The Real YouTube Title Length Limit (It's Not 100 Characters)

YouTube's title field accepts up to 100 characters, and plenty of creators write titles that use most of that space. The problem is that almost nowhere on the platform actually displays 100 characters of a title before cutting it off.

Where the truncation actually happens

Desktop search results and suggested-video panels generally show somewhere around 60 to 70 characters before adding an ellipsis. Mobile screens, where most watch time happens, often show even less — sometimes closer to 40 characters in a suggested-video thumbnail row.

What this means for how you write titles

Front-load the part of the title that explains what the video actually is. If your title is a question, a number, and a promise ("How I Edited This in 10 Minutes"), make sure the core of that idea lands within the first 60 characters — anything after that is a bonus some viewers will see and others won't.

A useful habit: write your title, then read only the first 60 characters back to yourself. If that fragment alone still makes sense and sounds compelling, the full title will perform fine regardless of where it gets cut.