You export a TikTok, upload it, and something is off: black bars down the sides, the hook text hiding behind the like button, TikTok's own caption sitting on top of your subtitles, or a crisp 1080p file that comes out soft and blocky. TikTok has changed its limits more often than any other short-form platform — the upload cap alone has gone from 15 seconds to 30 minutes, with hour-long uploads on many accounts — so most of the size charts still ranking on Google quote numbers from two or three updates ago.
The TikTok video size in 2026 is 1080 x 1920 pixels, a 9:16 vertical aspect ratio, exported as an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio. Square 1:1 and landscape 16:9 files are accepted but play with bars. Videos recorded in the app run up to 10 minutes; uploads can be far longer — TikTok raised the cap in stages to 30 and then 60 minutes for many accounts — and while clips of a second or two will post, 3 seconds is the practical floor and 15 to 60 seconds remains the sweet spot for the For You feed. Keep essential text inside the safe zone, clear of the right-side icon stack and the bottom caption area.
This guide lists every spec, explains what viewers see when you upload the wrong ratio, covers the length rules and the one-minute Creator Rewards rule, gives pixel numbers for the safe zone, cover, captions, Photo Mode carousels, and music, compares TikTok with Reels and Shorts, and ends with how to produce compliant TikToks at volume — by hand, with free tools, or with an automated engine like Vidpal.
What are the exact TikTok video specs?
TikTok's recommended spec is 1080 x 1920 pixels at 9:16, MP4 or MOV, H.264 with AAC audio, 30 frames per second, with a maximum length that depends on whether you record in the app or upload a file. TikTok spreads its numbers across the help center and the in-feed ad specs; each item below notes the source and flags anything TikTok has not published as a hard rule.
Recommended size: 1080 x 1920 pixels, 9:16 vertical. Fills the phone screen with no bars.
Minimum resolution: 720 x 1280 on the web uploader; the ad specs accept vertical video down to 540 x 960. Anything under 1080 x 1920 is upscaled and looks soft.
Aspect ratios: 9:16 (recommended), 1:1 square (ad minimum 640 x 640), and 16:9 landscape (ad minimum 960 x 540). Non-vertical files play inside the 9:16 frame with empty space around them.
Length, recorded in the app: up to 10 minutes, the cap TikTok introduced in 2022.
Length, uploaded: up to 60 minutes for many accounts and 30 minutes for the rest. TikTok's web-upload help text has quoted 30 minutes, so your upload screen is the final word.
Minimum length: no published floor. Clips of a second or two will post, but plan on 3 seconds or more; the ad specs require at least 5.
File types: MP4 and MOV in the app; MP4 and WebM on the web uploader; the ad specs also accept MPEG, 3GP, and AVI.
File size: roughly 287.6 MB per upload on iOS and 72 MB on Android in the app — limits the app enforces but TikTok has not widely documented. The web uploader accepts far larger files (TikTok's help text has quoted under 10 GB), and ads cap at 500 MB.
Bitrate: the ad specs set a floor of 516 kbps for auction ads and 2,500 kbps for reservation ads; 8 to 12 Mbps is the practical range for organic 1080 x 1920 video.
Description: TikTok's Content Posting API lists 2,200 characters for video captions and 4,000 for photo-post descriptions, and the in-app composer has been widely reported to allow 4,000 since 2023 — it shows a live counter, so trust that — and only the first line or two show before the “more” link.
Photo Mode posts: up to 35 images per post, each 1080 x 1920, with a sound underneath.
Which TikTok aspect ratio should you use: 9:16, 1:1, or 16:9?
Use 9:16 for everything you post organically on TikTok. The feed is a full-screen vertical surface, a 9:16 file is the only shape that fills it, and every other ratio is shown inside that frame with black or blurred space that TikTok's interface then draws over. Our guide to video aspect ratios covers every platform.
