I · ON-SCREEN TEXT

Caption safe area

The slice of the frame where text survives the interface.

By Thomas Linck, founder · Updated June 2026

The caption safe area is the region of the frame that platform UI never covers. On vertical video — Shorts, TikTok, Reels — the right edge carries the action buttons and the bottom band carries the title, description and progress bar, so text placed there gets covered. On a 1080×1920 Short, keep critical text clear of roughly the bottom 530px and the right rail.

WHY IT MATTERS

Your editing canvas shows a clean rectangle, but the platform paints its interface on top after you upload. A caption parked along the bottom of a Short sits behind the title and your own handle, and the muted viewers who needed it most never see it. The exact zones differ slightly per platform, so design to the conservative union: text central, clear of the bottom and the right edge.

TARGET · STANDARD

Bottom band	clear ≈ 530px	title, channel, description
Right rail	clear ≈ 200px	like, share, avatar buttons
Captions	25–65% of height	the safe central band

How CutScore measures it CutScore finds the on-screen text and captions in your exported file, measures their position against the regions each platform's interface covers, and flags every overlap with the timestamp — so you catch a clipped caption before you post, not after.

Get this measured automatically See a sample report

QUESTIONS

Frequently asked.

Where is text safe on a Short?

In the central band. On a 1080×1920 Short, keep readable text out of roughly the top 130px, the bottom 530px and the right 200px — in practice, between about 25 and 65 percent of the frame height.

Is the safe area the same on TikTok and Reels?

The idea is identical, the exact pixels are not. All three cover the bottom band and the right rail, and the zones shift with app updates — so design to the conservative union: text central, generous margin from every edge.