To check a YouTube Shorts title, paste it into the checker and read the count: YouTube takes up to 100 characters. Add your main keyword to see whether it sits in the first 40 characters. The checklist also flags all caps, repeated punctuation, more than two emoji and extra spaces. It is a checklist, not a score.
Paste a title and read it two ways: its length against YouTube’s limit, and a short checklist that says what passes and what to look at again.
What you get
A count against the 100-character limit and a seven-item checklist
What comes out:
- The count. Characters as you see them, against YouTube’s limit of 100, with what is left or how far over you are.
- Your keyword’s place. Add a main keyword and see whether it sits in the first 40 characters, where a reader meets it first.
- The form checks. All caps, repeated punctuation such as “!!”, more than two emoji and extra spaces, each with one line on what to change.
- A checklist, not a score. Each item passes or asks for a second look. There is no grade and no forecast.
Only the length limit is YouTube’s own rule. The other checks are our suggestions for a title that reads cleanly; they are not YouTube ranking rules, and passing them is no promise of views.
How to use it
How to check a Shorts title: three steps
Paste your title
Type or paste the title of your Short. The count against YouTube’s 100-character limit updates as you type, emoji included.
Add your main keyword
Optional: type the word or phrase your Short is about, and the checklist shows whether it sits in the first 40 characters.
Fix what the checklist flags
Read each item that asks for a second look, change the title and watch the item turn to a pass. Keep what you broke on purpose.
Check as many titles as you like, one after another: the checker reads whatever is in the box. Only the length is YouTube’s rule; the rest of the list is our suggestion.
The checks
What each check looks at — and whose rule it is
Only one item on this list is YouTube’s own rule: a video title can be up to 100 characters, and a Short is a YouTube video. The other checks are our suggestions for a title that is easy to read at a glance. They are not YouTube ranking rules, and passing all of them promises no reach and no views.
Each item either passes or asks for a second look, with one line on why. There is no score: a title can break a suggestion on purpose, such as “?!” on a reaction video, and still be the right title.
The checklist
| Check | Passes when | Whose rule |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 100 characters | The title is 100 characters or fewer | YouTube |
| Keyword near the start | Your main keyword, as whole words in any case, ends within the first 40 characters (skipped without a keyword) | Our suggestion |
| Not all caps | Capitals are no more than 70% of the letters that have upper and lower case (titles with fewer than 10 such letters are skipped, including titles in Arabic, Hindi or Japanese) | Our suggestion |
| No repeated punctuation | No “!!”, “??”, “?!”, “...” or “…” | Our suggestion |
| Two emoji or fewer | The title has 2 emoji or fewer | Our suggestion |
| No extra spaces | No space at the start or end, and no double spaces between words | Our suggestion |
| Not empty | The title has at least one character other than a space | Our suggestion |
Source for the 100-character limit: YouTube Help, checked on 9 October 2026.
Limits
Free version limits
The checker runs in your browser; there is no limit and no account. We don’t store your title.
It checks length and form only. It doesn’t check whether a title follows YouTube’s policies, and it doesn’t predict how a Short will do.
Why creators use it
A title that fits and reads cleanly — before the Short goes live
YouTube won’t take a title longer than 100 characters. Catching it as you type is faster than finding out in the upload form, especially when a pasted title carries emoji or symbols you didn’t count.
The rest of the checklist catches what is easy to miss when you write fast: a keyword buried at the end, a title in all caps, “!!!”, a row of emoji or a stray double space.
A creator batching a week of Shorts, or a studio writing titles for several channels, can run each title through it before they go out, so every title keeps the same house style.
What a checklist can’t tell you is what to shoot. In Spytrend’s Content AI you search your topic and see how videos in your niche open: the hook, the format, the pacing.
Go further with Spytrend
Pick what to shoot first — then write the title
A checklist tells you whether your title is clean, not what to shoot. Before the next title, find out what works in your niche and how those videos open.
Spytrend is an ad intelligence platform for Facebook and TikTok advertising: ads AI-classified into 33 business categories, with every advertiser assembled into a single card — all ads, pages, domains and countries in one place.
For creators, Spytrend also has Content AI. Find videos by meaning, hook and scenario, break a video down by hook, scenario and retention, and turn what you learn into your own content.
Two jobs a checklist can’t do
- Finding what to shoot. Search your topic in your own words and see which videos work for creators in your niche, before you write a title for one of your own.
- Seeing how a hook is built. Open a video to see its hook, structure and a ready-to-shoot script, then plan your Short around the format, not the words.
From one title to your next Short, in three steps
- Search your keyword. Type the keyword you checked here, or describe the video you want to make.
- Open what works. Look at how each video opens: the hook, the format and the pacing.
- Write your title. Plan your own video around your idea, then bring its title back here and check it before the Short goes live.
How to start
Create a free account and search your keyword before you write the next title. A free account searches Instagram Reels by topic, with a daily limit, and lets you try a video breakdown; TikTok and YouTube results, full breakdowns and scripts come with a subscription.