Social media video limits, network by network
Last updated October 28, 2026
Every video Postango makes, the short-form edit and the long-form edit alike, is one file, posted the same everywhere you asked it to go. Every network has its own limit on how long that file may be. A video longer than a network's limit goes to that network in parts (see below), so the shortest limit among the networks you've linked decides whether any of them needs parts. These lengths come from the documentation of the posting service Postango uses, checked against each network's own, and were last checked on October 8, 2026.
Check your own video: Will it post? reads a video's length, aspect ratio and file size in your browser and checks them against these limits, network by network. Nothing is uploaded.
The short version
Anything from 4s to 3 min long fits every network in the table, on every account. Up to 5 min fits every network too, except a TikTok account that TikTok holds to 3 min. Pinterest and Threads set the top and Pinterest the bottom. Aim inside both rather than at either: a video built to land on exactly a limit often measures a fraction over once it is encoded, and a fraction over is still over.
Postango doesn't aim for a set length. Its editor decides how long each video should be from your footage, unless you pick a length yourself, and a video that runs longer than a network allows goes to that network in labelled parts instead of failing (more on that below).
Every network
| Network | Shortest | Longest | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4s | 5 min | The only network with a meaningful MINIMUM — a 3-second video is too short for a Pin. | |
| Threads | — | 5 min | One video per post. |
| TikTok | — | 10 min | Up to ten minutes from a scheduling app, but each TikTok account has its own ceiling: every account can post 3 minutes, and only some can post 5 or 10. |
| 3s | 15 min | This is the limit for videos posted by scheduling apps like Postango. | |
| X | 0.5s | 20 min | This is the limit for videos posted by scheduling apps like Postango. X Premium accounts can post longer videos, but Postango doesn't assume your account has Premium. X's Help Center gives 140 seconds without Premium; that is for the X app. |
| 3s | 30 min | This is the limit for videos posted by scheduling apps like Postango. LinkedIn's Help Center gives 15 minutes for a video you upload yourself. | |
| 3s | 240 min | Your video goes to the Page through Facebook's ordinary video upload, not its separate Reels upload, which Postango doesn't use. Facebook says every video posted to it is now shared as a reel. | |
| YouTube | — | 15 minutes, or 12 hours from a verified channel | Postango can't see whether your channel is verified, so a longer video still goes to YouTube whole, and you're told before it posts. If the channel isn't verified, YouTube refuses it, and the failed post on your calendar says how to fix it. A video that is square or vertical and within YouTube's Shorts length becomes a Short automatically — that is YouTube's decision, made from the file, and no setting anywhere can override it. |
Bluesky is not in the table because Postango posts photos there, not video: the posting service Postango uses, which holds the sign-in for each account you link and sends each post to the network doesn't carry video to it, so a video goes there as its cover picture with a link to watch it on YouTube, and a photo post goes out as normal. Bluesky itself now takes videos up to 10 minutes and 300 MB (Bluesky, Aug 25, 2026) — it is only the route we post through that can't carry it.
Each network in more detail, with the app's rules next to the API's: the Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels and LinkedIn size guides.
Aspect ratio, file size and caption limits
A video posted by a scheduling service goes through each network's API, and the API has its own rulebook — often not the one the app on your phone follows. These are the API figures from each network's own documentation, read on October 3, 2026. Where a network publishes nothing, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Network | Aspect ratio | Largest file | Caption | Hashtags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:16 at 1080 × 1920 recommended; 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5 and 1:1 also work | Not published for ordinary video Pins | Title 100 characters; description 800 | No limit published | |
| Threads | 9:16 recommended; 0.01:1 to 10:1 accepted, up to 1,920 px wide | 1 GB | 500 characters | One topic tag per post |
| TikTok | 360 to 4,096 pixels on each side | 4 GB | 2,200 characters, hashtags and @mentions included | No separate limit; they count toward the caption |
| 9:16 recommended; 0.01:1 to 10:1 accepted, up to 1,920 px wide | 300 MB | 2,200 characters | 5 — Instagram began capping posts at five in December 2025. Its developer docs still say 30 | |
| X | Anything from 1:3 to 3:1, up to 1280 × 1024 (though the same page says Premium accounts can upload 1080p) | 8 GB without Premium, 16 GB with it | 280 characters without Premium | No limit; X recommends no more than 2 |
| 1:2.4 to 2.4:1 in LinkedIn's Help Center; its API docs give none | 75 KB to 500 MB — the same page also says 5 GB | 3,000 characters | No limit published | |
| 9:16 or 16:9 | Not published for Page videos | Not published | No limit published | |
| YouTube | Square or vertical and up to 3 minutes: a Short. Otherwise 16:9 is standard | 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less | Title 100 characters; description 5,000 bytes | More than 60 and YouTube ignores all of them |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Sources, read October 3, 2026: Pinterest: Pinterest Help: Pin specs · Threads: Meta developer docs: Threads posts, Meta developer docs: Threads overview · TikTok: TikTok developer docs: media transfer, TikTok developer docs: direct post · Instagram: Meta developer docs: Instagram media, Social Media Today on the 5-hashtag cap, Dec 18, 2025 · X: X Help Center: videos, X developer docs: media best practices (read October 8, 2026), X developer docs: counting characters, X Help Center: hashtags · LinkedIn: LinkedIn Videos API (Microsoft Learn), LinkedIn Help: share videos on LinkedIn (read October 6, 2026), LinkedIn UGC Post API: text length · Facebook: Meta developer docs: Video API reference · YouTube: YouTube Help: upload size, YouTube Help: Shorts length, YouTube Data API: videos, YouTube Help: hashtags.
