GUIDE
Instagram Reels subtitle placement
Measured from a real phone, not scaled from a web player — with the exact limits of that measurement.
What can overlap a subtitle
Reels draws two things over the video on the right and bottom-left: a vertical action rail (like, comment, share, bookmark) down the right edge, and a profile/audio row (avatar, username, follow button, and the audio line) lower on the left. A wide subtitle near the bottom edge tends to reach the profile/audio row first; a subtitle pushed toward either side can catch the action rail.
What the tool loads for Reels
In Reference · Organic mode, the active Reels reference is a first-party capture: a physical Galaxy S20 Ultra, Instagram app 477.0.0.55.81, Korean UI, captured 2026-09-23. Of 15 screenshots reviewed, 9 qualified as plain single-video playback (no collection or hashtag header, no paused-state controls, no carousel badge) and became the base measurement. Confidence is recorded as medium-high.
Two regions are loaded — and both are clipped to only the part that actually sits over the video, not the full icon column:
- Action rail — the like-through-bookmark icon column, from where the like icon starts down to the bottom of the video frame. The audio-disc thumbnail below that point falls outside the video and isn't included.
- Profile / audio row — the avatar, username, and follow button, again cut off exactly where the video frame ends.
Two things that look like they'd overlap, don't, in this capture: the caption text itself and the comment-input bar both render below the actual video frame, in the letterboxed margin — so they're recorded as measurements but not loaded as collision regions.
Using it
Switch Data to Reference · Organic, place your Subtitle, and check the Reels column. A caption sitting fully above the profile/audio row and clear of the right-edge action rail should read Safe against this reference.
Limitations
- Single device, single session — Android only, one app version, one locale. iOS, other phones, and other app versions weren't captured.
- Caption was collapsed to one line in every sample; the expanded "more" state wasn't captured, so we don't yet know whether it pushes further into the video.
- Carousel posts (numbered badge + dot indicator) were seen in only 2 of 15 screenshots — too few to include, so they're tracked separately and not loaded here.