Track length in list does not match actual playback length?
Every so often YouTube says a video is 15 minutes long, but when you press play it ends at 12:47. The reverse happens too: a playlist shows 28 minutes, yet playback stretches past half an hour. It’s rarely a conspiracy—just metadata that hasn’t caught up. Here’s how I diagnose it when customers report the bug.
Check the obvious edits first
- Creator trims. When a channel uses YouTube’s built-in editor to remove a section, the front-end usually updates within a day, but cached data can hang around. Reload the page, or better yet run the playlist ID through the YouTube Playlist Length Calculator, which pulls fresh duration info from the API.
- Regional blocks. Some uploads include licensed music. If Content ID mutes a portion in your region, the playback length shrinks even though the global metadata still reports the original runtime. Compare results with a friend in another country or VPN just long enough to confirm.
When it’s your own channel
- Re-open the video in YouTube Studio and save it again, even if nothing changed. That bumps the cache.
- Double-check the source file. Occasionally we upload a 60 fps version that YouTube later transcodes at 30 fps, which shifts the reported length by a few seconds.
- Keep a note of affected videos. If the discrepancy sticks around for more than a week, report it via Creator Support.
If you’re trying to keep a playlist organised by runtime, give everything a fresh scan once the metadata settles. With a clean dataset you’ll spend less time second-guessing the numbers and more time curating the content people actually want to see.