YouTube draws its own controls, titles, end-screen cards, and Shorts buttons directly on top of your video. If a face, logo, or caption sits where the player puts a button, viewers simply cannot see it. This guide overlays YouTube’s UI dead zones on a frame so you can confirm your key content stays clear before you export.
How it works
YouTube’s player chrome is positioned by percentage of the frame, not by fixed pixels, so it scales with screen size. On landscape 16:9 video the title and a top gradient occupy roughly the top 12 percent, the progress bar and controls fill the bottom 14 percent, and end-screen cards claim the upper-right corner in the final seconds. On vertical Shorts the layout rotates: a status bar runs across the top, the action rail of like and share buttons covers the right edge, and the handle plus caption overlay the lower-left.
The simulator renders a proportional frame for each view, paints the overlay regions in red, and draws a green dashed central safe zone. Anything you keep inside that green box is guaranteed to stay visible across devices.
Tips and notes
- For Shorts, shift text and key subjects toward the left and centre so the right-edge action rail never hides them.
- Plan your outro frames knowing the upper-right end-screen cards will appear — leave that corner clear of important visuals.
- Burned-in subtitles should sit above the bottom control band on landscape and above the caption block on Shorts.
- The percentages are intentionally generous; treat the red zones as do-not-cross lines rather than exact pixel boundaries.