6 new creation tools to level up your YouTube Shorts

May 08, 2024

News and Events

Aug 01, 2023 – minute read

We introduced Shorts to give creators a lightweight and fun way to create and share short-form videos on YouTube, and continue to expand on the ways that creators can easily tap into their creativity. From remixing tools that help creators leverage content from across YouTube’s billions of videos worldwide in new, original content, to expanding the YouTube Partner Program so creators can join and earn money from their Shorts, we want to make it easier for anyone to join in and create what they love.

YouTube Shorts are now being watched by over 2B logged-in users every month, and today we’re introducing new ways to spark imagination and creativity. Check out these 6 new ways to create on Shorts:

Collab is a new creation tool that lets you record a Short in a side-by-side format with other YouTube or Shorts videos. Creators can choose from multiple layout options to easily join in with a split screen format. Just hit “Remix” then “Collab” to remix an eligible Short or YouTube video.

Collab joins Green Screen, which uses a YouTube video or Short as the background of our original Short, and Cut, which lets you use a 1-5 second segment from a YouTube video or Short in your own Short, as yet another way to remix Shorts content.

Starting today and in the coming weeks, we’ll roll out Collab to all creators on iOS, with Android to follow.

Over the past few months, we’ve added dozens of new Shorts effects and stickers to help inspire creators in new ways.

And we’re always adding more – for instance, we’ll soon start rolling out a new Q&A sticker, so you can ask your audience questions and get responses right in your comments. So next time you’re asking yourself, “What places do I need to visit in Japan?” our Q&A sticker has you covered.

Plus, with the ability to reply to comments with a Short, you can easily shout out whoever gave you the inspiration to create.

We’re excited to share that we’re now testing a mobile-first vertical live experience, so live creators can get discovered right in the Shorts feed!

Viewers in the test will see previews of vertical live videos mixed into the Shorts feed. As someone taps into the experience, they’ll be placed in a scrollable feed of other live videos.

We hope that this helps creators connect live with a new audience and build their communities in a modern and fun way, from wherever they are in the world. Creators can go live in just a few taps - just make sure it’s vertical orientation! - and features like Super Chat, Super Stickers, and channel memberships will be available, too.

This is also a great opportunity for creators who recently joined our YouTube Partner Program with the new, lower eligibility requirements to unlock these fan funding features.

While nothing is changing to how creators go live today, we’re introducing this new, full-screen experience to viewers gradually, over the coming months. That means that live creators will now have the opportunity to get discovered in more places!

What better way to get inspired than by other Shorts creators? We’re making it easier to create on YouTube with Shorts whenever inspiration strikes on your feed with a new feature that bundles the audio and effect from the Short you’re remixing from automatically.

From the Shorts player, tap the Remix button and select “use sound.” We’ll automatically surface the same audio time stamp from the Short you just watched, and the same effect as a creation suggestion. You can always mix and match to make it your own, too!

We recently introduced the option to save Shorts to playlists right on YouTube, so anybody can curate Shorts they love to a playlist directly from the Shorts feed. Creators, if you don’t want to lose the effect you just discovered, pop it into a playlist so you can pull it up and try it yourself when inspiration strikes next!

To see Shorts playlists in action, check out this curated playlist from JVKE.

In the next few weeks, we’ll start to test new recomposition tools that will help you more easily transform your horizontal videos into Shorts!

Once you choose a video to remix, you’ll be able to adjust the layout, zoom, and crop of the video segment. Split screen effects will also be available, so you can preserve key parts of your long-form content to create more engaging, original Shorts.

We’ll share more in the coming weeks as we roll these new tools out.

There’s so much more to come with Shorts, so stay tuned as we introduce more features in the future! We can’t wait to see what you do with them.