Dual CameraTikTok, Reels and Shorts Video Size: Dimensions, Ratio and Limits
Size, aspect ratio, resolution and length limits for TikTok, Reels and Shorts, taken from each platform's own rules, plus the one frame that fits all three.
Updated
Search tiktok video size and you get a wall of numbers for three platforms that, at the level that matters, all want the same thing. So here is the one frame that fits all of them, then the limits that actually differ, taken from each platform’s own pages rather than from each other.
The one frame that fits all three
1080 by 1920 pixels, portrait. Aspect ratio 9:16.
That is a phone held upright recording at 1080p. It fills the screen edge to edge on TikTok, Reels and Shorts without cropping or black bars, and it is the frame every one of them recommends. If you film in it and keep the important parts out of the corners, you do not need to re-export anything for any platform.
The limits, platform by platform
| TikTok | Instagram Reels | YouTube Shorts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended size | 1080 × 1920 | 1080 × 1920 | 1080 × 1920 |
| Ratio | 9:16 recommended, 16:9 and 1:1 accepted | 1.91:1 through 9:16 accepted | Square or vertical; 9:16 best |
| Minimum resolution | 540 × 960 | 720 pixels | Not stated |
| Maximum resolution | Not stated | Not stated | 1080p |
| Maximum length | 10 minutes (specification) | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| File size | 500 MB (specification) | 4 GB (specification) | Not stated |
| Frame rate | Not stated | Minimum 30 fps | Not stated |
Two things about that table.
“Not stated” means the platform does not publish a number, not that there is no limit. Where a figure comes from the platform’s advertising specification rather than a page about ordinary uploads, the table says so; the upload path is the same, and in practice these are the numbers the apps enforce.
The three-minute lines are recent. YouTube moved Shorts to three minutes for uploads from 15 October 2024, and made the rule about shape rather than length: anything square or vertical and under three minutes is a Short, anything 16:9 stays a long-form video. Instagram raised Reels to three minutes in January 2025.
TikTok
TikTok’s video specification recommends 9:16 at a minimum of 540 by 960, accepts 16:9 and 1:1, and caps uploads at 10 minutes and 500 MB in .mp4 or .mov, at a bitrate of at least 516 kbps. Those are its advertising figures; TikTok publishes no separate numbers for ordinary uploads, and the upload path is the same.
A 1080 by 1920 clip clears all of it. The one thing TikTok does that the others do not is fill the screen on phones with a taller or shorter display than 9:16, which trims a little off the top and bottom. Keep essentials away from both edges.
Instagram Reels
Instagram’s own size page is the most permissive on ratio, accepting anything from 1.91:1 landscape to 9:16 portrait, and the strictest on frame rate: a minimum of 30 fps and a minimum resolution of 720 pixels. A landscape reel is accepted, then shown letterboxed in a vertical feed, which is why 9:16 is still the answer. The cover image is 420 by 654, a 1:1.55 ratio, which is not 9:16; if you set a custom cover, expect it cropped.
Reels run to three minutes. Instagram’s ad specification allows 4 GB per file and MP4 or MOV, which is far more than a three-minute 1080p clip needs.
YouTube Shorts
YouTube is the only one of the three that states a resolution ceiling: Shorts upload at a maximum of 1080p. Square and vertical are both accepted, but YouTube’s own guidance is that 9:16 vertical is best suited to the format. Three minutes is the hard line, and it is what makes a video a Short in the first place.
Shorts also crops differently depending on the viewer’s device and whether the description is expanded, so its safe zone is the tightest of the three: keep essentials inside the middle three-quarters of the height.
Where the interface covers your video
Size gets your video accepted. The safe zone decides whether anyone can see it. All three apps draw their own controls over the frame in the same three places:
- Top: the tabs and search, roughly the top 6 to 8% of the frame.
- Right edge: the action buttons, a column about 14% of the width, from the middle of the frame down.
- Bottom: username, caption and sound, the bottom fifth, and a quarter on Shorts, where the title and Subscribe button sit higher.
What survives is the middle of the frame, slightly left of centre. The safe zone checker overlays the exact regions for each platform on your own frame, or gives you a transparent 1080 by 1920 template PNG to drop into your editor, and its “All platforms” view shows the union of all three, which is the one to frame for if a clip is going everywhere.
Why 1080p and not 4K
Every one of these platforms re-encodes what you upload down to its own streaming sizes, and YouTube will not take more than 1080p for a Short at all. A 4K upload is four times the pixels and roughly three times the file for a difference that does not survive the feed. It also runs the phone hotter, which matters on a long take and matters twice as much if you are recording both cameras at once.
Record at 1080p, 30 fps, in portrait. If a clip has already been shot at 4K and is over a limit, export it smaller at 1080p rather than letting the app do it on the way up.
If it is a dual camera clip
A dual camera video is a normal 1080 by 1920 file with two views composited into it, so every number on this page applies unchanged. What changes is where the views land: a picture-in-picture inset sitting in the bottom-right corner is exactly where every one of these apps puts its buttons. Put the inset upper-left, or use a split that keeps both views through the middle of the frame. The TikTok and Shorts setup pages each commit to one layout that stays out of the interface.