TikTok video limit: guides say 10 or 60 minutes, so cut to the lower

The TikTok video limit varies by guide, and I could not read TikTok's own help page on 2026-10-05, so I cannot give you one authoritative number. Reap and Headliner both list 10 minutes for in-app TikTok recording, and one of them lists uploads of up to 60 minutes. Both are third-party guides. The safe production rule is to cut to the lower figure unless you have confirmed the higher one in your own account.

What the guides say

For comparison, the same guides give 3 minutes for Shorts (which YouTube Help confirms) and disagree on Reels, with one guide listing 20 minutes in-app against 3 minutes elsewhere.

Probe, then cut

Run video inspect with "frames": false to read the file's duration. Inspect accepts sources up to 1800 seconds. If the file is over your target, video trim cuts a new MP4 with start and duration (0.2 to 900 seconds, source up to 1800 seconds). A 10-minute cut is 600 seconds, inside the 900 second output limit, so it is one job at the documented $0.02. A 15-minute-plus file needs several cuts.

Import the clip first with POST /v1/media-imports, and send an Idempotency-Key on writes.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: tiktok-cut-600" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/episode.mp4",
    "start": 0,
    "duration": 600
  }'

Two cautions

• Check your own app or the platform's current help page before you plan around the 60 minute figure.
• A 1080x1920 file is the shape guides agree on; length is the part that varies.
• Re-encoded exact cuts take longer than keyframe copies, which can start a GOP early; use precision: exact when the in-point matters.

Splitting a longer recording

Video trim reads a source of up to 1800 seconds and writes an output of at most 900 seconds. For a 30-minute recording and a 10-minute target, cut three parts of 600 seconds. Each part is one job with start and duration, and the parts do not overlap.

After the cuts

Check each part before you upload. Run a probe-only video inspect on every result and confirm the duration is the 600 seconds you asked for. Trim reports actual_start_seconds, and with precision: "keyframe" a cut can begin up to one GOP early, so exact precision is the right choice when parts must line up. If a part's end would pass the source end, the job clamps it and warns with trim_clamped_to_source.

Add burned-in captions last, one job per part, because the caption estimate is for clips up to 60 seconds and longer parts are billed under the live catalog price rather than the $0.20 figure.

If you hit a different limit in your own account, change only duration in the trim request and re-run. The source and the other parts do not change, and you can use the same Idempotency-Key pattern with a part number in it so a retry of one part does not create a duplicate cut. Keep a log of which part came from which start.