Set up a YouTube channel that is ready to publish.

A YouTube channel is a Google account with a channel attached. You choose whether it travels with your personal Google identity or sits in its own Brand Account.

1. 1

   Sign in to YouTube with a Google account. If you do not have one, create it at accounts.google.com first — the channel is attached to that account and cannot be moved to a different login later.

2. 2

   Open youtube.com and, from the avatar menu, choose to create a channel. YouTube asks for a channel name; you can change it afterwards, but not more often than YouTube's rename limits allow.

3. 3

   Decide between a personal channel and a Brand Account. A Brand Account is a separate identity that can hold the channel with its own name, and it lets you add other Google accounts as managers. Choose it if the channel is a business asset you may hand over or share; choose the personal channel if it is just you.

4. 4

   Pick a handle. The handle is the @name in the channel URL, and it is what people search for. It is separate from the display name, so a display name with spaces still gets a clean handle.

5. 5

   Verify the channel by phone. Open youtube.com/verify while signed in to the account that owns the channel, enter your phone number, choose whether YouTube sends the code by text message or voice call, then enter the code. This is not optional housekeeping: without it YouTube rejects the thumbnails Ghostframe tries to set, and it also blocks uploads longer than 15 minutes. It is also required before YouTube will consider the channel for monetisation. A phone number can verify no more than two channels per year, so use a different number if YouTube says it has reached the maximum.

6. 6

   Add a profile picture before publishing anything. A channel with the default avatar reads as abandoned, and the logo is the one asset you can upload before the first video exists.

YouTube Studio is where the channel's identity, defaults and permissions live. Four screens cover almost everything a new channel needs.

1. 1

   Branding → Profile picture. Upload the square logo. The kit Ghostframe generates is 800×800; YouTube crops it to a circle at every size it uses, so keep the important part of the mark near the centre.

2. 2

   Branding → Banner image. Upload the banner. The generated file is 2560×1440, and only the central 1546×423 is guaranteed to survive every device crop — TV, desktop, tablet and phone each show a different slice. Studio previews those crops; if your artwork carries text, check it against the safe-zone preview in your branding kit before uploading.

3. 3

   Branding → Video watermark. Optional, but worth setting: it is the subscribe button that sits over every video. Upload the same logo, choose a display time, and save.

4. 4

   Basic info. Write the channel description. Say who the channel is for and what it publishes — it is searchable, and it is the first thing a sponsor reads. Add links (site, socials) in the same panel.

5. 5

   Settings → Upload defaults. Set the default title prefix or suffix, description, tags and visibility that new uploads inherit. Anything set here is a starting point, not a lock: a per-video value overrides it.

6. 6

   Settings → Channel → Advanced settings. Confirm the audience declaration (whether the channel is made for kids), the country of residence, and the default language. Getting the audience setting wrong is a compliance problem, not a preference.

7. 7

   Settings → Permissions. If someone else will manage uploads or the channel, invite them here rather than sharing a password. Studio grants roles per person and can revoke them.

Ghostframe publishes with your own free Google Cloud OAuth client rather than a shared app, so each channel gets its own upload quota and nothing is published until you switch auto-posting on.

1. 1

   Open Socials and choose Connect on the YouTube card for the channel you are setting up.

2. 2

   Follow the wizard. It walks you through creating a Google Cloud project, enabling the YouTube Data API v3, publishing the OAuth consent screen to production, and downloading the client JSON. You paste the file in; Ghostframe reads only the client id and secret.

3. 3

   Approve access with the device flow. The wizard shows an eight-character code; enter it at google.com/device, and choose the Google account that owns the channel. Google then shows a “Google hasn’t verified this app” warning. That is expected, because the app is the one you just created in your own Google account and only you can use it: click Advanced, then Go to your app (unsafe). Approve every permission listed. Approving a subset is the most common reason a connection saves but cannot upload.

4. 4

   Confirm the channel id. The wizard shows which YouTube channel the authorisation landed on. If it picked the wrong brand channel, reconnect and choose again — uploads follow the id shown, not the name.

5. 5

   Make sure the channel is phone-verified. Open youtube.com/verify while signed in to the channel's account, enter your phone number, and enter the code YouTube sends by text or voice call. Ghostframe can upload without it, but YouTube refuses to apply custom thumbnails to an unverified channel, so every video would go out with an auto-picked frame.

6. 6

   Open Auto Poster and turn Auto-posting on. Until that switch is on, a saved schedule is stored but inactive, and nothing is published on your behalf.

7. 7

   Set the cadence: which days long-form and Shorts release, the time of day, and whether connected platforms cross-post at the same times.

Monetisation is two separate applications: admission to the YouTube Partner Program, and then linking AdSense so YouTube has somewhere to pay you. Neither is automatic, and neither is guaranteed.

1. 1

   Reach the eligibility threshold. For a channel admitted before the February 2027 change that is 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 qualified watch hours in 12 months, or 10 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days. Applicants admitted on or after 1 February 2027 need 8,000 watch hours or 20 million Shorts views; the subscriber count is unchanged.

2. 2

   Apply from YouTube Studio once the channel shows as eligible. YouTube reviews the channel against its monetisation policies — including the rules on reused and inauthentic content — and the review can take weeks. Nothing in Ghostframe speeds that decision up.

3. 3

   Link an AdSense account when prompted. It must be in the same name as the channel's owner and must pass AdSense's own approval, which is a separate review from YouTube's.

4. 4

   Complete the tax and payment details in AdSense. YouTube deducts withholding tax according to the treaty between the payee's country and the channel's, so the figure paid is not the figure earned.

5. 5

   Wait for the balance to clear $100. AdSense pays monthly, but only once the unpaid balance reaches that floor; below it, the balance rolls over.

6. 6

   Keep the library publishing. Watch hours are a rolling twelve-month window, so a channel that stops producing slowly loses ground on the threshold even if it never loses views.