YouTube Title, Description & Tags Checker
Counts, previews and YouTube’s rules for your title, description, tags and hashtags.
Your video details
Checks the last chapter and fills the duration badge.
Checks
Type a title, a description or tags.
| Starts | Chapter | Length |
|---|
Where your title is cut
At the sizes measured on YouTube; views and age are sample text. Fonts and screens differ, so a word either way is possible.
Test thumbnails in the same layouts with the YouTube Thumbnail Preview.
About the YouTube Title, Description & Tags Checker
Paste your video’s title, description and tags and see them measured against YouTube’s limits — 100 characters for the title, 5,000 for the description and 500 for all the tags together, counted the way YouTube documents it: the commas count, and a tag with a space counts two extra for the quotation marks YouTube adds. The checker flags the < and > characters YouTube does not accept, tags used twice, and descriptions that fit Studio’s 5,000 characters but not the 5,000 bytes that upload apps are allowed.
It also checks hashtags (YouTube ignores all of them on a video with more than 60, and shows up to three by the title) and the chapter timestamps in your description (00:00 first, at least three, ten seconds each). Previews show your title in YouTube’s home grid, search results, the suggested videos beside the player and the mobile feed, at the sizes measured on YouTube, with the point where the title is cut. A description template gives you a start: summary, chapters, links, credits and hashtags.
How to use it
- Type or paste the title, the description and the tags (separated by commas, as in YouTube Studio).
- Read the checks: red ones stop YouTube saving or using something, amber ones are worth fixing, and the others are notes.
- Look at the previews to see where the title is cut in each place, and rewrite so the important words come first.
- Optional: type the video length to check the last chapter, and your channel name for the previews.
- Use Insert template for a description outline, Remove repeats to tidy the tags, and Copy or Download when you are done.
Examples
Tags: Foo-Baz, Foo Baz
17 of 500 characters
Foo-Baz is 7, the comma 1, and Foo Baz 9 — its 7 letters plus 2 for the quotation marks YouTube puts around a tag with a space. This is the example in YouTube’s Data API documentation.
Top 10 tips <2026 edition>
Characters YouTube rejects: 1 × < and 1 × >
“Replace < >” swaps them for the look-alike ‹ and ›, which are allowed.
0:05 Intro 0:20 Setup 0:40 Demo
Chapters: the first one starts at 0:05
YouTube needs the first timestamp at 00:00.
Common uses
- Checking a title, description and tags before you upload or schedule a video.
- Fixing “invalid characters” or “tags too long” errors in YouTube Studio.
- Writing a title whose key words still show when it is cut on phones and in the sidebar.
- Cleaning up hashtags and chapter timestamps in an older video’s description.
YouTube’s limits and rules
- Title: up to 100 characters, and no invalid characters (YouTube Help: Edit video settings); the YouTube Data API names them: a title “may contain all valid UTF-8 characters except < and >” (Data API: Videos).
- Description: up to 5,000 characters in YouTube Studio, also without < and >. The Data API, which scheduling and upload apps use, allows 5,000 bytes — fewer characters for emoji and most non-Latin scripts (an accented letter is 2 bytes, a Devanagari letter 3, most emoji 4).
- Tags: 500 characters for the whole list. The commas count, and a tag with a space is counted as if it had quotation marks around it, so
Foo Bazis 9. - Hashtags: up to three of the description’s hashtags, the ones YouTube considers most engaging, appear by the title; “if a video or playlist has more than 60 hashtags, we’ll ignore each hashtag on that content”, and hashtags contain no spaces (YouTube Help: hashtags).
- Chapters: the first timestamp is 00:00, there are at least three in ascending order, and every chapter is at least 10 seconds long (YouTube Help: Video chapters).
How the previews are made
The cards copy YouTube’s layouts at the sizes measured on its website: titles of 16 px on two lines in the home grid (a 420-pixel thumbnail), 18 px on two lines in search results (500 pixels, with two lines of description), 14 px on two lines beside the player (207 pixels — the smallest size seen; it varies with the window) and 14 px on two lines on the mobile site at 360 pixels wide. Your browser lays the text out, so where it is cut is close to YouTube but can differ by a word: YouTube uses the Roboto font, and devices without it use Arial. Under each card the tool shows the part of the title that fits.
In search results YouTube shows up to two lines from the description, so the preview shows its start: put the most important words first.
Writing titles and descriptions that work
- Put the words people search for, and the reason to click, in the first 40 or so characters — that is about what fits on two lines in the narrowest place.
- Use the description’s first line as a summary: it is what search results and the collapsed description show first.
- YouTube says tags play a minimal role in discovery and help mainly with words that are often misspelled; the title, thumbnail and description matter more (YouTube Help: Add tags).
- Hashtags must be about the video: YouTube can remove videos with misleading or unrelated hashtags, and adding excessive tags to a description is against its spam policies.
Limitations
- Characters are counted as you see them (an emoji with a skin tone is one, a Hindi syllable such as स्ते is one). YouTube does not document how it counts, so the checker also counts letter by letter — every vowel sign and virama separately, emoji as 2 or more — and warns when the text fits only the first way.
- The previews are close but not pixel-exact: fonts, YouTube’s layout tests and the viewer’s screen change where a title is cut.
- Which three hashtags appear by the title is YouTube’s choice; the tool lists the candidates.
- The checks cover YouTube’s published rules, not its spam and Community Guidelines policies as a whole.
Privacy
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a YouTube title be?
100 characters. YouTube cuts long titles to two lines in most places, so in the narrowest layouts only about the first 40 characters show — the previews show exactly where.
Why does YouTube say my tags are too long when they are under 500 letters?
Because the commas count, and every tag with a space counts 2 more for quotation marks. “beach day, travel” is 9 + 2 + 1 + 6 = 18 characters, not 15. The tag list here marks the tag that goes over.
Why does the checker warn about my Hindi (or emoji) title when it is under 100?
A syllable such as स्ते is one character as you see it but four Unicode characters (स, ्, त and े), and an emoji can count as 2 or more. YouTube does not document which way it counts its 100, 5,000 and 500 limits, so the checker counts both: when the text fits only as you see it, it warns and says how much to shorten to be sure. This matters most for Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and other Indian scripts, where the letter-by-letter count is often a third to a half higher.
Why does YouTube say my title has invalid characters?
Titles and descriptions cannot contain < or >. Remove them, or press Replace < > to use the look-alike ‹ and ›.
How many hashtags can I use on YouTube?
Up to 60: with more, YouTube ignores all of them. Up to three of your description’s hashtags appear by the title. Fewer, relevant hashtags work better than many.
Why are my chapters not showing?
Check the chapters line in the results: the first timestamp must be 00:00, there must be at least three in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. YouTube also says chapters may not be available for channels with active strikes. The YouTube Chapters Generator can fix and shift timestamps for you.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
No. Everything is checked in your browser and the page works offline once it has loaded.