Best Time to Post on YouTube: Day-by-Day Guide

The best time to post on YouTube is Sunday at 10 a.m. for long-form videos, and Friday at 4 p.m. for Shorts. That’s from Buffer’s 2026 study of 1.8 million videos, which compared median engagement across every hour of the week. The times are in your audience’s local time. Below is the full day-by-day schedule, the best days, and how to find the slot that fits your own channel.

Best Times to Post on YouTube by Day

The top three slots for each day, in your audience’s local time (Buffer, July 2026):

Day	Long-form videos	Shorts
Monday	9 a.m., 10 p.m., 7 a.m.	8 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m.
Tuesday	9 a.m., 11 a.m., 8 a.m.	8 p.m., 9 p.m., 7 p.m.
Wednesday	7 a.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m.	7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m.
Thursday	5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 a.m.	7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m.
Friday	12 p.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m.	4 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m.
Saturday	12 p.m., 10 a.m., 3 p.m.	7 p.m., 11 a.m., 6 p.m.
Sunday	10 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 p.m.	7 p.m., 8 p.m., 5 p.m.

The bold slots are the best of the week for each format.

Best Days to Post on YouTube

Rank	Long-form videos	Shorts
Best	Sunday	Friday
Next	Tuesday, then Monday	Saturday, then Thursday
Weakest	Wednesday and Thursday	Tuesday and Monday

Long-form videos do best early in the day and on Sunday, when people have time to watch something longer. Shorts do best in the evening, when people scroll after work.

Long-Form vs Shorts: Different Timing, Same Platform

Compare	Long-form	Shorts
Best slot	Sunday 10 a.m.	Friday 4 p.m.
Best window	Mornings, plus midday on Friday and Saturday	6–11 p.m. most days
Worst window	Thursday afternoon	Midday to 5 p.m. (except Friday)
How much timing matters	More: early views shape how a video starts	Less: Shorts keep being resurfaced for days or weeks

If you post both, you don’t need to post them together. A long-form video on Sunday morning and a Short on Friday evening each lands in its own best slot.

How to Find Your Channel’s Best Posting Time

Study averages are a starting point. Your own viewers might be in another time zone, or online at different hours. YouTube Studio shows when they’re around.

Plan your next upload with your assistant

Quick Prompt: Plan your next YouTube upload

@Mysocial MCP

Edit your prompt Use my available Mysocial post context and the YouTube Studio activity notes I provide for [channel]. Draft a seven-day preparation plan and two publish slots to test in [time zone]. Separate audience observations from guesses; note missing data. Keep Shorts, regular videos and live sessions distinct. Draft only; do not schedule or publish.

Review and send in your AI app.

Setup & access

Connect and select Mysocial before sending. Connect Mysocial →

Choose the right account and workspace. Mysocial supplies available post and account context; bring the Studio activity report, its date and time zone yourself. Connected accounts do not guarantee a viewer heatmap, impressions, CTR or retention data. Deeper content analysis requires the appropriate access. Review the plan and schedule manually in YouTube Studio.

Result: A realistic preparation plan, two possible publishing slots with their reasons, and a review checklist.

Replace [channel] and [time zone], and add your Studio activity notes. Without Mysocial, paste those notes and a few past videos into your assistant, or use the worksheet below.

Copy the posting-time planning worksheet

CHANNEL AND FORMAT:
VIDEO'S READER QUESTION:
TARGET WEEK AND TIME ZONE:
ACTIVITY SOURCE AND DATE:
OBSERVED ACTIVITY WINDOWS:
PREPARATION TIME AND CONSTRAINTS:

CANDIDATE SLOT A:
Audience reason:
Readiness check:
What is unknown:

CANDIDATE SLOT B:
Audience reason:
Readiness check:
What is unknown:

CHOSEN SLOT AND REASON:
Manual scheduling owner:
Same-age performance review point:

Mysocial can help your assistant use available existing posts and account context when drafting the plan. The Studio activity notes remain an input you supply. A caption, public view count or publication timestamp cannot establish when viewers were online or what a video’s private retention was.

How Much Posting Time Really Matters

YouTube’s performance FAQ says publishing time isn’t known to affect a video’s long-term performance. A good slot helps early views, because more of your audience is online. Timing matters most for live streams and Premieres, where people need to be there at the moment.

So use the best time as a small edge, not a fix. A strong title, thumbnail and first 30 seconds move views more than the hour you post.

Upload Early, Then Schedule in Studio

Allow time for your actual file to process and for playback checks. YouTube says processing depends on factors such as the video’s format, length, frame rate and quality; higher resolutions can take longer. It does not supply a universal indexing countdown. Video quality and processing.

In YouTube Studio, upload the video, review its details and use Schedule to select a date, time and time zone. Check them before confirming. The publishing step belongs in Studio; the Mysocial prompt produces a draft plan. YouTube’s scheduling instructions.

Review Your Test

Compare the video with reasonably similar uploads at the same age since publication. Record format, topic, packaging and any unusual event alongside the chosen slot. Those differences make a simple “Friday won” conclusion unreliable.

Use only the metrics actually available to you. If your source has views but no impressions or CTR, leave those fields unknown. One successful video is a reason to investigate the slot again, not proof that its publishing hour caused the result.

For live streams and Premieres, use the audience report to help people attend. For Shorts, keep a separate record rather than treating a regular-video schedule as an established Shorts rule.

When your plan is ready, connect YouTube to ChatGPT with Mysocial to bring available channel context into your next planning session. For a title that accurately matches the finished video, use the YouTube title-audit workflow.