How to start a YouTube channel in 2026, step by step
Starting a YouTube channel takes about ten minutes: sign in to YouTube with a Google Account, open Settings, choose Add or manage channel(s), then Create a channel, and give it a picture, a name and a handle. Then verify the account by phone, add a banner, and publish your first videos. Earning money comes later, from 500 subscribers at the earliest.
The steps and figures below are from YouTube's own help pages, checked on 30 October 2026. The advice between them is ours, written for the most common kind of channel there is: one person on camera, explaining or showing something.
1. Decide what the channel is for
Before the account, decide two things: who the channel is for, and what question each video answers for them. "Woodworking for people with one room and no garage" is a channel. "My hobbies" is not, because nobody searches for it and nobody knows whether to subscribe.
Write down ten video titles that fit. If ten come easily, the idea has room to grow. If you struggle at four, narrow it or pick another.
2. Create the channel
On a computer:
- Sign in to YouTube with your Google Account.
- Click your profile picture, then Settings.
- Under Account, choose Add or manage channel(s).
- Click Create a channel.
- Choose a profile picture, and enter a name and a handle.
- Click Create channel.
That makes a personal channel only you can manage. If the channel needs a name different from your Google Account, or more than one person to manage it, YouTube has you create it with a Brand Account instead.
3. Choose a name and a handle
The name is what people see; the handle is the @name in your channel's address and in mentions. Make them match where you can, keep them short enough to say out loud, and avoid numbers and underscores that someone would have to spell. A name that describes the subject, or your own name if you are the subject, outlasts a clever one.
4. Add a profile picture and a banner
| Size | Format and limit | |
|---|---|---|
| Profile picture | Shown at 98 x 98 pixels | JPG, GIF, BMP or PNG (not animated), up to 15 MB |
| Banner | At least 2048 x 1152 pixels, 16:9 | Up to 6 MB |
| Banner safe area | 1235 x 338 pixels in the middle, at 2048 x 1152 | Keep text and logos inside it |
The banner is cropped to fit each screen it appears on, so only the safe area in the middle is sure to be shown. Put your name or one line about the channel there and nothing else. A profile picture shown at 98 pixels reads best as a face or a simple mark, not a logo with words in it.
5. Verify your account
Verify the account by phone straight away. Until you do, YouTube will not take uploads longer than 15 minutes or let you add your own thumbnail, and both matter from the first video.
6. Make your first three videos before you publish
Record and edit three videos before publishing the first. It takes the pressure off the first one, shows you whether the idea has legs, and means the channel has something to offer anyone who likes video one and clicks through to see what else there is.
For each one, answer a single question, in the words a viewer would type. The guide to making a YouTube video goes through outlining, recording, editing, captions and upload. If you write a script, the free speech time calculator says how long it will run, and the free teleprompter lets you read it to camera.
7. Upload at the right size
A YouTube video should be 16:9, uploaded at the size you recorded, as an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC sound. Thumbnails are 16:9 too, and YouTube now recommends 3840 x 2160 for them. The YouTube video and thumbnail size guide has every figure.
8. When a channel can earn money
The YouTube Partner Program has two tiers. Each needs one of the two thresholds in its row.
| Tier | Subscribers | And either | Or | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 500, with 3 public uploads in the last 90 days | 3,000 watch hours in the last 12 months | 3 million Shorts views in the last 90 days | Fan funding and Shopping: memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks, Jewels and gifts |
| Standard | 1,000 | 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months | 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days | Ad revenue and YouTube Premium revenue |
The Entry tier runs only in the countries YouTube lists, which include the US, the UK, most of Europe, India and Japan; elsewhere the Standard tier is the first one.
You also need to live where the program runs, have no active Community Guidelines strikes, turn on 2-Step Verification for the Google Account, have YouTube's advanced features turned on (they come with channel history, or straight away by verifying with ID or a video), and link an AdSense account. Meeting the thresholds lets you apply; YouTube then reviews the channel.
To put 3,000 hours in perspective: that is about 18,000 complete views of a ten-minute video in a year. It comes from a library of videos people want, made steadily, which is why the next step matters more than any of the setup.
The step that decides whether the channel lasts
Most channels stop because making each video takes too long, not because the setup was wrong. The recording is quick; the editing is where an evening goes.
That is the part Rooster is for. It records you and your screen on your Mac, transcribes the take on the Mac as well, and lets you edit the video by editing the transcript: delete a sentence and the video goes with it. Recording, editing and export are unlimited for one flat price, with no meter on how much you make while you find your rhythm. The YouTube page says what it does and does not do for a channel like yours.