YouTubeBanner Maker

YouTube recommends a banner of 2560 × 1440 pixels, a 16:9 image. The smallest it accepts is 2048 × 1152, and the file must be 6 MB or less. This tool makes the full 2560 × 1440 size.

Only TVs show the whole image. Every other device shows a wide strip across the middle, and phones show the narrowest part of it. At 2560 × 1440 the areas are:

• TV: the whole 2560 × 1440 image
• Desktop: 2560 × 423, a strip across the middle
• Tablet: 1855 × 423 in the centre
• Phone and safe area: 1546 × 423 in the centre, shown on every device

Your channel name and one line that tells people what they get, like "New baking videos every Sunday". Your upload day is one of the most useful things a banner can say, because it gives people a reason to subscribe and come back.

Keep all text and logos inside the safe area in the middle. Use the space outside it for background only: colour, texture or the edges of a photo. Don't put social handles in the bottom-right corner, because YouTube places its own channel links over the banner on computers.

Choose a wide photo where the subject sits in the middle. The photo fills the whole banner and the edges are trimmed evenly, so a person at the far side of a picture may be cut off on phones.

Text on photos is hard to read, so use Darken photo to dim it a little, and keep the text white or very light. Check the On a phone preview: that's how most of your viewers will see it.

Open YouTube Studio on a computer, choose Customisation, then find Banner image and click Upload or Change. YouTube shows the device preview again before you publish, so check that your text sits inside the phone area, then click Done and Publish.