How long can you make a YouTube playlist?

When people ask how “long” a playlist can be, they usually mean two things: How many videos can it hold? and How many hours will YouTube tolerate before the interface chokes? The first answer is simple—YouTube stops you at 5,000 entries. The second answer is more nuanced.

The unofficial runtime limit

I’ve curated playlists that ran for 350 hours without issue, and I’ve seen others approach the 1,000-hour mark. YouTube doesn’t enforce a strict duration cap; instead, it cares about item count and API response size. That means a playlist filled with long-form podcasts behaves similarly to a playlist filled with short clips, provided both stay under the 5,000-item ceiling.

Why runtime still matters

• Viewer behaviour. A 900-hour playlist looks intimidating. Splitting it into thematic “volumes” helps people dive in.
• Analytics clarity. YouTube Analytics only highlights the top-performing segments. Shorter playlists make it easier to diagnose what’s working.
• Maintenance time. It’s faster to refresh three 150-video lists than one mega list that’s impossible to scroll.

Whenever I inherit a legacy playlist, I run it through the YouTube Playlist Length Calculator and note the total runtime. Anything over 200 hours generally becomes a candidate for restructuring—especially if the series is still active. Keeping an eye on runtime is less about hitting a YouTube wall and more about offering a better experience to viewers (and to yourself).