A 1:1 square is pillarboxed: on a 1080 x 1920 canvas it occupies the middle 1080 x 1080 — 56 percent of the height — with about 420 pixels of empty space above and below. That is acceptable for repurposed square ad creative, and the square lands inside the safe zone by default, but you are giving away 44 percent of the screen.
A 16:9 landscape file is letterboxed and small: at 1080 pixels wide it renders about 608 pixels tall, under a third of the frame, and it reads as a repost. Reframe wide footage instead — resize the video to 9:16 with a subject-aware crop, or stack the clip over a caption block or B-roll so the whole canvas is used.
How long can a TikTok video be?
A TikTok can be up to 10 minutes long if you record it in the app, and up to 60 minutes if you upload a file to an account with the expanded limit; other accounts top out at 30 minutes. TikTok moved uploads from 10 to 30 minutes in January 2024 and — as Social Media Today reported — began testing 60-minute uploads that May, a limit many accounts now report having even though TikTok's help center still lists 30 minutes for uploads. There is no published minimum; a one-second clip will upload, but TikTok's ad specs require 5 seconds and very short videos read as low quality, so 3 seconds is the practical floor.
Length should follow the goal, not the limit: 15 to 45 seconds for reach on the For You feed, where completion rate is the signal; 45 to 90 seconds for a story or tutorial with a payoff; and 3 to 10 minutes for the podcast-clip and long-explainer formats, as long as the first 3 seconds earn the rest. Our guide to the ideal video length for every platform has the retention data behind each range.
The one-minute rule overrides all of that if you want to be paid. TikTok's Creator Rewards Program — launched in March 2024 to replace the Creator Fund — rewards only original videos at least one minute long, from personal accounts with 10,000 followers, 100,000 views in the previous 30 days, and a creator aged 18 or over, with each video earning after 1,000 qualified For You views, per the program's help page. A 59-second video with five million views earns nothing, so make monetizable videos 61 seconds or longer and keep sub-minute clips for growth; our guide on how to make money on TikTok in 2026 covers the split.
What resolution, frame rate, and bitrate should you export for TikTok?
Export at 1080 x 1920, 30 frames per second, H.264 in an MP4 container, at roughly 8 to 12 Mbps with AAC audio at 128 kbps or better. TikTok re-encodes every upload, so the goal is a clean source, not a huge one: there is no benefit to 4K vertical, though footage shot at 4K and downscaled cleanly to 1080 x 1920 does look sharper than 1080 footage re-encoded twice.
Match the frame rate to the source and keep it constant; 60 fps only earns its doubled file size for dance, sport, and gameplay, and variable-frame-rate screen recordings are the most common cause of audio drifting out of sync with captions after upload.
Bitrate is where creators lose the most quality. TikTok's ad floor of 516 kbps looks blocky the moment the camera moves; 8 to 12 Mbps at 30 fps and 12 to 16 Mbps at 60 fps is the practical range, and anything past about 20 Mbps is data TikTok throws away. In the app, turn on the high-quality upload option in the post screen if your account offers it.
What are TikTok's file size limits and supported formats?
TikTok's file size limit depends on where you upload from: about 287.6 MB per video on iOS and 72 MB on Android through the app, and far more through the TikTok Studio uploader on the desktop web, where TikTok's help text has quoted under 10 GB. Ads are capped at 500 MB. Formats are MP4 and MOV in the app and MP4 and WebM on the web; H.264 with AAC audio is the pairing that never causes trouble.
The Android limit is the one that bites: a 60-second 1080 x 1920 clip at 10 Mbps is about 75 MB, already over it. Drop to 6 to 8 Mbps for clips under a minute, run the file through a free video compressor that hits a target size without changing resolution — our guide on how to compress a video covers the settings — or upload long videos from the web. And never re-upload a file another platform has already compressed; two rounds of lossy encoding show.
Where is the TikTok safe zone?
