Why is my YouTube Short private? The default for ages 13 to 17

If your new Short shows as private, the most likely reason is the creator's age: YouTube's upload help says the default privacy setting is private for creators aged 13 to 17 and public for creators 18 and over. Open the video in YouTube Studio, change visibility to public or unlisted, and save. The Create page lists public, private and unlisted as the three options at upload.

This post reads Upload YouTube Shorts and Create YouTube Shorts on 2026-10-02. It does not cover the separate case of API uploads stuck private, which has a different cause.

What exactly is the default?

Both help pages state the same rule. Creators aged 13 to 17 start with private; creators 18 and over start with public. The default is a starting value in the upload form, so you can still pick another option before you publish.

What if you did not set an age-based default?

Check three other places before assuming an age default. First, whether you chose private yourself in the Edit draft step. Second, whether you scheduled the upload; our post on scheduling Shorts covers that. Third, if you upload through the API, an unverified API project can force uploads private, which is described in API uploads stuck private.

The upload page also requires a made-for-kids designation, and a Quiz sticker is non-interactive on private Shorts, so a Short left private will also behave differently once you add interactive elements.

How do you make it public?

The steps are the same whether the Short came from the Shorts camera or an upload:

• Open YouTube Studio and go to your content list.
• Open the Short and set Visibility to Public (or Unlisted to share by link only).
• Confirm the made-for-kids setting, then save.
• Open the public link in a signed-out window to confirm it plays.

Where does Sume come in?

Sume does not publish to YouTube and cannot change a video's privacy. A clip generated through POST /v1/videos or edited with video trim is a file on media.sume.com; the visibility choice happens when you upload that file in Studio. If you make Shorts for a client under 18, the age default belongs to the account that uploads, not to the file.

A practical habit for teams: name the visibility in your delivery checklist next to the 9:16 and under 3 minutes checks, so nobody discovers a private Short after launch day.