How many characters fit in a video title before it is cut off?

Roughly 60–70 Latin characters on desktop, 55–70 on mobile and 40–50 in sidebar lists, over two lines. It depends on letter widths, so measure the rendered text.

What is the maximum title length?

Upload forms usually accept up to 100 characters, but much less is shown in feeds. Treat the first 40–60 characters as the part everyone sees.

Why is my title cut off on mobile but not on desktop?

The title box on a phone is narrower and the font is relatively larger, so fewer characters fit on each line.

Do capital letters make titles longer?

Yes. All caps takes about 25–30% more width than sentence case, so an all-caps title is cut much earlier.

How many Chinese or Japanese characters fit?

About half as many as Latin characters: roughly 28–36 on desktop and mobile, and 20–25 in a sidebar list.

Should I put keywords at the start of the title?

Put the most important words—the hook and the main keyword—at the start, because that part is visible on every layout.

Video Title Length & Truncation by Device: Pixel Widths Explained

Quick answer

Feeds cut titles by pixel width, not by character count. Most layouts show two lines and then add an ellipsis, so on desktop roughly 60–70 Latin characters fit, on mobile about 55–70, and in narrow sidebar lists as few as 40–50. Wide letters such as W and M use more room than i and l, and capital letters take about 20–30% more space. Put the hook in the first 40 characters and check every layout before publishing.

2Lines before the cut

pxMeasured in pixels, not characters

4Layouts checked

How truncation really works

Web and app layouts give the title a box of fixed width and a maximum number of lines. The text is laid out word by word; when it runs past the last line, the rest is hidden and an ellipsis (…) is drawn. On the web this is done with CSS properties such as text-overflow and line-clamp, which work on rendered width, not on how many characters you typed.

The upload form may accept up to 100 characters, but that is a storage limit, not a display limit. What viewers see depends on the font, the font size, the width of the card on their screen and the language of the title.

“The text-overflow CSS property sets how hidden overflow content is signaled to users. It can be clipped, display an ellipsis ('…'), or display a custom string.”
text-overflow — MDN Web Docs

How much fits in each layout

The numbers below are approximations measured on common layouts with a typical sans-serif interface font. They move with screen width and zoom, so treat them as ranges. The important pattern is that the sidebar fits far less than the main grid.

Layout	Title box width	Lines shown	Approx. Latin characters	Approx. CJK characters
Desktop grid	~310–360 px	2	60–70	30–36
Mobile feed	~300–340 px	2	55–70	28–34
Search results	~500–600 px	2	90–110	45–55
Sidebar / up next	~200–230 px	2	40–50	20–25
TV interface	~380 px at 10-foot size	2	45–55	22–28

Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters are roughly square and about twice as wide as an average Latin letter, so half as many fit. German and Dutch titles tend to have long compound words that wrap early and leave short first lines.

Why characters are the wrong unit

In a proportional font, every letter has a different width. A capital W can be three times as wide as a lowercase i. A title in all caps can take 25% more room than the same words in sentence case, and numbers are usually set at the same width for every digit, which is wider than average letters.

Here is a simple illustration with the same 30-character count: “Illicit little lilies in Lille” is narrow, while “WWW MAKEOVER: MOM’S NEW HOME” is wide. The first fits easily in a sidebar line; the second may wrap after 18 characters. That is why ThumbProof measures each title with the real font rendering instead of counting characters.

Title style	Relative width	Example
Sentence case	100%	I tried every thumbnail trick
Title Case	~104%	I Tried Every Thumbnail Trick
ALL CAPS	~125–130%	I TRIED EVERY THUMBNAIL TRICK
Many digits	~110%	2026 vs 2016: 10 years later

Writing titles that survive the cut

Front-load the hook. Viewers scan from the left, and on narrow layouts the second half may never be shown. Put the outcome, the number or the twist in the first 40 characters, and use the rest for detail that is nice to have.

Cut filler words such as “in this video”, “how I” or the channel name at the start. Avoid ending the visible part on a weak word. If the ellipsis falls in the middle of the key phrase, rewrite so the phrase ends before the cut on every layout, not just on desktop.

