SocialAutoUpload User Guide · Volume 7 — Media & URL Import · Lesson 8

Media that works everywhere

Level: Intermediate Time: ~15 min Prerequisites: Lesson 7 Audience: creators

Purpose

One file, five platforms — each with different rules. This lesson gives you the real limits and formats, shows how the app adapts a single video into a Reel, Short or full video per platform, and explains exactly what happens to your media after you publish.

What you can upload

Type	Formats accepted	Size
Images	JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF, HEIC/HEIF, AVIF	Up to 1 GB per file
Videos	MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM, MKV, 3GP, WMV, FLV, M4V and more	Up to 1 GB per file

SVG images are not accepted — they can hide scripts, so they're blocked for safety.
An unrecognized file shows "…" — unsupported format; convert it to one of the formats above.
Oversized files show "…" — exceeds 1GB limit; compress or trim first.

How large files upload

Files over about 20 MB are sent to our servers in small chunks rather than one big transfer. You don't do anything differently — but it means a shaky mobile connection can recover and continue instead of failing the whole upload. A progress bar shows how it's going.

💡 Wait for the upload to finish before publishing

Publish and Schedule stay locked while a file is uploading (Uploading media — publishing unlocks when the upload finishes). This guarantees your post never goes out without its media.

Processing: why a video sometimes takes a moment

After a video uploads, the app may process it — converting it to a standard MP4 the platforms reliably accept. Short, already-compatible videos are ready instantly; larger or unusual ones convert in the background, and you'll see a brief progress indicator. If a conversion can't be done, the app keeps your original and continues rather than losing your work.

Auto-format: one video, the right shape everywhere

When you publish a video, the app adapts it to each selected platform automatically — you don't pre-cut different versions:

Platform	What happens to your video
Facebook	90 seconds or shorter → published as a Reel; longer → a regular video.
Instagram	Videos publish as Reels; anything over 90 seconds is auto-trimmed to 90 s.
YouTube	60 seconds or shorter → a Short; longer → a regular video (needs a title — Lesson 4).
TikTok	Auto-trimmed if it exceeds your account's allowed length.
Telegram	No duration limit; up to the 1 GB upload size.

Instagram trims to 90 seconds — plan for it

If you post a 3-minute video to Instagram, only the first 90 seconds go out (as a Reel). For longer Instagram content, edit it to fit before uploading. The composer shows these auto-format rules while you build the post so there are no surprises.

Thumbnails (YouTube)

When you publish a video to YouTube, you can add a custom thumbnail — an image under 10 MB. The thumbnail option appears in the composer only when YouTube is selected and you're posting a video. Leave it off and YouTube picks a frame for you.

🗑 What happens to your media — the full rule

The app is a publisher, not storage

After a full success: a few minutes after a post publishes to every channel, its media files are deleted from our servers. The live posts on each platform are unaffected — but you can't re-download the file here.
Uploaded but never posted: a file you upload and don't attach to a post is cleared after about 2 hours.
Retrying a cleaned post will ask you to re-upload, because the file is gone.

Always keep your original files. Treat SocialAutoUpload as the thing that publishes them, not the place that stores them.

Your media is safe while a post is a draft, scheduled, publishing, published (briefly), or partial — cleanup only removes files that are fully done or abandoned. Media attached to a draft or scheduled post is never touched until that post finishes.

Content check

At publish time, media is scanned for adult/NSFW content. If it's flagged, the post is rejected with Your post was rejected: the attached media contains adult or NSFW content, which is not permitted. — use different media; this can't be self-overridden.

Expected result

You can pick media confidently: you know what formats and sizes work, that large files upload reliably in chunks, that one video becomes the right format on each platform, and that you should always keep your originals.

Common mistakes

Uploading an SVG — not accepted; export as PNG/JPG.
Posting a long video to Instagram expecting the whole thing — it's trimmed to 90 seconds.
Publishing before the upload/processing finishes — wait for it; the button is locked.
Relying on the app to store your media — it deletes published files; keep originals.
Adding a thumbnail over 10 MB — Thumbnail size must be under 10MB.

Troubleshooting (quick table)

You see…	Why	Do this
"…" — unsupported format	File type not accepted (or SVG)	Convert to JPG/PNG/MP4/MOV, etc.
"…" — exceeds 1GB limit	File too large	Compress or trim below 1 GB
The uploaded file no longer exists on the server…	The file was cleaned up (published, or abandoned >2 h)	Re-upload the original and publish again
An Instagram video looks cut off	Auto-trimmed to 90 s	Edit to ≤90 s before uploading
Upload seems stuck at the end	Large video is processing/converting	Give it a moment; it finishes in the background

📱 Mobile note: chunked upload is exactly why the app is mobile-friendly — a dropped signal resumes instead of restarting. Uploading over Wi-Fi is still faster for big videos.

Next: Lesson 9 — Import media from a URL.
Pull a video straight from YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and 1,700+ other sites — and handle the sites that push back.