What is the YouTube banner size?

2560x1440 pixels, a ratio of 16:9. That upload is a widescreen file, but only the 1546x423 band through the middle is guaranteed to be on screen, so both numbers are true and they answer different questions.

What if my image is not 2560x1440?

Under 2048 pixels wide the file is refused. Above that, a wrong shape is cropped to the band YouTube wants, which costs you whatever you put near the edges.

Is my image uploaded when I check it?

No. The file is opened by your own browser, measured, and forgotten when you close the tab. It is never sent to us, so there is nothing on our side to keep, leak or delete.

Why does my YouTube banner look cropped on a phone?

Because it is. The upload is sized for a television, and every smaller screen keeps a narrower band out of the middle of it. On a phone that band is 1546x423 out of 2560x1440, which is under a fifth of the picture you sent.

Yes. This tool does its work in your browser, so whatever you type, paste or upload stays on your device. Nothing is sent to our servers, which is also why it keeps working if you go offline after the page has loaded.

Yes. Every tool here is free with no account, no credit card and no usage cap. They exist so that the people who need our scheduling product find us, which only works if the tools are genuinely useful on their own.

Do I need an account?

No. Open the page and use it. An account is only for OctoSpark itself, where you plan, schedule and publish a whole calendar rather than fixing one post at a time.

Can I use the output commercially?

Yes. Anything you produce here is yours, including for client and commercial work. We claim no rights over it and we do not watermark it.

OctoSpark

Free tool — runs in your browser

YouTube banner size

The YouTube banner size is 2560x1440 pixels, a ratio of 16:9. Check yours in the browser and see which part survives on a phone, where far less of it shows.

Every YouTube banner size

Every YouTube banner size, with its pixels, its ratio and what it is for.
Where it is used	Pixels	Ratio	What the number is for
Banner upload	2560x1440	16:9	The file YouTube asks for, and the only version a television shows nearly all of.
Safe area, shown on every device	1546x423	3.65:1	The band through the middle that a phone also keeps. Anything a viewer must see belongs here.
Tablet and laptop view	1855x423	4.39:1	A wider slice of the same band, shown on larger screens.
Channel picture	800x800	1:1	Sits over the banner on your channel page and covers part of what you designed.

Check an image you already have

Check it against

Choose an imageIt is measured on this device and never uploaded.

Choose a file and this says whether it fits, and what gets cropped if it does not.

Resize it to these pixels

Every YouTube banner size, in pixels

The banner is the one image here deliberately larger than anything most viewers see. You upload a television-sized file, and every device then keeps a different slice out of the middle of it.

Banner upload: 2560x1440px, a ratio of 16:9. The file YouTube asks for, and the only version a television shows nearly all of.
Safe area, shown on every device: 1546x423px, a ratio of 3.65:1. The band through the middle that a phone also keeps. Anything a viewer must see belongs here.
Tablet and laptop view: 1855x423px, a ratio of 4.39:1. A wider slice of the same band, shown on larger screens.
Channel picture: 800x800px, a ratio of 1:1. Sits over the banner on your channel page and covers part of what you designed.
The upload has to stay under 6 MB, which is generous, and YouTube refuses anything narrower than 2048 pixels.
The gap between the safe band and the full upload is not decoration you might get away with losing. On a phone it is simply not there.
On a phone the channel name, the subscribe row and your channel picture are all drawn over the banner rather than under it.
This is the only image on a channel that a television shows almost whole, which is the reason the upload is so much larger than the view.

Check a file you already have against the YouTube banner size

Banner uploads fail in two directions: too small and the file is refused, correctly sized and the design still loses its ends on a phone. Measuring first tells you which of the two you are walking into.

Pick the target first. This page carries 4 YouTube banner sizes, and a verdict only means something against one of them.
Choose your image. It is opened by this browser tab and measured on a canvas, so the file never leaves the machine you are sitting at and there is no queue or upload to wait for.
Read the result: an exact match at 2560x1440, the same 16:9 shape at a different scale, or a crop with the axis that loses pixels named.
If it is wrong, open the YouTube resizer linked underneath. It exports to these exact numbers instead of leaving the decision to the platform.
Once the full upload passes, check the same file against the safe band. That second verdict is what a phone viewer is actually going to see.

What YouTube does when the shape is wrong

None of the cropping here is yours to control. YouTube keeps a horizontal band out of the middle of whatever arrives and each surface decides how wide a band it wants, so an edge-to-edge design is one nobody sees whole.

A file under 2048 pixels wide is refused at upload, with an error that does not mention the minimum.
A logo or a posting schedule placed near the left or right edge is cropped away on a phone and a laptop alike, surviving only on a television.
A busy photograph becomes an unreadable band, because the crop pulls a narrow strip out of a widescreen picture and that strip is usually the middle of a sky or the middle of a face.

Treat the banner as a strip, not as a picture

The most useful thing on this page is not the upload size but the shape of the part that survives. Design to the band in the middle and treat the rest as bleed, and the banner stops being a problem you solve again every time.

Build at the full upload size with the safe band marked as a guide, so you can watch what a phone keeps while you work.
Put the words in the middle third and let the photograph run to the edges. The words then survive every crop and the photograph is what changes between devices.
A flat or dark background crops far better than a photograph, which is why so many channels use one with a single line of type over it.

The rest of the job

You just fixed one post. Now do the month.

The youtube banner size solves one piece of one post. OctoSpark plans, writes and schedules the whole calendar across every network you use, publishes it for you, and reports what actually performed.

One calendar for every network
Schedule once, publish everywhere
Drafts written in your own voice
See what actually performed

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Frequently asked questions

How this tool works, what it cannot do, and what happens to what you put into it.

What is the YouTube banner size?
2560x1440 pixels, a ratio of 16:9. That upload is a widescreen file, but only the 1546x423 band through the middle is guaranteed to be on screen, so both numbers are true and they answer different questions.
What if my image is not 2560x1440?
Under 2048 pixels wide the file is refused. Above that, a wrong shape is cropped to the band YouTube wants, which costs you whatever you put near the edges.
Is my image uploaded when I check it?
No. The file is opened by your own browser, measured, and forgotten when you close the tab. It is never sent to us, so there is nothing on our side to keep, leak or delete.
Why does my YouTube banner look cropped on a phone?
Because it is. The upload is sized for a television, and every smaller screen keeps a narrower band out of the middle of it. On a phone that band is 1546x423 out of 2560x1440, which is under a fifth of the picture you sent.
Is my data private?
Yes. This tool does its work in your browser, so whatever you type, paste or upload stays on your device. Nothing is sent to our servers, which is also why it keeps working if you go offline after the page has loaded.
Is this really free?
Yes. Every tool here is free with no account, no credit card and no usage cap. They exist so that the people who need our scheduling product find us, which only works if the tools are genuinely useful on their own.
Do I need an account?
No. Open the page and use it. An account is only for OctoSpark itself, where you plan, schedule and publish a whole calendar rather than fixing one post at a time.
Can I use the output commercially?
Yes. Anything you produce here is yours, including for client and commercial work. We claim no rights over it and we do not watermark it.