YouTube Text Formatter
Paste your description, select the words you want to stand out and click a style. YouTube supports its own markup, so you can switch between native formatting and Unicode styles that work anywhere. Keep in mind that under 70 so it is not cut off in search.
Select part of your text to style only that part. With nothing selected, the style applies to the whole description. Styled letters are Unicode characters, so they survive pasting into YouTube, but screen readers may read them letter by letter, so keep emphasis to a few words.
How to format text on YouTube
- Paste or type your description in the box above.
- Select a word, a sentence or a whole line. With nothing selected, the style applies to everything.
- Click Bold, Italic, Underline or one of the other styles. Use the YouTube native markup tab for formatting YouTube renders itself.
- Add bullets with the •, → or ✔ buttons: they prefix every selected line.
- Copy the result and paste it into YouTube, or send it straight to the scheduler.
Does bold text work on YouTube?
YouTube descriptions and comments support real formatting: *asterisks* for bold, _underscores_ for italic and -hyphens- for strikethrough. Titles do not, which is why you see Unicode bold in titles. Timestamps typed as 0:00 in a description become clickable chapters.
YouTube descriptions and comments support *bold*, _italic_ and -strikethrough- with asterisks, underscores and hyphens. Titles do not, which is why Unicode bold shows up in titles.
Formatting tips for YouTube
- Timestamps (0:00) in descriptions become chapters automatically.
- Use bold for the first line and for one phrase per paragraph. Whole paragraphs in bold read as shouting and are skipped.
- Styled letters are Unicode symbols. Screen readers spell them out one at a time, and YouTube search does not match them: keep any keyword you want found in plain text.
- The description limit is 5,000 characters.
YouTube character limits (2026)
| Field | Limit | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Video title | 100 | Under 70 so it is not cut off in search |
| Video description | 5,000 | First 157 characters show in search |
| Channel description | 1,000 | |
| Channel name | 100 | |
| Handle | 30 | |
| Comment | 10,000 | |
| Tags (total) | 500 | Total characters across all tags |
| Community post | 5,000 | |
| Playlist title | 150 |
Formatting support on YouTube
YouTube descriptions and comments support *bold*, _italic_ and -strikethrough- with asterisks, underscores and hyphens. Titles do not, which is why Unicode bold shows up in titles.
Timestamps (0:00) in descriptions become chapters automatically.
Frequently asked questions
Is the YouTube text formatter free?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser, there is no signup and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Why does the bold text look different on some phones?
The styled characters come from the Unicode "Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols" block. Every modern phone and browser has them, but older Android keyboards and some email clients render them in a slightly different typeface.
Will formatted text hurt my reach on YouTube?
YouTube does not penalise Unicode characters. What can hurt is readability: a post that is mostly styled text gets skipped, and styled keywords are invisible to search. Use it for emphasis, not decoration.
Can I add bullet points to a YouTube description?
Timestamps (0:00) in descriptions become chapters automatically. The bullet buttons above add the symbol to the start of each selected line.
Can I undo the formatting?
Select the text and click "Clear formatting": it converts styled characters back to plain letters.
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