These are YouTube’s published recommendations for uploaded files. The single most useful thing to understand about them is that every upload is re-encoded. Nothing you upload is served to viewers as-is, so the goal is not to hand YouTube a small file — it is to hand its encoder enough information to work with.
Container and codecs
| Setting | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Container | MP4, no edit lists, moov atom at the front |
| Video codec | H.264, high profile, progressive scan |
| GOP | Closed GOP, length of half the frame rate |
| Entropy coding | CABAC |
| Audio codec | AAC-LC, stereo or 5.1 |
| Audio sample rate | 48kHz or 96kHz |
Our MP4 converter writes files matching this profile, including the faststart flag that moves the moov atom to the front.
Video bitrate — standard frame rate (24, 25, 30fps)
| Resolution | Pixels | SDR bitrate |
|---|---|---|
| 2160p (4K) | 3840 × 2160 | 35–45 Mbps |
| 1440p (2K) | 2560 × 1440 | 16 Mbps |
| 1080p | 1920 × 1080 | 8 Mbps |
| 720p | 1280 × 720 | 5 Mbps |
| 480p | 854 × 480 | 2.5 Mbps |
| 360p | 640 × 360 | 1 Mbps |
Video bitrate — high frame rate (48, 50, 60fps)
| Resolution | SDR bitrate |
|---|---|
| 2160p (4K) | 53–68 Mbps |
| 1440p (2K) | 24 Mbps |
| 1080p | 12 Mbps |
| 720p | 7.5 Mbps |
Audio bitrate
| Channels | Bitrate |
|---|---|
| Mono | 128 kbps |
| Stereo | 384 kbps |
| 5.1 | 512 kbps |
What actually matters
If you take three things from this page:
- Upload the highest quality you reasonably can. The re-encode is lossy, and a better source survives it better. This matters far more than any individual setting.
- Consider uploading at 4K even for 1080p content. YouTube assigns better codecs to 4K uploads, so the delivered 1080p stream can be visibly cleaner.
- Do not upload a file you have already compressed. Going from your editor’s export straight to YouTube is one lossy pass. Compressing first makes it two, and the second one is the one you can avoid.
If your export is too large to upload comfortably, resist compressing it — a slower upload costs you nothing but time, while a compression pass costs quality permanently. Use the compressor only when a hard size limit genuinely blocks you.
For the container and codec choice specifically, see best video format for YouTube.