YouTube: Aliases and Handles – Alias feature explained simply.

You can use the YouTube Aliases and Handles feature to personalise your account and get the username you want. However, what exactly is behind the feature needs an explanation

YouTube: Aliases and handles – that’s what’s behind it

With the introduction of aliases or handles, the YouTube company sends mails to some users so that they have the opportunity to use the feature in advance.

• If you have received an email from YouTube, you are one of the lucky users who can reserve an alias or handle before the feature is introduced. Aliases and handles are one and the same. Alias is merely the German variant of the English word handle. A handle is a nickname, in the case of YouTube a second name, under which the account is managed.
• Aliases are intended to help expand YouTube’s social features and enable intuitive conversations within the comments as well.
• In addition, the introduction of these unique aliases should help YouTube channels be more easily identified, countering scammers who impersonate someone else. Although channel names can exist more than once, aliases or handles are unique and are only given once.
• With the introduction of aliases, it will be possible to link other YouTube creators within one’s own video title. In addition, the feature will be implemented in both videos and YouTube shorts and will work in the comments and video title as well as in the video description.

Things to consider when choosing a YouTube alias

There are a few things to consider when choosing your YouTube alias and handle. Since the handle represents you as a user and makes you identifiable, you should choose the alias in such a way that you do not violate the guidelines.

• The handle or alias you choose on YouTube should be between 3 and 30 characters long. You may only have the letters from A to Z in upper and lower case and numbers from 0 to 9 in your alias, but YouTube allows the use of underscores “_”, hyphens “-” and dots “.” as part of the name.
• The new alias or handle must not violate the Community Guidelines set by YouTube. For example, handles must not be offensive, insulting or racist.
• The new alias or handle must not violate YouTube’s Community Guidelines.
• If you do not actively set a handle yourself, YouTube will do so for you based on your existing channel name.
• If you want to set the handle yourself, you can do so via the official handle page. To do this, you must be logged in with your account and already selected for the registration process.