First of all, a few YouTube Facts that will give you a good insight into this platform.
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. According to Statista one billion hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day. YouTube has 2.1 billion active users globally. Around 500 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute, i.e., 30,000 hours of videos every hour and 7,20,000 hours of video every day. Now you can imagine the amount of content available on YouTube. YouTube was started in 2005. These are some important facts about YouTube.
In the last few years, the use of YouTube has increased significantly both by the creators and viewers. It is estimated that by 2025 around 3 billion people will use YouTube. That means around 38% of the world population will be using YouTube in the next three-four years.
One of the most asked questions regarding YouTube is how to upload longer videos. Let’s discuss that.
Enabling Longer Videos in YouTube
By default, YouTube allows video uploads that are up to 15 minutes long. If you try to upload videos longer than 15 minutes, the upload will fail. This is a YouTube limitation.
To upload longer videos to YouTube, you need to verify your account with YouTube:
- Open the YouTube upload page at https://www.youtube.com/upload.
- Click the Increase your limit link at the bottom of the page.
- Note: If you can’t find the Increase your limit link, it’s possible that you may already be able to upload long videos. Check the Longer videos section in your YouTube Account Features page to check if the feature has already been enabled.
- Follow the steps to verify your account with a mobile phone.
- When you receive a text message from YouTube in response, enter the verification code from the text message and click Submit.
YouTube will then confirm when your YouTube account has been activated for longer uploads. From this point, any videos longer than 15 minutes in your Video Cloud account will be synced to YouTube.
How to Verify Your YouTube Account on an Android or iOS Device?
To verify your Google Account:
- Open the YouTube mobile app.
- Tap Create ⊕ at the bottom of the screen and then select Upload a video.
- Tap Record or select a video longer than 15 minutes.
- Choose your video’s title, description, and settings, then tap NEXT.
- Follow the steps to verify your Google Account. You can choose to get a verification code through a text message on a mobile device or an automated voice call.
Maximum Upload Size
The maximum file size you can upload is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. YouTube has recently changed the limits on uploads, so you may see older videos that are longer than 12 hours. But now you can only upload videos for up to 12 hours. That means you can upload 6 videos of 2 hours each or 24 videos of 30 minutes each. But, the total size of all your videos in one day should not exceed 256 GB in total.
Source: Google.com
How to Upload Videos Larger than 256 GB in Size?
If your video is larger than 256 GB, try compressing your video in video editing software before uploading it to YouTube. Compressing will reduce your video file size while maintaining the video quality. One common way to compress a video for YouTube is to encode it using the H.264 codec.
However, the average viewing duration of the videos on youtube is 8 minutes or around 50% of the video length.
YouTube Live
But, there is no limit on the YouTube live. With YouTube live you can keep streaming your video for as long as you want. It could exceed the 12 hours duration limit and 256 GB per day cap.
You can check out these important topics that will help you make the best out of YouTube.
Video Marketing – How to Do it Right?
How to Make SEO Friendly Videos
Summary
Though there are many more interesting YouTube facts and figures. But, here we have discussed a few ones that are asked most by the people. I hope this post helps you understand the YouTube upload limits that have changed recently.