been scheduled.