How to preview a title
Type your proposed video title in the workbench. The counter updates as you write and flags text beyond YouTube's documented 100-character title limit. Add a channel name and duration to make the card feel like the surrounding feed. Choose desktop home, desktop search, right-side recommendations, or mobile feed, then read only the lines visible in the card. The cards use CSS line clamping after the browser wraps text within each layout's width.
This method gives a more useful preview than a fixed 60-character cutoff. A wide letter, emoji, or long unbroken term uses a different amount of space from narrow letters. The same title may fit two lines in search but lose its ending in a narrow recommendation card. The actual YouTube interface varies by screen, language, and product changes, so this is an approximation.
Put the promise early
Lead with the subject and useful result rather than a long preface. Compare 'I Tried Three Free Editing Apps for a Week' with 'A Week of Experiments: My Thoughts on Three Different Free Editing Applications.' The first version tells a scanning viewer what the video covers sooner. If your title contains a tool name or the exact problem solved, make sure those words remain visible in the narrowest relevant card.
Avoid promising a result that the video cannot deliver. A shorter title is not automatically better; clarity comes from giving the right context with fewer detours. Read the truncated version aloud. If the hidden words contain the actual subject, revise the opening. If the hidden words are only a mild qualifier, the title may still work.
Check the title with the image
The title and thumbnail share the same viewing moment. If the image already contains a large number, the title can explain what the number means rather than repeat it. If the image shows an unfamiliar device, the title can name the test. Uploading a local image is optional on this page, but pairing one with the title reveals whether their messages support each other at feed size.
Use the mobile card and right-side card as the strictest scan. Look for clipped names, ambiguous first phrases, or a crucial 'not' that disappears after the clamp. YouTube's published 100-character limit is an input limit, not a guarantee that all 100 characters appear in the feed. Nothing you type or upload here is sent to this site's server. Before settling on a final version, read the opening words without the image. They should still identify the subject and give a viewer a reason to keep reading.
Official references: custom thumbnail guidance, A/B testing, and video title settings.