YouTube applies different length rules to Shorts, standard uploads, mid-roll ad eligibility, and unverified accounts, and a video can silently land in the wrong format. This checker takes your duration and tells you exactly which formats it qualifies for and which it misses.
How it works
Each YouTube format has a duration rule expressed in seconds. The tool converts your entered minutes and seconds into total seconds, then evaluates it against each rule:
Shorts: duration <= 180 s (3 min) and vertical/square
Unverified upload: duration <= 900 s (15 min)
Verified upload: duration <= 43200 s (12 h)
Mid-roll ads: duration >= 480 s (8 min)For each format it reports qualifies or not, and where you miss it shows the gap in seconds so you know how much to trim or extend. The mid-roll rule is a minimum, while the upload and Shorts rules are maximums.
Example
A 7-minute 30-second video is 450 seconds. It is over the 180-second Shorts maximum so it is a standard video, comfortably under both upload limits, but 30 seconds short of the 480-second mid-roll threshold. Adding 31 seconds would unlock mid-roll ad placements.
Tips and notes
- Keep Shorts at 180 seconds or under and vertical, or YouTube treats them as standard videos.
- Cross 8 minutes (480 seconds) to unlock mid-roll ads on monetised channels.
- Verify your account to lift the 15-minute upload cap to 12 hours.