The TikTok safe zone is the central part of the 1080 x 1920 frame that the app's interface never covers: keep essential text and faces about 140 pixels in from the right edge, 480 pixels up from the bottom, 150 pixels down from the top, and 60 pixels in from the left. That leaves a safe area of roughly 880 x 1,290 pixels — avoid the right 13 percent, the bottom 25 percent, and the top 8 percent of the frame.
Each margin maps to something TikTok draws: the right column holds the avatar, like, comment, bookmark, and share buttons and the sound disc; the bottom band holds your username, description, sound title, and navigation bar; the top strip holds the Following and For You tabs and search. The bottom band grows with a longer description — TikTok's own ad guidance says the safe zone depends on “the ad caption length and any interactive add-on usage” — and phone ratios shift the overlays slightly, so the numbers include margin.
Put captions in the lower-middle, baseline around 1,250 to 1,400 pixels from the top — clear of the description but under a face. Hook text goes in the upper-middle, 300 to 600 pixels down; logos in the upper-left, the one corner nothing overlaps. TikTok's ads help center provides downloadable safe zone templates you can drop into your editor as a guide layer; set them up once and every export inherits them.
How do you choose a TikTok cover or thumbnail?
A TikTok cover is a frame from the video, chosen on the post screen, with optional cover text over it. It shows in your profile grid, search results, and discovery surfaces, so it does more work for a faceless account than the first frame does.
The profile grid crops covers to roughly 3:4 from the middle of the 9:16 frame — about 240 pixels disappear top and bottom — and the view count overlays the bottom-left corner. Keep cover text in the central 1080 x 1080, two to five words at 100 pixels or larger, in the same font and position on every video so the grid reads as a series; our guide on how to start a faceless TikTok account in 2026 covers cover systems. And the cover is not the hook: the feed shows the first frame, so design both.
How should captions and on-screen text be sized for TikTok?
Burned-in captions should be 60 to 90 pixels tall on a 1080 x 1920 canvas, in a heavy sans-serif with an outline or background, in the lower-middle of the frame, one or two lines at a time with no more than five or six words per line. Hooks and headlines run 100 to 140 pixels, and nothing the viewer needs should drop under about 48 pixels, where text stops being legible on a phone.
TikTok's auto-captions are generated at upload in a viewer-controllable layer with a fixed style; burned-in captions are part of the video, so you control font, timing, and placement, and most creators do both. Our guide on how to add captions on TikTok walks through each, and the free auto caption generator produces word-timed captions you can style and burn in.
Font choice decides whether captions survive compression: heavy, geometric sans-serifs hold up, thin and script fonts fall apart. Keep contrast high and any word-highlight color consistent across the account. Our roundup of the best fonts for subtitles ranks the options that still read after TikTok's re-encode.
What are the TikTok photo carousel (Photo Mode) specs?
TikTok Photo Mode posts — the swipeable image carousels — take up to 35 images per post, the limit TikTok sets in its Content Posting API documentation, and each image should be 1080 x 1920 at 9:16 so it fills the screen, saved as JPG or PNG. Photo posts get the same interface overlays as video, so the same safe zone applies to every slide.
Other ratios display centered with a blurred fill, but only 9:16 owns the screen, and mixed ratios look messy as viewers swipe. Build every slide on the same canvas, treat slide one as a cover with a big headline, and aim for five to ten strong slides rather than 35 thin ones. Photo Mode posts are not eligible for Creator Rewards under the program's current rules. If you also post to Instagram, its feed carousels are 4:5 — see our Instagram carousel size guide — so keep essential text inside the central 1080 x 1350 block and one set of slides crops to both.
What are TikTok's audio and music rules?
Personal accounts on TikTok can use the full Sounds library, including licensed commercial music; Business accounts see only the Commercial Music Library — more than a million tracks pre-cleared for commercial use — and cannot add mainstream chart music to posts. TikTok's commercial use of music help page explains the split: the licenses that cover personal entertainment do not extend to promotional content.
