Working with YouTube
YouTube Banner Size, and the Safe Area That Actually Matters
A YouTube banner is uploaded at 2560 x 1440 and almost none of it is seen on a phone. The part that survives every crop is 1546 x 423, and that is where the design has to live.
2 min read · Published 30 August 2026
Channel banners are the one YouTube asset where the size you upload and the size anyone sees have almost nothing to do with each other. Upload 2560 by 1440, and a visitor on a phone sees a strip out of the middle barely a sixth of that height.
This is why so many banners have the channel name sliced in half. The design was made to fill the canvas, and the canvas is not what gets shown.
The numbers
| What | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Upload size | 2560 x 1440 | What YouTube asks for |
| Safe area | 1546 x 423 | Visible on every device, centred |
| Tablet view | 1855 x 423 | Wider than the safe area |
| Desktop view | 2560 x 423 | Full width, same height |
| Maximum file size | 6 MB | JPG or PNG |
Read that table as one rule with three consequences: the height is always 423 out of 1440, and only the width changes with the screen. Everything above and below that horizontal band is decoration that most visitors never see.
The safe area is centred, so it starts 507 pixels from the top and 507 from the left of the 2560 x 1440 canvas. A design centred on the canvas is already centred in the safe area, which is the one thing that works in your favour here.
What belongs where
Inside the safe area: the channel name, the tagline if there is one, and anything a visitor needs to read. Nothing else has to be there.
Outside it: background, texture, colour that continues the design so a desktop visitor sees something deliberate rather than empty space. Treat it as an extension of the middle, not as more room.
One thing that does not belong anywhere near the edges is text you care about. A social icon, a schedule, a website address placed in a corner will be invisible to the majority of your audience, and putting it there is the single most common banner mistake.
Checking before you upload
YouTube shows a preview at upload time with the crops overlaid, and it is worth looking at properly rather than clicking through. The banner maker on this site draws the safe area on the canvas as you work, which catches the problem earlier, while the design can still move.
A quicker test with no tools at all: shrink the image on screen until it is the width of a phone. If the name is still readable and still whole, it will survive.
Common questions
What is the correct YouTube banner size?
Upload at 2560 x 1440 pixels, under 6 MB, as JPG or PNG. That is what YouTube asks for, but it is not what is displayed: the area visible on every device is the centred 1546 x 423 band, and important content has to sit inside it.
Why does my banner look cut off on mobile?
Because it is. Mobile shows only the centred 1546 x 423 safe area out of a 2560 x 1440 upload. Anything outside that band is cropped away, so a name placed near an edge disappears on phones while looking fine on the desktop where it was designed.
Can I upload a banner smaller than 2560 x 1440?
YouTube will accept a smaller image but stretches it to fill, which softens the result on large screens. Since the file limit is 6 MB and a flat design compresses well below that, there is rarely a reason not to supply the full size.
Does the safe area change on tablets?
The height does not; the width does. Tablets show roughly 1855 pixels wide and desktops the full 2560, both at the same 423 height. Designing to the narrowest, 1546, covers all three.