Safe Zones for Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts

Every short-form platform overlays its own interface — buttons, captions, profile info — directly on top of your video. A caption or logo placed without checking these zones can end up completely hidden the moment it's published, and you usually only find out after the fact.

Why this differs by platform

YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels each place their like/comment/share buttons, captions bar and profile info in different positions and with different sizes — a layout that's safe on one platform can be covered on another, even with the exact same video file.

What tends to get covered

The most common casualties are: burned-in captions placed too low, a logo or watermark in a bottom corner, and key visual details near the right edge where action buttons usually sit — all areas that look fine in an editor's preview but sit under real UI once published.

Checking before you publish, not after

The only reliable way to know a video is safe across platforms is to check it against each platform's real interface layout before publishing — not guess based on general rules of thumb, since exact placements do shift between apps and over time.