If you run a brand, a shop, or a client account, pick from the Commercial Music Library or upload your own licensed track and complete TikTok's Music Usage Confirmation at posting. Personal accounts posting sponsored content are held to the same rules, and unlicensed music gets muted. Faceless accounts built on AI voiceover sidestep the problem entirely — a generated voice is your own audio. Our guide to copyright rules for short-form video in 2026 covers music, clips, and AI audio across platforms.
TikTok vs Instagram Reels vs YouTube Shorts: how do the specs compare?
All three platforms want the same 1080 x 1920, 9:16 master, so one correctly exported vertical video works everywhere; the differences are in length caps, cover crops, and where the interface sits.
TikTok: 1080 x 1920 at 9:16; 10 minutes recorded in the app, 30 to 60 minutes uploaded; safe zone clear of the right 140 and bottom 480 pixels; cover cropped to roughly 3:4 in the grid; rewards only on videos at least a minute long.
Instagram Reels: 1080 x 1920 at 9:16; up to 3 minutes since Instagram raised the cap in January 2025; a portrait (roughly 3:4) cover crop in the profile grid, so cover text belongs in the central 1080 x 1350; a similar icon column and caption area. Our Instagram Reels size guide has the full list.
YouTube Shorts: 1080 x 1920 at 9:16 (square is allowed); up to 3 minutes since October 2024, and a longer upload becomes a regular video; title and channel name at the bottom, icon column on the right, roughly where TikTok puts them. Our YouTube Shorts length and size guide covers what counts as a Short.
Which platform to prioritize is strategy — see YouTube Shorts vs TikTok vs Reels. The spec answer: render once at 1080 x 1920 with captions in the lower-middle and nothing in the right column or bottom quarter, and the file is compliant on all three.
TikTok video specs at a glance
Size: 1080 x 1920 pixels, 9:16 vertical.
Aspect ratios accepted: 9:16 (recommended), 1:1 and 16:9 (shown with bars).
Minimum resolution: 720 x 1280 on the web uploader, 540 x 960 in the ad specs; export at 1080 x 1920 regardless.
Length: up to 10 minutes recorded in the app; up to 60 minutes uploaded for many accounts, 30 minutes for the rest.
Minimum length: no published floor; 3 seconds practical, 5 seconds for ads.
Sweet spot: 15 to 60 seconds for reach; at least 61 seconds for Creator Rewards eligibility.
Formats: MP4 or MOV (app), MP4 or WebM (web); H.264 video, AAC audio.
File size: about 287.6 MB (iOS) and 72 MB (Android) in the app; up to about 10 GB on the web uploader; 500 MB for ads.
Frame rate and bitrate: 30 fps standard, 60 fps for fast motion; 8 to 12 Mbps at 30 fps, 12 to 16 Mbps at 60 fps; ad minimum 516 kbps.
Safe zone: keep essential content 140 px from the right, 480 px from the bottom, 150 px from the top, and 60 px from the left of a 1080 x 1920 frame.
Photo Mode: up to 35 images, 1080 x 1920 each, JPG or PNG, same safe zone as video.
Music: full library for personal accounts; Commercial Music Library only for Business accounts.
Common TikTok video size mistakes
Uploading landscape. A 16:9 file fills under a third of the screen and reads as a repost. Reframe to 9:16 — the free crop video tool lets you set the crop region by hand when the subject is off-center.
Captions in the bottom quarter. Subtitles at the very bottom of the frame sit behind the description, the sound title, and the navigation bar. Lift them to 1,250 to 1,400 pixels from the top.
Stopping at 59 seconds when you want rewards. One second short of a minute earns nothing from the Creator Rewards Program regardless of views. Cut to 61 seconds or more, or accept the clip is for growth.
Chart music on a Business account. The track will not be offered, and a workaround upload risks a mute. Use the Commercial Music Library or your own licensed audio.
How do you produce compliant TikToks at scale?
The fast way to stay inside every TikTok spec is to stop deciding them per video: build one 1080 x 1920 project template with safe-zone guides and a saved 30 fps, 10 Mbps, H.264 export preset, then pour each new video into it — by hand, with free tools for the conversions, or with an automated engine.
