How to use it
- Drop a frame A screenshot of your short, or the video itself.
- Pick the app Shorts, TikTok, Reels, or all three at once.
- Move what’s covered Keep faces, captions and text inside the green box.
What a safe zone is
On a phone, a short never plays alone: the app lays its own buttons, your name, the caption and the sound over it. Anything under them, a face, a caption, a price, is hard to see. The safe zone is the part of the frame those things don’t reach.
The right side holds the like, comment and share buttons. The bottom holds your name, the caption and the sound, and it’s the part people look at most. So the most common mistake is putting captions too low.
The numbers, app by app
On a 1080 × 1920 short, leave about this much room (approximate, with a small margin):
| App | Top | Bottom | Left | Right |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube Shorts | 150 px | 430 px | 48 px | 192 px |
| TikTok | 160 px | 480 px | 60 px | 150 px |
| Instagram Reels | 220 px | 450 px | 65 px | 140 px |
To be safe on all three with one video, keep the important parts inside a box of 823 × 1220 px, starting 65 px from the left and 220 px from the top.
Where to put things
- Faces in the upper-middle of the frame, not at the very top.
- Captions about two-thirds of the way down: above the name and caption text of the app.
- Nothing important on the right edge, where the buttons are.
- Titles and on-screen hooks below the app’s top bar.
More on caption size and style in captions for shorts, and every size in the short video size guide.
Free · Tool Vertical video converter Video still wide? Make it 9:16 first, free, in your browser.