YouTube Shorts are Getting Longer

The maximum length of a YouTube Short is expanding from 1 minute to 3 minutes! Vertical or square videos up to 3 minutes long will be shown in the Shorts feed.

The longer Shorts (should we call them Bermudas?) cannot contain copyrighted music or visuals (like TV or movie clips) or have a copyright claim. YouTube does offer free music you can use in the Audio Library in YouTube Studio.

Note that the Shorts editor in the YouTube mobile app is still limited to 1 minute videos, but will be updated in the future. You can use your favorite editor like CapCut (which is what I used).

This change goes into effect on October 15. It will not affect videos uploaded before October 15.

Monetization of Longer Shorts

If your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, the longer Shorts will be eligible for Shorts ad revenue sharing.

If your channel is not yet monetized, the Shorts views will count towards eligibility.

For the expanded YouTube Partner Program for Fan Funding (Memberships, Merch, and “Supers”) the Shorts eligibility requirement is all three of these:

• 500 Subscribers
• At least 3 valid uploads in the past 90 days
• At least 3 million valid Shorts views in the past 90 days

For ad revenue sharing, the requirement is to have both:

• 1000 Subscribers
• At least 10 million valid Shorts views in the past 90 days

Note that if your channel is eligible for monetization through video watch time (which does not include watch time from Shorts), you will still be able to earn revenue from your Shorts as well.

Get Licensed Music in the YouTube Audio Library

Your longer Shorts cannot have a copyright claim. That means you cannot use most commercial music, or include clips of TV shows or movies.

If your video does have a copyright claim, you may be able to edit out the claimed segment or replace the claimed song.

You can find free, licensed music in the YouTube Audio Library.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio on desktop.

2. Click the music note icon on the left menu.
Or you can go directly to studio.youtube.com/channel/UC/music

3. The Audio Library will open, and you can select music by genre, mood, artist or duration.

Note that some tracks with the CC icon require attribution in the video description. 

If your channel is in the Creator Music (Beta), scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click the “Go Back to Audio Library” link.

The music from the Audio Library can be downloaded and incorporated into your video using your favorite video editor (other than the YouTube mobile Shorts editor).

Learn More

Announcement: Tall updates coming to Shorts. Also coming to Shorts: templates, easier to Remix clips, Veo AI-powered backgrounds and clips, Shorts Trends page, comment preview in the Shorts feed.

 
Related: I recently hosted the OnEBoardChat discussion about mobile video editing and short videos. Check it out!