YouTube descriptions hold 5,000 characters and titles 100 — but search results show ~60 characters of a title and ~157 of a description. Count each field below against its real limit and its visible window.
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| Field | Limit |
|---|---|
| Video title | 100 charactersSearch results typically display ~60–70 on desktop, ~50–60 on mobile. |
| Video description | 5,000 charactersAbout the first 157 characters show under the player before “Show more”. |
| Tags | 500 characters combinedAcross all tags; individual tags max ~30 characters. |
| Channel description | ~1,000 characters |
| Hashtags | first 3 shown above the titleYouTube ignores all hashtags on videos that use an excessive number (its docs have cited a 60-hashtag threshold). |
| Comment | ~10,000 characters |
Guide
YouTube enforces a hard 100-character cap on video titles, but search results and suggested-video rails truncate around 60–70 characters on desktop and 50–60 on mobile. A title that buries its subject in the back half gets clipped exactly where it matters.
The working pattern: searchable topic first, curiosity or specificity second — “Sourdough for beginners: the 3 mistakes that flatten your loaf” survives truncation; the reverse order does not. Use the Title field above to check both the hard limit and whether your first ~60 characters stand alone.
Descriptions allow 5,000 characters, and the smart ones are written in three zones. Zone one is the ~157 characters shown under the player (and often used as the search snippet) — a tight summary with your main keyword. Zone two, after “Show more”, carries chapters, links, and resources. Zone three is supporting context that helps YouTube understand the video: related phrasing, equipment, credits.
Note that YouTube measures some fields in ways that can differ slightly from plain character counts for special characters, so treat 5,000 as a budget, not a target — most strong descriptions use 200–800 characters.
The tag field caps at 500 characters combined, and YouTube has said for years that tags play a minor role versus titles and descriptions — useful mainly for commonly misspelled names. Hashtags typed into the description behave differently: the first three appear above the video title as links, and YouTube’s docs warn that using an excessive number (a 60-hashtag threshold has been cited) gets all of them ignored.
Shorts share the same metadata fields, with the title doing most of the work in the Shorts feed. If you publish Shorts alongside TikTok and Reels, SocialKit fills each platform’s title and caption fields from one composer — with each limit, including this 100-character title, validated before anything uploads.
5,000 characters. Only about the first 157 appear under the player before the “Show more” fold, so put the summary and main keyword right at the start.
100 characters maximum, with roughly 60–70 displayed in desktop search results and 50–60 on mobile before truncation. Front-load the searchable topic.
Tags share a combined 500-character field. Hashtags go in the description — the first 3 display above the title, and YouTube ignores all hashtags on videos that use an excessive number of them.
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SocialKit shows every network’s character limit while you write, so one draft fits all 11 platforms — scheduled from a single calendar.
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