What the safe zone is
Vertical apps draw their controls on top of your video. A header sits at the top, a column of like, comment and share buttons runs down the right side, and your username, caption and sound credit fill the bottom, often above a navigation bar. Anything important underneath them, a punchline, a price, a subtitle, a face, is hidden or cluttered for every viewer.
The safe area is the part of the frame none of that touches. Keep text, logos and key action inside it, and let backgrounds and less important detail run to the edges.
How TikTok, Reels and Shorts differ
- TikTok keeps a slim header, a tall column of buttons with the profile picture on top, and a caption area that grows with long captions.
- Instagram Reels reserves the most space. Meta's ad specifications for Reels suggest keeping roughly the top 14%, the bottom 35% and 6% at each side free of text and logos, written for ads, but a good rule for any Reel.
- YouTube Shorts puts the channel name, Subscribe button and title at the bottom, with like, dislike, comment, share and remix buttons on the right.
All platforms combines the three, so anything inside its safe area is clear everywhere. On a 1080 × 1920 frame that's roughly 850 × 980 pixels, starting about 270 pixels from the top, the panel under the preview shows the exact numbers for each choice.
Why the zones are approximate
No app publishes an exact, permanent map of its interface. Layouts change with redesigns, captions take more room when they're long, ads add extra buttons, and phones with taller screens may show the navigation bar below the video instead of on top of it. The zones here are based on commonly cited guidance and lean slightly generous, so treat them as a reliable warning sign rather than a pixel-perfect promise, and leave a little breathing room.
Fixing what the overlay reveals
- Captions under the buttons? Burn them in higher, around the lower-middle of the frame. The auto subtitles tool lets you choose where they sit.
- Horizontal or 4:5 footage? Reframe it to 9:16 with the video resizer, or crop a vertical slice with the video cropper.
- A cover image or design? Size it to exactly 1080 × 1920 with the image resizer.
Designing with the safe area in mind
- Hook text reads best in the upper-middle of the frame, just below the top bar, the first place eyes land when a video starts.
- Faces and products belong near the centre, slightly above the middle, where nothing ever overlaps them.
- Subtitles sit comfortably just above the caption area. Too low and the username and caption text crowd them out.
- Logos and calls to action shouldn't sit in the bottom-right corner, which is where the sound icon and action buttons gather.
Building a template? The pixel numbers under the preview give you the exact rectangle to design inside at 1080 × 1920.
Sharing the result
Pause on the frame that matters and download a PNG: it's a 1080 × 1920 image of that frame with the zones and safe area drawn on, labelled with the platform. It's a quick way to brief an editor, mark up a client review or check a template before you shoot.