• The handle will be how people mention you in comments, and community posts, and how you appear on search results.
• YouTube will also start showing a creator’s handle on the shorts tab and alongside the channel name on the channel page.
YouTube will be introducing handles to make it easier for users to find and connect with each other, both creators and viewers.
Unlike channel names, handles are unique to each creator, making it easier for you to establish a distinct presence on YouTube.
The handle will be how people mention you in comments and community posts, and how you appear on search results.
YouTube will also start showing a creator’s handle on the shorts tab and alongside the channel name on the channel page.
YouTube is gradually rolling out the ability to choose handles for all channels over the coming weeks.
If you already have a personalised URL, your channel has been reserved for this as your handle.
If you wish to have a different handle from the reserved one, you will be able to change it.
If you don’t have a personalised URL, you can choose a handle for your channel.
The handle will automatically become your channel's new YouTube URL, making it easy for people to discover you.
On November 14, if you wouldn’t have selected a handle for your channel, YouTube will automatically assign you a handle.
This can be changed in the YouTube studio.
A handle has to follow YouTube’s community guidelines.
A handle must also be between 3 to 30 characters, made up of alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), include underscores, hyphens, and full stops and is not already being used.
If you are contributing to the YouTube community for the first time, for example by making a comment or uploading a video, a channel is automatically created.
At that point, you will be asked to select a handle.
Having a YouTube account does not necessarily equate to having a channel.
Supervised users will not have access to handles.
A supervised experience on YouTube is a parent-managed version of regular YouTube and YouTube music for children under 13.
With the handle, creators can get noticed on shorts, identify in a unique way, get tagged in videos, easily be found by others, and connect with other creators in the YouTube community.