What Postango sends: an MP4 file with H.264 video and AAC audio, a format every network above accepts, in the vertical 9:16 aspect ratio by default. A vertical video is 720 × 1280 on Starter, and 1080 × 1920 on Pro and Workshop. Workshop makes wide videos up to 4K; a vertical video is 1080 × 1920 at most on every plan.
What Postango does on each network
- Facebook: Posted whole up to 4 h. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 4 h or leave Facebook out. A video shorter than 3 s isn't posted there.
- Instagram: Posted whole up to 15 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 15 min or leave Instagram out. A video shorter than 3 s isn't posted there.
- YouTube: Posted whole, at any length: Postango never splits a video for YouTube. YouTube takes videos over 15 minutes only from verified channels. Postango can't see whether yours is, so the review card (Content › Needs review on the website, Content › Needs review in the app) tells you before a longer video posts, and if YouTube refuses it, the failed post on your calendar says how to fix it.
- TikTok: Posted whole up to 10 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 10 min or leave TikTok out. TikTok itself lets every account post 3 min and only some longer. Postango can't see your account's limit, so the review card warns you about a video over 3 min, and if TikTok refuses it, the post shows as failed on your calendar.
- X: Posted whole up to 20 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 20 min or leave X out. A video shorter than 0.5 s isn't posted there.
- LinkedIn: Posted whole up to 30 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 30 min or leave LinkedIn out. A video shorter than 3 s isn't posted there.
- Pinterest: Posted whole up to 5 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 5 min or leave Pinterest out. A video shorter than 4 s isn't posted there.
- Threads: Posted whole up to 5 min. A longer video is split into parts there, labelled “Part 1 of 2” and so on, unless you choose on the review card to cut it to 5 min or leave Threads out.
- Bluesky: Bluesky gets your video's cover picture and a link to watch it on YouTube. The Bluesky post goes out once your YouTube video is live, so the link works. If the video isn't going to YouTube, Bluesky gets it at its own time, without the link.
If a network refuses a post, it shows as failed on your calendar with the reason. Posting never uses a video: each video is counted once, when it is made.
Making a longer video on purpose
A proper long-form cut is a reasonable thing to want, and YouTube takes one in a single post: 15 minutes, or 12 hours from a verified channel. Postango can't see whether your channel is verified, so a video over 15 minutes still goes to YouTube whole, and the review card and the calendar tell you before it posts. If the channel isn't verified, YouTube refuses it, and the failed post on your calendar says: “YouTube refused this video for its length: it takes videos over 15 minutes only from verified channels. Verify yours at youtube.com/verify, then Reschedule this post.” Posting never uses a video, so a refused post costs nothing more.
A network that will not take the whole thing in one post gets it in parts instead: the video is split into as many posts as that network's limit needs, each one goes out on its own posting day in order, and each is labelled “Part 2 of 3” in its title and caption. Nothing is thrown away, and nothing is quietly skipped. Posting it in parts doesn't use more videos. Each part takes one of your posting days, so the next video goes out on the next free day.
So a 15-minute video reaches Pinterest and Threads as three posts, TikTok as two, and every other network as one. Instagram's limit is exactly 15 minutes, so a video more than half a second over goes there in two parts. On TikTok, each part can still be refused by an account that TikTok holds to less than the part's length; every account can post 3 min. The same video, all of it, everywhere you post. Every part fades in and out, so a part that starts partway through reads as an episode rather than a broken upload.
You see this before it happens. The review card (Content › Needs review on the website, Content › Needs review in the app) names each network that needs splitting and how many posts it will take, and you can override it there: cut the video down to the limit and post the front of it once, or skip that network for this video. The calendar then shows every part, on the day it goes out, and you can move or cancel any one of them without touching the rest.
YouTube Shorts happens by itself
YouTube decides whether your upload is a Short or a normal video by looking at the file: square or taller, and 3 minutes or shorter, makes it a Short. There is no setting for this — not in Postango, not in the tools we post through, and not in YouTube's own upload API. The only thing that changes the outcome is the aspect ratio and length of the video itself.
In practice: a normal vertical Postango video posted to YouTube becomes a Short. If you want a video on the main YouTube watch page instead, it needs to be wider than square, or longer than three minutes.
When these change
Often. YouTube extended Shorts from 60 seconds to 3 minutes in late 2024, and the networks rarely announce these changes anywhere a customer would see them. We re-check the platforms' own documentation and update this page and its dates when something moves. If you hit a limit that disagrees with what is written here, tell us — that is the fastest way we find out.
Plan limits — how many videos a month, file sizes, how long we keep things — are on the fair use page, and what each plan costs is on the pricing page.
Free trial: 2 videos in total, each a small 72-pixel preview, so you can judge the edit; it's too small to post. Trial videos are never posted to your social media accounts, and extra clips are made on paid plans. No card needed. One trial per email address. After that, plans start at $99 a month. Plans · Fair-use policy