How long a YouTube video can be, if you’re verified or not

If you’re an avid YouTube viewer or creator, you probably know that video lengths can run the gambit from super short and snappy to the length of a feature film.

And when it comes to your own videos, there are some limitations on how long your videos can be.

Here’s what you need to know about those limits:

How long a YouTube video can be, depending on if you’re verified

It all depends on whether or not your YouTube account has been verified or not.

• Non-verified accounts can only upload videos up to 15 minutes long.
• Verified accounts are limited to videos that are 12 hours long, or 128 GB, “whichever is less,” according to Google.

If you aren’t sure if you’ve gone through the verification process for your account or not, go to your “ Account Features” page — if you’ve already been verified, you’ll see “Verified” beneath your channel name and the “Longer Videos” box will say “Enabled.”

If not, you’ll need to get verified to upload longer videos.

How to troubleshoot a long YouTube video upload

If you see that your channel is verified, but you aren’t able to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes, you may have a copyright claim on one of your videos, or a strike against you for violating YouTube’s community guidelines.

You’ll be able to check on those via the “Account Features” page of your channel.

If you have a video that exceeds the maximum video length, or size, there are a couple of solutions you may want to try.

For example, you could compress the video using an editing software so that it meets the maximum file size without losing quality. According to YouTube, a common method for this is encoding the video using the H.264 codec.

Or, if that isn’t an option, you might try splitting it up into two or more videos and cross linking them so that each one meets those limitations.