Channels allow you to create, curate, and collate your own special thematic home for videos on Vimeo. Create a channel to give your viewers a slick destination to watch your videos, or set up a channel to showcase videos you particularly like from other Vimeo members. Other people can subscribe to your channel, and the videos you add will show up in their feed.
Basic members can create one channel. You can create unlimited channels when you upgrade to Vimeo Premium, Business, Pro, or Plus.
To access your channels, log in to Vimeo, then hover over your profile picture in the top right corner and choose "Collections." Your channels will be listed there along with any other collections (albums, portfolios, and groups) you might have creaed.
Creating a channel
To create your own channel, visit the Channels page and then click the "Create a Channel" button at the top of the page.
Customizing your channel
You can edit your channel's title, description, thumbnail, header image, and custom URL in its settings. You can navigate to your channel's settings by clicking on the "Settings" button on the right side of your channel page.
On the Basic tab, you can change the title, description, custom URL, tags, and category of your channel. On the Appearance tab, you can choose a thumbnail that will represent your channel around the site (search, your Collections page, etc.) and upload a header image that will appear at the top of your channel page.
Remember to hit the "Save" button after you make changes.
Adding videos
Once you’ve created your channel, you can add videos to it. When you find a video you'd like to have in your channel, click the "Collections" button that appears in the video player and select your channel.
Only channel creators and moderators can add videos to a channel. To add moderators to your channel, click "Settings" on your channel page and follow the instructions in the Membership tab.
✦ Video privacy in a channel
Keep in mind that the privacy settings of a channel will always override the privacy settings for your individual video. If you add a private video to a channel, that video will become public within that channel only. The private video will always retain its privacy outside of the channel, but adding it to a public channel means you are giving permission for that video to be viewed in the channel you add it to. The same holds true when you add a private video to public Groups and Portfolios.
That said, you might not be able to add every video you want to your channel. That’s because Vimeo members can choose not to allow their videos to be added to groups, channels, and albums as a privacy setting. Chances are, if you aren’t able to add a particular video to your channel, this was a conscious decision by the person that uploaded it. If you come across a restricted video that you feel is an absolute perfect fit for your channel, you can always try sending the Vimeo member a nice message requesting that they tweak their privacy settings. It never hurts to ask!
Arranging the order of videos
You can customize the order of videos in your channel by going to your channel page and clicking "Settings." From there, click over to the "Videos" tab and choose the way you'd like to arrange your videos from the drop down menu next to “Always arrange by.” If you choose to arrange your videos manually, you can drag and drop up to 100 videos in the order you'd like. As always, don't forget to save your changes!
Removing videos
You can remove any video from your channel by going to the "Videos" tab in the channel's settings, then clicking the red "X" in the video's thumbnail. Make sure you save your changes after removing videos.
If a video that was previously removed is added back to a channel, the video will return to its original spot in the channel. For example, if your channel is sorted by Most Recent, the video’s placement will be based on the time it was originally added, not the time you re-added it.
✦ Deleting your channel
If you'd like to delete your channel, go to your channel homepage and click "Settings." Select the "Advanced" tab and click the "Delete this channel" button.
Channel Privacy
You can choose who can view your channel by clicking the "Settings" button and then the "Membership" tab. You can select from the following privacy options:
- Anyone — Everyone in the whole world can view your channel.
- Only moderators — Only the moderators you have added to your channel can view that channel.
- Only moderators and the people I choose — You can add people to share your channel with by clicking the "Add or remove people" link below these options.
Note: Setting your channel privacy to anything other than Anyone will remove all current subscribers who are not moderators or people you have specifically chosen.
Sharing a channel
Just go to your channel and click the Share button, then enter the email addresses of your friends or their user names on Vimeo.
If you’re looking for channels to follow, you can search for channels by using the search box at the top of your screen. We also recommend visiting the Channels homepage to peruse our featured channels. If you want to stop following a channel, go to that channel and click the Unfollow button.
Staff Picks
Our wonderful Curation Team manages the Staff Picks Channel – a collection of the best videos of Vimeo.
As you can imagine, we get many inquiries each day from passionate folks hoping to draw attention to their latest and greatest video. While we wish our team was equipped with the amount of eyeballs necessary to watch each and every video sent our way, this is unfortunately not the case. The good news is, our Curation Team spends a lot of time tirelessly combing through the amazing videos uploaded by the Vimeo community. To improve your odds of catching their eye, check out these handy Vimeo Video School lessons:
For a bit more about how Staff Picks get chosen, check out this article.