One subtitle layout for Shorts, Reels and TikTok
Export once, post three times. The subtitle can only go where none of the three apps draws its interface. Here's where that is in the regions this tool records, and what those regions leave out.
Why one position is hard
All three apps play vertical video at 9:16, but they put their buttons in different places. TikTok draws a see-through tab row over the top of the video and an action column down the right. Reels also has a right-hand column, plus a profile and audio row along the bottom. The Shorts reference in this tool is a set of margin bands on all four edges. So a subtitle that is clear on one app can still sit under a button on another, and each app has to be checked separately.
Most "safe zone" guides give one rectangle per app, or a single "universal" box with no source behind it. This page does the same job with the regions the tool actually checks, and it states what those regions don't cover.
The area no recorded region touches
Put the three current references on one 1080 × 1920 frame and the space none of them touches is a single rectangle:
| Edge | Position | Share of frame | Set by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | y = 138 | 7.2% from the top | Shorts top band |
| Bottom | y = 1621 | 15.6% from the bottom | Shorts bottom band |
| Left | x = 46 | 4.3% from the left | Shorts left band |
| Right | x = 936 | 13.3% from the right | Reels and TikTok action rails |
That leaves an area 890 × 1483 px. It's calculated from the recorded regions listed in the platform guides, with no margin added and no averaging. A test in the project checks these numbers against the data.
The tool is a little stricter than "not touching". Anything closer than 8 tool units (24 px at 1080 × 1920) to a region or the frame edge is marked Warning. In the tool's own units (a 360 × 640 frame), the largest subtitle that's Safe on all three at once is X 24, Y 54, width 280, height 478. At 1080 × 1920 that's 72–912 across and 162–1596 down. A real subtitle is much shorter than that box, so the question is only where inside it you put the subtitle.
What the numbers leave out
The rectangle above is only as good as the regions behind it. Before you trust it for a particular video, know the gaps:
- No TikTok caption row. In the TikTok capture, the author, caption and audio block sat almost entirely below the video on a tall phone, so no region was recorded for it. On a phone whose screen is closer to 9:16, more of that block could sit on the video. That hasn't been measured.
- Expanded and one-line captions. Reels was captured with one-line captions and TikTok with collapsed two-line captions. A long caption opened with "more" wasn't captured on either app.
- Shorts comes from a published measurement, not our own capture. Its four bands are margins, not the outlines of individual buttons. Our own Shorts capture is still being checked (see the Shorts guide).
- One phone, one app version per platform, Korean UI. App layouts change with updates.
Where the subtitle usually goes inside it
Spoken subtitles traditionally sit near the bottom. On vertical video the bottom of the frame is where the apps put the most interface, so the lowest usable line is well above the frame edge: the clear area ends 299 px above the bottom, and the tool's Safe area ends 324 px above it. If your video has a face or a product in the lower half, put the subtitle above or below it, not across it, and keep it within the clear width. The right-hand limit (x = 936) matters most for long lines, because the action rails sit on the right.
Hook or title text at the top has its own limit. See text at the top of a vertical video.
Check it with your own frame
- Export a still (or a short clip) from your edit at 9:16.
- Open the tool, switch Data to Reference · Organic, and load the file. It stays in your browser.
- Drag the Subtitle box over your subtitle, or type its position into X, Y, Width and Height.
- If any platform shows Warning or Overlap, press Find safer position. It keeps the size and moves the box to the nearest spot that's Safe on all three. If no such spot exists at that size, it tells you why.
Carrying the position into your editor
The tool's X, Y, Width and Height are on a 360 × 640 frame. Multiply by 3 to get pixels on a 1080 × 1920 timeline. Divide X and Width by 360, and Y and Height by 640, to get fractions of the frame for editors that position text in percent. For example, Y 450 is 1350 px, or 70.3% down the frame.
Editors don't all measure from the same point. Some measure text position from its top-left corner, others from its center. So check which one yours uses before you copy numbers across. After you move the subtitle, export again and load the new frame into the tool once more to confirm.
Before you post
Watch the exported video on a phone. The tool checks against recorded regions, not against every screen size, app version or caption length. A quick look in each app's upload preview is still the final check.