YouTube Announces Longer 3-Minute Duration for Shorts, Templates and More Features

On Thursday, the company announced it’s rolling out videos up to three minutes in length, combined with templates, the mixing of YouTube videos directly to Shorts, a video-generation model powered by artificial intelligence, and new ways to discover trending content on YouTube. According to the video-streaming platform, these additions will give creators more tools to express themselves better.

YouTube Shorts Gets New Features

YouTube said in a blog post it’s raising the length of Shorts to three minutes, effective October 15. In reality, the new limit only applies to videos shot vertically, or with higher aspect ratios, and existing shorts are left completely unaffected. The company says this is a “top requested feature” by creators.

The content created will be familiar and easily able to keep up with what is trending as a template feature added in order to allow them to match the clips to trending sounds and then customize further. Shorts can be remade by tapping Remix next to Shorts, select Use this template. YouTube will also start rolling out the ability to access its videos in the Shorts camera during the next few months, which the company says makes creating remixes easier. Creators who make Shorts content can also pull clips directly from YouTube videos to use them in their content.

The video-streaming platform further reinforces that it will release Google DeepMind’s Veo video generation AI model in the coming months, which will bring more video backgrounds and standalone clips. YouTube says it makes it easier for viewers to catch up with the latest trends with a new Shorts trends page on mobile. Comments will also be previewed in Shorts feed so that creators get a sneak peek at what people are saying.

But if you don’t want Shorts to appear, that’s okay; you can select the Show fewer Shorts option.