YouTube Banner Size: The Perfect Dimensions in 2019(+Templates)

Pragadeesh N - June 6, 2019 - Leave your thoughts. 6 min read

YouTube Banner Dimensions

The ideal YouTube banner size in 2019 is 2560 x 1440 pixels (2560 pixels wide by 1440 pixels tall). In addition, your banner image should meet the following size requirements:

Minimum size: 2048 x 1152 pixels

Safe area for text and logos: 1546 x 423 pixels

Maximum width: 2560 x 423 pixels

Maximum file size: 6 MB

Often, we see YouTube channels with banners that look like they were created without much thought.

This is a huge mistake.

A YouTube channel’s banner takes up about a quarter of the screen on a desktop browser. It’s easily the first place your eyes are drawn to.

When someone finds your channel on YouTube, the banner will be the first thing they notice and associate with your brand.

First impressions can make or break the perception of your channel, which is why you need to put some time and effort into creating a YouTube banner.

You need to make sure that your banner represents your brand well and makes your page look good. In this article, we’ll look at:

How to Add YouTube Channel Art

How to Change YouTube Channel Art

How to Create a YouTube Banner with Picmaker

Free YouTube Banner Templates

We’ll go through each of these steps in detail. To begin with, let’s look at how you can add a banner(or channel art) to your YouTube channel.

Adding a banner to your YouTube channel takes just a few seconds.

1. Log in to YouTube.

2. Click on your profile icon in the top right corner of the page.

3. From the drop-down menu, select “ My channel”

4. In the next screen that appears, click on the ‘CUSTOMIZE CHANNEL’ button on the right side of the page.

5. On your channel page, you’ll see a blue button that says ‘Add channel art’. Click on this button to add a banner to your YouTube channel.

You’ll be given with several options to add an image as your channel banner. You can upload an image from your computer or choose from the photos you’ve saved on YouTube or from a gallery of photos provided by YouTube.

YouTube channel art upload options

Make sure that the image is big enough. If you use an image smaller than 2048 x 1152 pixels(minimum recommended YouTube banner size), YouTube will throw an error message that looks like this:

After choosing an image from one of the options, look at the preview of how the banner would look like on different devices.

If you’re not happy with how the image has been cropped by YouTube, you can manually adjust the crop by clicking on the ‘Adjust the crop’ button in the bottom left corner of the popup window.

Note that you can only adjust the crop and not crop the image itself, with the TV space above and below it. This means you won’t be able to set a corner of your image as your desktop crop.

Adjust the crop screen

Picmaker’s YouTube banner templates have been designed in such a way that the important stuff(text, logo, etc.) on the image are always visible regardless of the device they appear on.

6. Once you’re happy with how your banner appears on different devices, hit the “Select” button in the bottom left corner of the popup window to save the image as your YouTube channel’s banner.

Wondering how to change an existing banner on YouTube? Read on to learn how you could do that.

If you’d like to change your existing banner and use a different image instead, simply navigate to your YouTube channel and hover over your existing banner.

When you do this, you’d see a button(with a pencil icon on top of it) appear in the top right corner of the banner. Click on this button and select ‘Edit channel art’ from the dropdown menu.

You’ll then be taken to the same popup window that appeared when you clicked on the ‘Add channel art’ button in step 5. Pick the image of your choice and click on the ‘Select’ button to set the image as your YouTube channel’s banner.

Trying to figure out how to make a banner for your YouTube channel?

If you’ve ever tried creating one, you know that most design tools out there are clunky and difficult to use. You need to spend hours learning the software and navigating through a maze of features you’ll never use.

If you’re looking to create an attention-grabbing banner on your own, Picmaker is what you need.

Picmaker is a free online design tool specifically built for creating YouTube graphics. This narrow focus combined with its drag-and-drop functionality helps Picmaker eliminate the learning curve you’ve come to expect from other graphic design tools.

The best part, Picmaker has a vast collection of professionally designed, easily customizable YouTube banner templates that you can use to create eye-catching YouTube banners in seconds.

To get you started, we’d be using a pre-made template as our foundation to create a YouTube banner in seconds.

However, if you’re looking to start with a blank canvas and design the banner from scratch, our article on how to create a stunning YouTube channel art has you covered.

First, sign up for a free Picmaker account (Picmaker is absolutely free).

In the next screen that appears, click on the “YOUTUBE CHANNEL ART” button to create your own YouTube banner.

Once you’re in the app’s dashboard, you’ll see that the ‘Prebuilt’ tab in the main menu is already open. The “Prebuilt” tab in the main menu has a wide collection of pre-made YouTube banner templates to get you going in seconds.

The pre-builts have been categorized to help you find the desired template fast. Choose a category by clicking on the ‘All Prebuilts’ dropdown and select a template that speaks to you.

The chosen template is entirely customizable, from its background, text, to the graphics and placement of design elements.

The image is automatically set to the ideal YouTube banner size: 2560 x 1440 pixels; or automatically set to the ideal size of a YouTube thumbnail, if you happen to be creating a YouTube thumbnail using Picmaker. But, if you wish to set custom dimensions, simply click on the gear icon in the top left corner of the dashboard.

Once you’re done customizing the template, click on the ‘Preview’ button in the top-right corner to get a preview of how the banner would look like on different devices.