Convert a YouTube Shorts playlist into a show with Add show features

How do you turn a Shorts playlist into a show?

Open YouTube Studio, go to Content, then Playlists, hover over the playlist, choose Options and pick Add show features. YouTube's page says that by default all videos in the selected playlist are added as episodes to Season 1.

The other route is Create, then New show, where you set the show's details and click Done. Converting suits a channel that already has a Shorts playlist with a running theme.

What to check before you convert

For a Shorts series, the playlist must contain only Shorts. They must be portrait or square and run at most 180 seconds. One long video in the playlist means it is not a Shorts series.

Episode numbers follow publish date, or your manual order if you set one. Sort the playlist before converting, not after, because editing or deleting a number renumbers the others.

Checking a whole playlist with Sume video inspect

If some of your Shorts were rendered long ago, confirm the shape of each file. Import the file to media.sume.com, then call video inspect with frames set to false for a probe only, or leave the default for 8 stills. The still entries carry width and height, and the probe reports whether the clip has audio.

Inspect reads one clip of up to 1800 seconds and never re-encodes it. It is billed by its compute, so check the live price in the catalog rather than assuming a number. The transcript option adds $0.01 per audio minute and is not needed for a shape check.

• Width greater than height means landscape: re-render it before conversion.
• A clip over 180 seconds belongs in a trim job or a second episode.
• No audio track: YouTube's quality bar says videos with no visuals likely will not be treated as a show, so check the picture too.

After the conversion

Season 1 is only the default. If your playlist spans two storylines, add a second season and let YouTube renumber. Eligible shows may appear in search and under Recommended shows and Continue watching, per the same page, so a clean season structure is worth ten minutes now.

Then run the inspect check over any episode you add later. It is a thirty-second habit, and it keeps a stray landscape clip or a three-minute-and-one-second cut from breaking the Shorts-only rule.