01
What a safe zone is
On vertical feeds the app draws its own interface on top of your video: tabs at the top, the caption, sound and navigation at the bottom, and the like, comment and share column on the right. Anything you place there, a hook headline, a call to action, a product shot, is hidden behind it.
The safe zone is the part of the 9:16 frame that none of that covers. Keep text, faces and logos inside it, and let the edges carry background.
02
TikTok, Reels and Shorts cover different edges
TikTok has the tallest bottom band of the three: caption, sound and navigation take about the lowest 27% of the frame. Reels covers a little less at the bottom, and Shorts the least, but the Shorts action column reaches further down the right edge.
If one video goes to all three, use the “All three” overlay. It shows the area none of the apps covers, which is what a cross-posted clip has to fit into.
03
How accurate this is
The bands are measured by hand on current app versions (September 2026). They are not an official template: the platforms move their interface between versions, and phone notches and gesture bars shift it further. Treat the overlay as “don't put text here”, not as a pixel-exact promise.
The check runs entirely in your browser. Your file is never uploaded.
Sources and methodology
Numbers checked on September 15, 2026.
The covered bands come from Uplonic's own measurements of the TikTok, Instagram and YouTube apps (September 2026), the same values the Uplonic media library uses for its safe-zone preview. The platforms publish no official template for organic posts.
