YouTube Banner Size: 2560 × 1440 and the 1546 × 423 Safe Area
YouTube banner size is 2560 × 1440, but only the central 1546 × 423 safe area shows everywhere. Here is what stays visible on TV, desktop, tablet and mobile.
Channel banners are the most over-designed piece of real estate on YouTube. Hours go into a beautiful 2560 × 1440 canvas, and a phone visitor sees a thin strip through the middle of it. Knowing the visible areas before you design removes almost all of the pain.
What is the YouTube channel banner size?
Upload at 2560 × 1440 pixels (16:9), under 6 MB, in JPG, PNG, GIF or BMP. Only the central 1546 × 423 pixels is guaranteed to be visible on every device — that block is the safe area. Everything outside it may be cropped.
Channel art visible area on every device
| Surface | Visible area | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| TV app | up to 2560 × 1440 | the full canvas, edge to edge |
| Desktop web | 2560 × 423 | a wide horizontal strip |
| Tablet | about 1855 × 423 | a centre strip |
| Mobile | 1546 × 423 | the narrow centre strip |
The 1546 × 423 safe area explained
The safe area is the intersection of every crop. Centre your channel name, tagline, upload schedule and social handles inside that 1546 × 423 block and they survive on phones, tablets, desktop and TV. Put them near the top or bottom of the canvas and they disappear on mobile and get clipped on television.
That is the whole trick: message in the middle, texture everywhere else.
What belongs in each zone
- Centre (1546 × 423): channel name, tagline, upload schedule, short social handles.
- Upper and lower bands: background artwork, gradients, patterns, large decorative shapes.
- Corners: nothing. They are the first thing lost on every crop.
Social handles belong in the centre
Placing social icons at the far left or far right of the banner is a widespread habit and usually a mistake, because the outer thirds are exactly what gets cropped. Put them inside the centre block, keep them short, and leave gaps: on a 1546 px wide strip, three short handles read cleanly where six turn into noise.
Banner file size and formats
Six megabytes is the ceiling, and it is generous. A photographic background exported as JPG at 90% quality lands around 1–3 MB; flat graphics and type are better as PNG. Export in sRGB. As with thumbnails, pixel dimensions matter and the DPI setting does nothing at all on screen.
TV app versus desktop versus mobile
The TV app is the only surface that shows the full 1440 px height, which is why broadcast-style designs look enormous there and thin everywhere else. A useful test: preview the banner at 1546 × 423 and at 2560 × 1440. If the design only works at full height, it is a television graphic, not a channel banner.
Set up the guides before you design
- Export at exactly 2560 × 1440 px so YouTube does not scale or crop it.
- Switch between the mobile, tablet and TV guides in the banner maker and confirm the message survives in all three.
- Check the same design in a 2560 × 423 strip.
- Upload under Customization → Branding in YouTube Studio.
- Open your own channel on a phone. That single check catches more problems than any guide.
Banner checklist
- 2560 × 1440 px, 16:9, under 6 MB
- All text and logos inside the central 1546 × 423 px
- Nothing important in the corners
- Handles short enough to read on a phone
- Contrast that survives a strip 423 px tall
Related reading: profile picture size and thumbnail dimensions.
