Best time to post
Best time to post on YouTube
'Best time to post on YouTube' means something different here than on Instagram or X. A video isn't buried by lunchtime; it can pick up views for years from search and recommendations. What the publish hour changes is the first 24 to 48 hours, when YouTube shows the video to your subscribers, watches how they respond, and decides how widely to recommend it.
So the question is really two questions: when are your subscribers on YouTube, and how far ahead of that should the video go live? YouTube Studio answers the first for free. This page gives you a starting guess for the second, explains what moves it, and shows you how to check it on your own channel.
The short answer: starting windows to test
Most people watch YouTube in the afternoon and evening, and at the weekend, so the windows below sit a couple of hours ahead of that. The idea is to publish early enough that the video has its first views and comments by the time the biggest crowd arrives. Local time of your subscribers, not yours.
| Day | Windows to test (local time) | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 3 to 5 pm | Ahead of the evening peak; Monday evenings are quieter than later in the week. |
| Tuesday | 3 to 5 pm | A dependable slot for long-form videos. |
| Wednesday | 3 to 5 pm | Midweek evenings are strong; a good day for a premiere. |
| Thursday | 3 to 5 pm | Same as Wednesday, with the weekend's viewing still ahead of the video. |
| Friday | 2 to 5 pm | Publish before people leave work; Friday night viewing starts early. |
| Saturday | 9 to 11 am, 3 to 5 pm | The longest viewing sessions of the week for entertainment channels. |
| Sunday | 9 to 11 am, 3 to 5 pm | Strong all day; the morning suits how-to and family content. |
These are publish times, not viewing times. The hours your subscribers actually watch come from Studio, and you publish two to three hours before them. Shorts are far less sensitive to the hour than long-form videos. Once you've read your own chart, use that instead of this table.
How YouTube decides who sees your video
When a video goes live, YouTube shows it first to the people most likely to click: subscribers with the bell on get a notification, and the video appears in the Subscriptions feed and on the Home page of people who watch your channel. YouTube watches click-through rate and how long viewers stay, and if both hold up it recommends the video more widely, on Home, in Suggested, and in search.
That early read is why the publish hour matters. If subscribers are at work when the notification lands, they watch later or not at all, and the video collects its first signals slowly. If they're on the sofa an hour or two after it goes live, the video gets a full test on its first evening. Nothing about the hour makes a weak video good. It gives a good one a fair start.
Shorts run on a different track. They're shown in the Shorts feed to people who don't subscribe, tested in batches, and can pick up views for days, so the hour you post matters less. Premieres are the opposite: you set the time, subscribers show up together, and the live chat gives the video a burst of early engagement. If you premiere, pick the hour your subscribers are most online, not two hours before it.
What changes the answer for your channel
When your subscribers watch
Studio's Audience tab shows a heatmap of when your viewers are on YouTube, in your own time zone. That chart is worth more than any table on the internet. If the darkest cells are 8 to 10 pm, publish around 5 or 6 pm.
Where they are
YouTube audiences spread across countries because search and recommendations ignore borders. Check the top countries under Audience. If two time zones split your viewers, publish in the gap between their evenings and let the second group catch it on Home.
Long-form or Shorts
Long-form videos depend on subscribers in the first day, so timing matters. Shorts find their viewers through the Shorts feed, so post them when you have them and keep a steady rhythm instead.
Your upload rhythm
Subscribers learn your schedule. A channel that posts every Thursday at 4 pm gets viewers who check every Thursday at 4 pm. Same day, same hour, every week beats the perfect hour posted at random.
How to find your own best time: in youtube studio (free)
- 1
Open YouTube Studio and go to Analytics.
- 2
Open the Audience tab and find the chart called When your viewers are on YouTube. It shows the past 28 days by weekday and hour, in your local time zone, once your channel has enough recent views to fill it.
- 3
Note the darkest two or three hours for the days you publish, then plan to go live two to three hours before them.
- 4
Open the Content tab, sort your recent videos by views, and check the publish hour of the top five. If it matches the chart, you're done. If it doesn't, trust the videos.
The chart shows when your viewers are on YouTube at all, not when they watch you. It's still the best first filter any platform offers, and the Content cross-check is what confirms it. New channels may not see the chart until they have enough recent viewing; the table above is for them.
In Lemonpost
Lemonpost's analytics build a best-time heatmap for your YouTube channel from your own published videos and Shorts, in your time zone, using engagement rather than presence. Schedule videos into your posting queue with the title, description, category, playlist, visibility, a custom cover frame, and a pinned first comment all set in advance.
A six-week test that settles it
- Pick two publish windows: one two to three hours before your evening peak in Studio, and one in the late morning. Two weeks isn't enough on a weekly channel, so give this six.
- For six weeks, alternate videos between the two windows. Keep length and topic mix similar in each, and keep the same weekday if you can, so you're testing the hour and not the day.
- Once the last video has had 48 hours, compare views and average view duration at 48 hours per window. Ignore the single biggest video and anything that got picked up by search.
- Keep the winner as your fixed slot for three months. Re-test only if your Audience chart shifts, which it does when school terms and daylight saving change.
FAQ
YouTube timing questions
Whenever your own subscribers are online, which YouTube Studio shows under Analytics and Audience as When your viewers are on YouTube. Publish two to three hours before their peak. With no data, start with weekday afternoons from 3 to 5 pm and weekend mornings from 9 to 11 am in your subscribers' time zone.
Yes, though not the way they do on X. YouTube reads the first day or two of clicks and watch time to decide how widely to recommend a video. Search and suggested traffic can rescue a slow start later, but a strong start gets you there faster.
It matters less than for long videos. Shorts are shown to non-subscribers in the Shorts feed and tested over days. Post them when your subscribers are most online if you want a quick first read, and otherwise keep a steady daily or near-daily rhythm.
Schedule it if you want the video to go live quietly two or three hours before the peak. Premiere it if you can be in the chat and your subscribers will show up; then set the premiere for the peak hour itself, not before it.
No. Videos published through YouTube's official API are treated the same as uploads published by hand. Scheduling is how a Thursday 4 pm slot happens every Thursday, whether or not you're at your desk.
One long-form video a week on a fixed day is a realistic target for a small team, with Shorts in between if you have them. Consistency on the same day and hour teaches subscribers when to look, which does more for views than any table of times.
Post at the right hour without being awake for it
Schedule a week of posts in one sitting. Lemonpost publishes them at the times your own heatmap picks.