Manually, CapCut, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut all support a 1080 x 1920 sequence with guides. For the recurring conversions, our free browser tools output files that already meet the specs above: resize a video to 9:16, crop to reframe a subject, compress a file over the app limit, trim to a target length, and generate captions with word-level timing.
With automation, the specs stop being something you check. Vidpal researches trending topics in your niche, writes the script in your brand voice, generates the voiceover, pulls visuals and B-roll, burns in word-level captions inside the safe zone, renders at 1080 x 1920, and auto-publishes to TikTok and five other platforms on a schedule, with a review queue if you want to approve each post. It is built for faceless, high-cadence accounts rather than bespoke editing, but for an account that needs a compliant TikTok every day it removes the export checklist. Our guide on how to go viral on TikTok in 2026 covers what to do with that volume.
Frequently Asked Questions
What size should a TikTok video be? A TikTok video should be 1080 x 1920 pixels at a 9:16 vertical aspect ratio, exported as an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio at 30 frames per second. That fills the whole phone screen with no bars. Square 1:1 and landscape 16:9 videos are accepted but display with empty space around them.
How long can a TikTok be in 2026? Up to 10 minutes if you record in the app, and up to 60 minutes if you upload a file to an account with the expanded limit TikTok began rolling out in 2024; other accounts top out at 30 minutes. Three seconds is the practical minimum, and 15 to 60 seconds is still the sweet spot for the For You feed.
What is the TikTok safe zone? The central area of the 1080 x 1920 frame that TikTok's interface does not cover: keep essential text and faces about 140 pixels in from the right edge (the icon column), 480 pixels up from the bottom (username, description, sound title, navigation bar), 150 pixels down from the top, and 60 pixels in from the left.
What is the TikTok file size limit? Inside the app, roughly 287.6 MB per video on iOS and 72 MB on Android. Uploading from the desktop web through TikTok Studio allows far larger files — TikTok's help text has cited under 10 GB — and ads are capped at 500 MB.
Can you post a 16:9 or square video on TikTok? Yes, both upload and play, but they do not fill the screen. A square video sits in the middle of the frame with empty bands above and below, and a landscape video fills under a third of the height. For organic reach, reframe the footage to 9:16 before posting.
How many photos can you put in a TikTok carousel? Up to 35 images in a single Photo Mode post. Each image should be 1080 x 1920 pixels at 9:16, saved as JPG or PNG, with essential text kept out of the right 140 and bottom 480 pixels. Most high-performing carousels use five to ten slides rather than the full 35.
Do TikTok videos need to be over one minute to make money? For the Creator Rewards Program, yes — only original videos at least one minute long from eligible personal accounts (10,000 followers, 100,000 views in the last 30 days, age 18 or over) earn rewards, starting after 1,000 qualified views. Shorter videos can still earn through brand deals, TikTok Shop, LIVE gifts, and traffic to your own products.
Export once at 1080 x 1920 and stop thinking about specs
Render at 1080 x 1920, 30 fps, H.264 at 8 to 12 Mbps; keep captions and headlines out of the right 140 and bottom 480 pixels; use 15 to 60 seconds for reach and 61 seconds or more when rewards matter; keep cover text in the middle; and pick music from the library your account type allows. That settles the size question — the remaining variable is publishing videos that meet all of it every day.
That is the part Vidpal automates. On a schedule you set, it researches trending topics in your niche, writes a script in your brand voice, generates an AI voiceover, pulls visuals and B-roll, burns in word-level animated captions inside the safe zone, renders the 9:16 video at 1080 x 1920, and auto-publishes it to TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Pinterest, and X, with a review queue and an analytics feedback loop that learns which lengths your audience finishes. There is a free plan to start with; see pricing for paid tiers, browse the use cases for your niche, and use the free tools for resizing, cropping, compressing, and captioning.
