YouTube Shorts is getting a new experimental feature

YouTube has been testing several new features since the beginning of the year, and while not all have been released to the general public, it’s interesting to see what the company’s engineers are working on. The most recent experimental feature that YouTube is testing is aimed at those who love creating Shorts, the service’s alternative to TikTok short videos.

Starting today, those who have access to the new feature on mobile devices will be able to create Shorts featuring comments posted on videos they’re watching. Previously, this feature was only available for creators, who were able to reply to comments posted on their own content with a Short, so the experimental feature now offers viewers the option to create content from comments too.

YouTube says that once created, the Short should appear in the Shorts feed and on the viewer’s channel page. However, it’s important to add Shorts created by viewers don’t function the same as those posted by creators. For starters, viewer-created Shorts will not send notifications to the creator whose video comment is on, nor the comment author.

If you’re among the lucky ones to get access to the feature, here is how you can turn comments into Shorts:

• From the watch page of a video tap Reply on a comment
• Tap Create a Short
• You’re good to go!

Furthermore, creators will not be able to prevent viewers from using their comments from being features in a Short, unless comments on their videos are disabled. Now, if you’re interested in getting the experimental feature and start creating Shorts from comments, we have a little bit of bad news for you.

According to YouTube, this specific feature is only available to a small percentage of viewers on Android and iOS mobile devices. On the bright side, the availability of the experimental feature isn’t limited to one or more regions, as YouTube claims it should be rolled out globally.