Free tool
YouTube Trending Hashtag Generator
Build a hashtag set from what your video is about, then check it against the hashtags videos in your niche are actually using right now.
What hashtags should I use on YouTube?
Three to five that describe the video honestly, with the most specific first. YouTube shows the first three above your title and ignores all of them once there are more than 15, so a long list is worse than none. Hashtags file a video; they don't rank it.
How to use the hashtag generator
- Say what the video is about. Hashtag ideas appear as you type — specific ones first, broader ones after, plus Shorts tags if you tick the box.
- Check your niche. Paste up to five videos on the same subject. The tool reads the hashtags each one uses and counts which recur, so you can see what your corner of YouTube has settled on.
- Build your set. Tap any hashtag to add it. The counter keeps you under 15 and shows which three will appear above your title.
- Copy it. One press puts the set on your clipboard, ready for the end of your description.
Where hashtags actually appear
Hashtags are written once, at the end of the description. YouTube takes the first three and shows them above your title, which is the only place most people ever see them — and the reason the order you choose matters more than the number.
What "trending" can honestly mean here
Nobody outside YouTube can see hashtag volume. There is no trending-hashtag feed in the API, and the hashtag pages block automated reading, so any tool claiming live hashtag popularity is guessing or quoting something else entirely.
What can be measured is what the videos in front of you are doing. Paste five videos that are working in your niche, and the count tells you which hashtags that group has in common — real, current, and from videos you chose rather than an invented score.
The fifteen cliff
This is the rule that catches people out. Fifteen hashtags is fine. Sixteen does not quietly drop the last one — YouTube ignores every hashtag on the video, so a set assembled to cover every angle ends up covering none of them.
The two rules worth knowing
| Rule | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| The first three show above the title | Put the ones you'd want a viewer to click first |
| More than 15 and all are ignored | A wall of hashtags doesn't dilute your reach — it removes it |
| No spaces or punctuation | #sourdough starter becomes #sourdough; the tool joins them for you |
| They must match the video | Misleading hashtags fall under YouTube's spam and metadata policies |
Where hashtags actually help
A hashtag is a filing label, not a ranking signal. Tapping one opens a feed of videos using it, which is where the value sits: being findable inside a subject people already browse, and looking like part of that conversation. For a small channel, three well-chosen hashtags put you in a room you weren't in before.
What they don't do is move you up search results. That work belongs to the title, the thumbnail and how long people stay — the same order of priority as tags, which YouTube says matter even less.
Choosing three that earn their place
A good set is not a list of everything the video touches. It is one hashtag for the thing itself, one for the room it belongs in, and one for the kind of video it is.
- One specific. #sourdoughstarter, not #baking. This is the one that finds your actual audience.
- One category. The room you want to be in: #bread, #homebaking.
- One format or series, if you have one: #shorts, or your own series tag used on every episode.
- Skip the vanity tags. #viral and #fyp describe a hope, not a video, and YouTube has no "For You" feed to catch them.
- Reuse a series tag deliberately. A hashtag you put on every episode becomes a real index of your own work.
Reading your niche properly
Five videos is enough to see a pattern. Pick ones that are working on your exact subject — not the biggest channels on YouTube, whose hashtags reflect a brand rather than a topic — and look at what comes up more than once. A hashtag used by four of five videos is the room that subject is filed in.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| 4 of 5 videos share a hashtag | The established label for the subject. Use it. |
| 2 of 5 share one | Worth a look — often a sub-topic or a series |
| Everything appears once | No convention here. Yours can set one. |
| None of them use hashtags | Common, and not a mistake on their part. The upside is small either way. |
Read them the way you would read another channel's tags: as vocabulary, not as something to copy wholesale. A hashtag that does not describe your video is worth nothing to you and breaks YouTube's metadata rules besides.
Hashtags for Shorts
Shorts follow the same rules, and #shorts remains common, though YouTube no longer needs it to identify a Short. Keep the set small: on a phone, the three above the title are most of what anyone ever sees.
Frequently asked questions
How many hashtags should a YouTube video have?
Three to five is plenty. YouTube displays the first three above the title, and ignores every hashtag on the video if you use more than 15.
Do hashtags help a video get more views?
Modestly, and not through ranking. They make a video findable inside a hashtag feed and signal what it belongs to. Title, thumbnail and watch time do the heavy lifting.
Where do I put them, the title or the description?
The description, usually at the end — YouTube lifts the first three above your title automatically. Hashtags typed into the title itself take up room that the title needs.
Can you show me what's trending on YouTube right now?
Not honestly. YouTube publishes no hashtag volume and its hashtag pages block automated reading. What this tool does instead is count the hashtags recurring across videos you choose, which is real data about your niche rather than a guess about the platform.
Are #viral and #fyp worth using?
No. They describe what you want rather than what the video is, the feeds behind them are enormous and unbrowsed, and #fyp belongs to a different platform entirely.
Not sure what your video is really about?
Summarize it, and the takeaways name the subject better than a blank box does.
Summarize a video — free