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Best Video Size for YouTube Shorts

Last updated: September 21, 2026

A practical guide to the best video size for YouTube Shorts — vertical 9:16 — plus how to export a sharp Short from photos using Diya's Free and Premium tiers.

Published 2026-09-21 · Updated 2026-10-25

6 min read

The best video size for YouTube Shorts is a vertical 9:16 frame, tall rather than wide, so the video fills a phone screen edge to edge. Every video made in Diya is already built in this shape, so there is nothing to set up before you add your photos.

Why does YouTube Shorts need a vertical video size?

Shorts plays full-screen on a phone, one video after another, the same way other short-video feeds do. If you upload a square or widescreen video, it usually gets cropped to fit or shown with space around it, and you lose control over what the viewer actually sees on screen.

Starting with a vertical video means your photos fill the screen the way you planned, with nothing important cut off at the top, bottom or sides. Think of a family photo from a festival or a wedding — if the diya in the corner or the groom's face at the edge of the frame gets sliced off by a square crop, the whole photo loses its point. A 9:16 video avoids that from the start.

What resolution should you export at for Shorts?

Once the shape is right, resolution decides how sharp the picture looks on a phone screen. In Diya, your first 2 videos are free, and after that you get 1 free video every day, saved in 720p with a small "Diya" mark and a short "Made with Diya" end card. Premium — Lifetime, Monthly or Annual — removes both, and saves your video in 1080p, or 4K if you're on Android.

720p is perfectly watchable and is fine for a quick video you're sharing in the moment and don't mind the mark on. If you want the video to look crisp when a friend watches it full-screen, or if it's a wedding invitation or a big anniversary video you want to keep looking sharp for years, 1080p or 4K is the better choice.

How do you turn your photos into a Shorts-ready video in Diya?

Diya works straight from the photos already on your phone, so there is nothing to upload and nothing to convert first. Pick a small set of photos that tells one clear story — an outing, a celebration, or a few favourite shots from one event — rather than your whole gallery.

1. Open Diya and pick a template that matches your occasion or mood.
2. Add your photos and put them in the order you want them to play.
3. Type a wish or a name if the template asks for one — Diya can turn a typed name into glowing name art.
4. Keep the template's song, choose one from Diya's free music library, or use your own song from your phone.
5. Turn on beat-sync so the photos change with the music, or use lyrics mode so the words show one line at a time.
6. Preview the whole video on your phone, then save it.

Diya builds the video on your phone in about 3 minutes, and your photos are never uploaded anywhere while it's working. The finished file is already 9:16, ready to post as a Short, or anywhere else you'd normally share a vertical video.

Which Diya templates work well for a Shorts-style video?

If your photos are from a festival, a wedding or a birthday, Diya's ready-made templates do most of the work for you. There are festival status templates for Diwali, Chhath, Bhai Dooj, Holi, Eid and Navratri, so you're not starting from a blank screen a day or two before the occasion.

For a wedding, a wedding invitation template can carry an RSVP link, so guests can reply straight from the video you send them. Diya's festival calendar reminds you before each occasion arrives, which helps when you want to get a video out well ahead of the day rather than at the last minute. And the whole app works in 11 languages, so you can build and read the templates in the language your family is most comfortable with.

What if your photos aren't already vertical?

Most phone photos are landscape or square, not tall, so this comes up with almost every set of photos you pick. When a wider photo sits inside a vertical frame, whatever sits at the far left or right edge of the original photo is the part most likely to be lost.

Before you add a big batch of photos, look through them for the ones where the main subject — a face, a diya, a cake, the couple together — sits roughly in the middle of the frame rather than off to one side. If a photo is mostly background with the subject small and pushed to an edge, it usually works better left out of a vertical video altogether.

Does a 9:16 video work for other apps too?

Yes — vertical 9:16 is also the shape used for WhatsApp Status and for Instagram, so a video you build this way for a Short doubles as a video you can post to those as well, without rebuilding anything. If you want a closer look at getting this shape right every time, this guide on vertical video shape covers the same setup in more detail, and if you haven't paired photos with music before, this walkthrough on making a video from photos with music is a good place to start. If you're making your video on an Android phone and want the basics of pulling photos out of your gallery first, this guide to turning photos into a video on Android covers that step.

What should you check before you share your Short?

Watch the whole preview once, start to finish, before you save anything. A few small things are worth checking every time:

• The frame fills the screen edge to edge, with nothing important cut off
• No single photo looks awkwardly cropped or off-centre
• Any wish or name art is easy to read against the photo behind it
• The music doesn't cut off abruptly right as the video ends

Diya has no ads, on Free or Premium, so nothing interrupts the preview or the finished video either way. Once you're happy with it, save the video — on Free that's 720p with the small "Diya" mark and end card, on Premium it's 1080p, or 4K on Android, with neither.

Once you've made one video this way, the next one is quicker, since you'll already know which template and song you reach for. Browse more photo video guides on the blog, or head to the Diya home page to get started on your next one.

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