Subtitle Safe Area: Margins for Every Aspect Ratio

Where the idea comes from

Safe areas began with television. Tube TVs cropped an unpredictable slice from every edge of the picture, so broadcasters kept titles and subtitles inside an inner rectangle, known as title safe, that any set would show. Flat screens crop far less, yet the habit survived for a new reason: the edges of modern screens are crowded. Players lay their controls over the bottom of the picture, phones have rounded corners and camera cut-outs, and social apps cover vertical video with names, captions, buttons and progress bars.

So a subtitle safe area today is less about the glass and more about the interface. The question it answers is plain: where can text sit and still be read on every screen the video reaches?

The margins the editor draws

Tick Show safe area in the Position section of the Style tab and a dashed rectangle appears over the preview. Its margins depend on the shape of the video:

Landscape, including 16:9 and 4:3

5 per cent of the width at each side, 6 per cent of the height at the top and 7 per cent at the bottom. On a 1920×1080 frame that's 96 pixels at the sides, about 65 at the top and about 76 at the bottom.

Square, around 1:1

6 per cent at the sides, 7 at the top and 9 at the bottom. On 1080×1080, about 65 pixels at the sides, 76 at the top and 97 at the bottom.

Portrait, such as 4:5 or 3:4

6 per cent at the sides, 8 at the top and 10 at the bottom. On 1080×1350, about 65 pixels at the sides, 108 at the top and 135 at the bottom.

Tall vertical, such as 9:16

8 per cent at the sides, 12 at the top and 16 at the bottom. On 1080×1920 that's about 86 pixels at the sides, 230 at the top and 307 at the bottom.

The label beside the checkbox names the shape it detected: 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 4:5 or 9:16. Anything not close to one of those is labelled Custom and still gets the margins of the nearest group. The taller the video, the wider the margins, because vertical video is the format most crowded by app overlays.

The rectangle is a preview aid only and is never drawn into the rendered MP4.

How Position uses the safe area

The guide isn't just a drawing; the Position controls are built on the same margins.

• Bottom rests the lowest edge of the subtitle, box included, on the bottom margin. Top does the same against the top margin.
• Middle centres the text vertically and ignores the top and bottom margins.
• Max line width, in the Text section, is measured across the space between the side margins, so at 100 the longest line reaches the dashed lines and stops.
• Left and Right alignment start the text at a side margin, not at the frame edge.
• "Nudge up / down" moves the text away from its anchor by up to 45 per cent of the frame height, and it's the one control that can take subtitles outside the guide. The editor keeps text within the frame, not within the safe area.

In short, with Top or Bottom and no nudge, your subtitles are inside the safe area automatically. A nudge is a choice to leave it, so recheck the guide after nudging. Clicking an anchor again resets the nudge to zero. For a full walk-through of anchors, see moving subtitles to the top.

Why every platform's safe zone is different

No single rectangle is right everywhere, which is why safe-zone templates found online disagree.

• Each app draws different furniture. One stacks its buttons down the right-hand side, another lays the caption and account name across the bottom, and both rearrange things from time to time.
• Feeds crop. A vertical video may appear trimmed to a shorter shape in a grid or a preview before anyone opens it, which cuts into the top and bottom.
• Phones differ. Screen proportions, rounded corners and system bars change which part of a full-screen video is clear.
• Players add a layer of their own. Landscape players show a control bar and progress bar along the bottom when paused or tapped, and some show a title along the top.

The editor's margins are a sensible general guide, generous on vertical video and modest on landscape. For a particular app, compare against its current layout, ideally by watching a test upload on a phone. Our platform pages describe the layout for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Checking your subtitles against the guide

1. Load the video in the editor and bring in the subtitles.
2. Open the Style tab and settle the preset and size first, because size decides how much room each line takes.
3. In Position, tick Show safe area and confirm the label matches your video's shape.
4. Pause on the longest subtitle and on any two- or three-line ones. Every letter, and the box if there is one, should sit inside the dashed rectangle.
5. Lines wrap before they reach the side margins, so width takes care of itself. If wrapping has made a subtitle tall enough to reach into the picture, reduce Size, shorten the text, or split the line in two.
6. Scrub through shots with faces, logos or on-screen text near the edges and make sure the subtitles stay off them.
7. Render, then watch the result on the device and in the app where people will see it.

Worked examples

What the guide can't promise

• Burned-in text stays where you put it. If an app later moves its buttons, the subtitles can't step aside; only a new render can.
• Subtitle files ignore it. An exported SRT or VTT has no position, and the player places it by its own rules, usually inside its own safe area.
• It knows nothing about your footage. Faces, logos and on-screen text are invisible to the guide; only watching the video catches them.

Contrast and size matter as much as placement for readability, so customizing subtitles is the natural next step. Subtitle positioning goes deeper into placement conventions, and accessible social media videos covers the wider checklist. Need subtitles first? The AI subtitle generator makes a timed file, or let the editor's own AI write them.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser