Studio (YouTube Studio)

What is YouTube Studio?

YouTube Studio is the creator dashboard for a YouTube channel. It is where you upload and edit videos, read analytics, reply to comments, manage subtitles and copyright, customise your channel, and — if you are in the Partner Program — control monetisation settings.

Why it matters

Every channel decision starts here. Studio is the only place that shows your own performance data, so it is where you check whether a thumbnail worked, whether viewers stayed, and how much a video earned. Channel settings that affect discovery and monetisation also live in Studio and nowhere else.

Access to the YouTube Partner Program settings appears in Studio once your channel is accepted.

What is in the left menu

On desktop, YouTube Studio has 9 sections in the left menu:

• Dashboard — a high-level overview of new activity on your channel, along with what's new on YouTube.

• Content — an overview of your videos, live streams, posts, and playlists.

• Analytics — metrics and reports on channel and video performance.

• Community — comments on your videos and mentions of your channel by other creators.

• Subtitles — subtitles and captions for your videos.

• Content detection — copyright takedown requests.

• Earn — monetisation settings, if you are in the YouTube Partner Program.

• Customization — channel layout, branding, and basic info.

• Audio Library — music and sound effects to use in your videos.

The Android and iOS apps show a shorter bottom menu: Dashboard, Content, Analytics, Community, and Earn.

How to open it and edit a video

Sign in at studio.youtube.com, or select your profile picture on YouTube and then YouTube Studio. To work on a single video, open the Content page and click the video thumbnail. The video opens with these tabs: Details, Analytics, Editor, Comments, Subtitles, Copyright, and Clips.

Studio also hosts newer creator tools such as Ask Studio — we cover it in this guide to the in-Studio AI assistant.