Can I schedule YouTube videos and Shorts with a title, description and thumbnail?

Yes. You can schedule a video or Short to YouTube from PostFast, and set the title, description, privacy, playlist, category, custom thumbnail, video language, and your own captions (subtitles) from an SRT or VTT file before it publishes.

1. Open the composer

From the sidebar, click New Post at the top. You'll land on the Create post composer.

2. Add content

• Attach one video. YouTube posts are video-only, so images are not accepted.
• Write the description in the text field. YouTube allows up to 5,000 characters.

3. Choose your YouTube channel

• In the Post settings panel on the right, open the Schedule tab.
• Select your YouTube channel. You can cross-post to other platforms at the same time.

4. Platform settings

In the Post settings panel, open the Platform settings tab:

• Title - up to 100 characters. Leave it empty and PostFast uses the first line of your text as the title (trimmed to 100 characters) and everything after it as the description.
• Privacy settings - Public, Unlisted, or Private. Public is the default.
• YouTube Short - on by default. Turn it off for a regular long-form video. Shorts are vertical videos under 3 minutes.
• Made for Kids - off by default. Turn it on to mark the video as suitable for children under 13, as required by COPPA.
• Contains altered or synthetic content - discloses that the video contains realistic altered or synthetic content.

Under Advanced in the same tab:

• Category - one of YouTube's standard categories.
• Playlist - add the video to one of your channel's playlists. If a playlist you created later is missing, click Sync Playlists next to the field. If adding to the playlist fails, the video still publishes.
• Custom Thumbnail - JPEG, PNG, GIF, or BMP, max 2 MB. Recommended 1280 x 720 (16:9), minimum 640 px wide. Custom thumbnails require a verified YouTube channel.
• Video language - sets the video's language on YouTube. YouTube Studio shows it as both Video language and Title and description language. Languages are listed by name, for example British English, Latin American Spanish, or Brazilian Portuguese. Optional, and you can clear it.
• Captions - upload one .srt or .vtt caption file with timings, max 10 MB. It needs a Video language: right after the video uploads, the file is added to it as a caption track in that language. Viewers see the track named by its language (for example "Spanish"), and YouTube's automatic captions stay listed separately as "(auto-generated)".

5. Add a first comment (optional)

Under the post text in the composer, fill in First Comment. It is posted automatically about 10 seconds after the video goes live, and can be up to 10,000 characters on YouTube.

6. Schedule, post, or save

Still in the Schedule tab on the right:

• Click Pick time to schedule the video for a specific time.
• Click Post now to publish immediately.
• Click the arrow next to Post now to Save as Draft inside PostFast.

Good to know

• The same clip can go to TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook Reels from the same post. Each platform keeps its own Platform settings.
• Analytics: views, likes, and comments, refreshed every 6 hours for the first 14 days, then daily until 60 days. You can also refresh a single post's metrics by hand.
• Caption files: each caption needs a timing, like 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000. The file must be plain UTF-8 text and at most 10 MB. A transcript without timings is not accepted. PostFast checks the file before it uploads and shows a message if it is an unsupported type, too large, not UTF-8 text, or has no timings.
• One caption file per video, in the video's language. For a channel in several languages, set each video's own language and caption file.
• If adding the captions fails, the video still publishes, without them.
• Automatic captions: YouTube's automatic captions stay available alongside yours.
• Changing them: the video language and caption file can be changed until the post publishes, not after.
• API and AI assistants: the video language and caption file can also be set when you create posts through the PostFast API or an AI assistant. See the API reference.

Related

• Schedule a post to multiple platforms
• Why did my post fail?
• YouTube monetization requirements