Videos · Glossary
What is a safe zone in vertical video?
A safe zone is the part of a vertical frame that platform interface never covers. A nine by sixteen video fills the screen, and the app draws its own controls over the top and bottom of it: the account row, the caption, the buttons down one side. Anything essential in those bands is partly or entirely hidden.
The video you export and the video somebody sees are not the same picture. The difference is the strip at the top, the strip at the bottom and a column down one edge.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
3 min read · Published
What gets covered
Across the major vertical placements the pattern is the same: a band at the top for the account and any status, a taller band at the bottom for the caption, the sound attribution and the call to action, and a column of buttons down the right hand side. The exact heights differ by platform and change with app updates, which is why designing to a generous middle is more durable than designing to this month's pixel measurements.
What to keep out of the bands
Anything that has to be read: the offer, the price, the date, the name, the call to action, and your captions. Anything decorative can run to the edges, and often should, because a full bleed background is what makes a vertical video feel native. The rule is simple to apply: if a viewer missing it would mean the video failed, it belongs in the middle.
Why captions sit lower than you think
Captions are the most common casualty, because the natural instinct is to put them near the bottom where subtitles live in film. On a vertical feed that is exactly where the platform's own caption and buttons sit. Moving them up into the lower middle third keeps them readable, and it is the single change that improves most vertical videos made by people used to widescreen.
Questions people ask
How much of the frame is safe?
Roughly the middle portion, leaving generous margins top and bottom and a clear column on the button side. Rather than chase exact numbers that change with each app release, design so that everything essential sits comfortably inside the central area and check on a real phone before you post.
Do safe zones differ between platforms?
Yes, in detail, and they change over time. The overlap is large enough that one conservative safe area works across the main vertical placements, which is what most teams do rather than exporting a separate cut per app.
Does this apply to square videos too?
Less so. A square post in a feed is surrounded by interface rather than covered by it, so the whole frame is usually visible. It is full screen vertical formats, where the video is the background for the app's controls, where the problem bites.
How do I check my video is safe?
Post it as a draft or a private story and look at it on a phone. Two minutes of that catches more problems than any template overlay, because it shows your actual video against the actual interface on the actual device sizes you care about.
Can I just add a border?
Letterboxing so nothing is covered makes the video look like a widescreen clip pasted into a vertical hole, which reads as repurposed rather than made for the feed. Moving the content inward is better than shrinking the picture.
Make one with videos
The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own.
Create a video with OneCraftRelated questions
- What is a UGC ad?A UGC ad is an advert made to look like a normal creator post rather than a commercial. What defines the format, and the disclosure rules that apply.
- What is a faceless video?A faceless video carries its message with footage, text and voiceover instead of a person on camera. Where it works, and where a face still wins.
- Instagram post and story sizesA square post is 1080 by 1080 and a story is 1080 by 1920. What the safe area is, why the crop happens, and how one design becomes both.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .