Best time to post on YouTube in 2026.Long videos and Shorts, four studies on one grid.

Why long videos and Shorts peak at different hours

SocialPilot puts it bluntly: long videos and Shorts now do best at almost opposite times of day. Long videos lean towards the morning and early afternoon, Shorts towards the late afternoon and evening, the hours people scroll.

Both Buffer and SocialPilot add that Shorts keep resurfacing in the feed for days or weeks, so the hour you post one matters less than for a long video, which gets most of its first push from the people who see it soon after it goes live.

Why the studies disagreeDifferent metrics, different clocks.

Buffer ranks slots by median engagement, SocialPilot by engagement per view, RecurPost by early views, and Metricool doesn't define its measure. A slot can top one list and sit low on another. The data differs too: Buffer and SocialPilot use videos posted through their own tools.

• BufferMedian engagement, 1.8M videos. Its text says the times apply in your local time; its charts are labelled UTC.
• SocialPilotEngagement per view, 301K videos from 27K+ channels, audience's local time. Its heatmap image marks the weekend as the weakest days while its table recommends weekend mornings: the grid uses the table.
• Metricool799,718 videos from 71,177 channels. Hours only. For long videos it speaks of the "highest activity", which may mean when the most videos are posted rather than when they do best.
• RecurPost2M+ videos from 2024 to 2026, measured on early views. Weekdays only, with Wednesday and Thursday best.

Our reading: the hours several studies share, early afternoon on weekdays and Sunday morning for long videos, are the safest place to start. Only your own channel can settle the rest.

Does upload time matter on YouTube?YouTube's own answer.

Less than the studies suggest. YouTube Help says that "publish time is not known to impact a video's long-term performance" (YouTube Help). Posting when your audience is active can help a video's early views, and timing does matter for Live streams and Premieres, which people watch together at a set time.

So a good slot gives a video a better first day, not a better life. The title, the thumbnail and the video itself decide the rest.

Find your own time in YouTube AnalyticsThe "When your viewers are on YouTube" report.

Every channel has the answer for its own audience. In YouTube Studio, open Analytics, then the Audience tab, and look for the card "When your viewers are on YouTube": it shows when your viewers were online across YouTube in the last 28 days (YouTube Help). YouTube suggests it for timing Premieres, and it's the best starting point for uploads too.

Which time zone should you use?Your audience's.

SocialPilot gives every time in the audience's local time, and suggests 3 PM Eastern for a mostly American audience, since it also reaches the Central time zone. Buffer says its times apply in your local time. Metricool and RecurPost don't say. Read 2 PM as 2 PM where most of your viewers are.

When you schedule a video, YouTube Studio asks for the date, the time and the time zone, so you can set it in your audience's. One detail: the date shown under a published video follows Pacific time (YouTube Help).

Scheduling and PremieresSet the time once.

• Scheduled uploadUpload the video as private, then pick Schedule with a date, time and time zone. It goes public by itself (YouTube Help).
• PremiereA scheduled video that people watch together, with a countdown. YouTube sends a notification about 30 minutes before and another when it starts. Shorts can't be Premieres (YouTube Help).
• Publish ahead of the peakBuffer suggests 1 to 2 hours before your audience's busiest time, SocialPilot 2 to 3 hours. That's the studies' advice; YouTube doesn't say it.

What about Hootsuite and Sprout Social?They don't publish YouTube times.

Many searches ask for their YouTube numbers, but neither has any in 2026: Sprout Social's and Hootsuite's best-time pages cover the other networks only (we checked both on October 3, 2026). Pages that quote YouTube times from them are quoting something they didn't publish.

How to find your own best time on YouTubeA four-week test.

• Start from your AnalyticsNote the two or three busiest blocks in "When your viewers are on YouTube".
• Pick slots from different campsFor example Tuesday 2 PM, Friday noon and Sunday 10 AM for long videos, an evening slot for Shorts.
• Publish comparable videos in each for four weeksSimilar topic and length, so the slot is the main difference.
• Compare views after 48 hours against your medianEarly views are what the slot can change. One video that takes off would hide everything else in raw totals.
• Keep the winner and replace the weakest slotThen test again next quarter. Audiences drift.

To check exactly when another channel published a video, in UTC and in your own time zone, paste its link in the YouTube metadata viewer.