If your badly edited Joe Rogan clips or snatches of AI-narrated comic book fare aren’t long enough (we don’t know what you watch on YouTube), you’ll be pleased to note that YouTube Shorts is extending its length. Just a bit and in just a bit.

The update goes through from 15 October, so creators might want to get their newer, lengthier videos ready before then. If you’re just a passive observer, your attention span should be prepared for 180 seconds of content fury.

The long and Shorts of it

That’s right, YouTube is extending its Shorts to a solid three minutes, up from a paltry sixty seconds in its current guise. That’s a far cry from competitor TikTok’s ten-minute time limit but it’s longer than we have now from Google’s offering. That’s got to be worth something.

There’s an aspect ratio requirement for 180-second uploads. Square videos or those with a taller aspect ratio benefit from the change. The lengthening was apparently done at the behest of creators, according to YouTube, but keeping eyes firmly focused on the app was probably also a drawcard.

Other changes are inbound too. YouTube users will find a way to banish the shorter video format from their feeds (temporarily). Templates and a Remix function are coming for the hard-of-imagination to ‘borrow’ content for their own creations. Finally, there’s also Veo, Google’s AI-powered video generation system, heading to the briefer side of YouTube. If you thought you were escaping AI video dreck by watching shorter clips, think again.