Hook in the first 40 characters
No channel name at the start
Sentence case for long titles
Check the sidebar, not just desktop

Check title truncation in four steps

01
Write two or three title options
Draft a long and a short version of the same idea, with the hook in a different position.
02
Paste them into the tool
Each version slot has its own title field, so you can test titles and images together.
03
Read the truncation meter
The meter shows where each layout cuts the title, measured in pixels for desktop, mobile, search and sidebar.
04
Move the hook forward
If the key phrase is cut on any layout, rewrite until it fits before the ellipsis everywhere.

Titles in other languages and scripts

If you publish in several languages, check each translation separately. German, Dutch and Finnish compound words cannot break in the middle, so a single long word can push the whole line down and leave the first line half empty. French and Spanish titles are often 15–25% longer than the English original, which moves the hook past the cut.

Chinese, Japanese and Korean titles break between almost any two characters, so they fill lines evenly, but each character is wide. A 30-character Chinese title already fills two lines in a sidebar. Mixed titles that combine CJK characters with Latin words and numbers need extra care, because the Latin parts are narrower and the line break can land inside a brand or model name.

Language	Typical length vs English	Watch out for
German / Dutch	+10–30%	Long compound words that cannot wrap
French / Spanish / Italian / Portuguese	+15–25%	Articles and prepositions pushing the hook back
Japanese / Chinese / Korean	−40–50% characters, but wide glyphs	Breaks inside Latin product names

Titles and thumbnails as a pair

The title and the image are read together. If the thumbnail already shows “10 MIN”, the title does not need to start with “10-Minute”; it can name the dish or the method instead. This also saves width. A good test is to cover the thumbnail and read only the visible part of the title, then do the opposite. Each should make sense alone and add something to the other.

Accessibility and search snippets

The full title is still read by screen readers and shown in full on the watch page, in search engines and in link previews, so the hidden part is not wasted. Use it for context that helps people decide, such as the episode number, the model name or the year. Just make sure the visible part can stand on its own.

Search results pages show more of the title than feeds, often 90 characters or more, and may bold the words that match the query. That makes a clear keyword near the start useful twice: it is visible in narrow feeds and it is easy to spot in search.

A pre-publish title checklist

Before you publish, read the title the way a viewer will: only the visible part, in the narrowest layout, next to the thumbnail. If that fragment still tells people what they get, the title works. If it ends on a weak word, a half-finished number or a cut brand name, rewrite.

Then check the full title for search: does it contain the words people would type to find this video, in natural language? Does it match what the first minute of the video delivers? A title that over-promises may win the first click but loses viewers early, which hurts the video more than a modest, accurate title.

Check	Pass
Hook within the first 40 characters	Yes
Visible fragment makes sense on the sidebar	Yes
No channel name or filler at the start	Yes
At most one word in capitals	Yes
Main keyword in natural wording	Yes
Promise matches the first minute of the video	Yes

Worked example: moving the hook forward

Original title: “The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Cooking Restaurant-Quality Ramen at Home in Ten Minutes” (88 characters). On desktop the cut falls after “at H…”, and in the sidebar after “Restaurant-…”. The interesting part—ten minutes—is never shown.

Rewrite: “10-Minute Ramen That Beats Takeout” (34 characters). It fits on one line on desktop and mobile and on two lines in the sidebar, and the number pairs with the image.

Layout	Original: visible part	Rewrite: visible part
Desktop	…Ramen at H…	Full title
Mobile	…Restaurant-Quality…	Full title
Sidebar	The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Cooking Restaurant-…	Full title

Common title truncation mistakes

Counting characters

Character counts ignore letter widths and fonts. Measure rendered width instead.

Hook at the end

The last third of a long title is often hidden on mobile and in sidebars.

Long all-caps titles

Capitals are wide and harder to scan. Use them for one word at most.

Channel name first

It uses scarce width and is already shown under the title.

Testing on one device

A title that fits on your desktop can be cut in half in the sidebar.

Repeating the thumbnail text

Doubling the same words wastes width the title needs.

Title Truncation by Device: Pixel Widths, Not Character Counts