Posting to YouTube Shorts

Reeltopus uploads clips straight to your YouTube channel with YouTube's own API. Vertical clips up to three minutes long go up as Shorts. This page covers what's specific to YouTube; for the general steps, see Post and schedule clips.

Connect your channel

1. On Connections, press Connect YouTube.
2. Sign in with the Google account that owns or manages the channel.
3. Allow everything Google asks for. Reeltopus asks to upload videos to your channel and to read the channel's name and picture. If you untick the upload permission, the connection is refused; connect again and allow it.

If the Google account has no YouTube channel yet, you'll see "That Google account has no YouTube channel yet." Create a channel on YouTube, then connect again.

YouTube sign-ins renew themselves, so scheduled posts can go out while you're away. If Google revokes access (for example, you removed Reeltopus in your Google Account settings), the channel shows needs reconnecting on Connections.

Only workspace owners and admins can connect accounts.

Shorts

A clip goes up as a Short when it's vertical (9:16) and three minutes or shorter. For those, Reeltopus adds #Shorts to the end of the description if neither the title nor the description already has it. The link on the posted clip opens it in YouTube's Shorts player.

Wider or longer clips go up as regular videos.

Title, description and visibility

• Title: up to 100 characters. YouTube shows it as its own field.
• Description: optional, up to 5,000 characters.
• Angle brackets (the less-than and greater-than signs) are removed, because YouTube rejects them.
• Visibility: Public, Unlisted or Private.

Every upload is marked as not made for kids.

Altered or synthetic content

The post form has a checkbox for Altered or synthetic content: realistic footage that was made or changed with AI, such as a dubbed voice. Tick it when that applies, and YouTube shows its disclosure on the video. See AI dubbing.

Custom thumbnails

When you post a Packaging Lab variant that has its own cover, Reeltopus sets that cover as the video's thumbnail. YouTube only allows custom thumbnails on verified channels. If yours isn't verified, the video still posts, and the post notes that YouTube didn't take the thumbnail. Verify the channel in YouTube Studio to fix this for future posts.

Limits and delays

• YouTube's daily API limit: if it's used up, your post waits and is retried after the limit resets (midnight Pacific time). The post shows Posting… with the reason until then.
• Your channel's daily upload limit: if the channel hits it, the post fails with "This channel hit YouTube's daily upload limit. Try again tomorrow."
• If an upload is interrupted, Reeltopus picks it up where it stopped.

Disconnecting

Press Disconnect on Connections. Reeltopus revokes its access and deletes the stored tokens. Scheduled posts to the channel are cancelled. You can also remove Reeltopus's access in your Google Account settings. The privacy policy explains how we use YouTube data.