Best export settings for YouTube in 2026, with the exact bitrates

The short answer

YouTube adds one line most guides skip: “No bitrate limit is required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference.” The numbers are a target, not a minimum and not a maximum. The rest of this page explains every setting, the HDR and Shorts rules, and which popular tips are documented and which are not.

What does YouTube actually ask for?

These are the container and stream settings on YouTube’s recommended upload encoding settings page. Most editors set them for you when you choose MP4 and H.264; it is still worth knowing what they are when an upload looks wrong.

You can check a finished file yourself with ffprobe, which ships with ffmpeg:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 \
  -show_entries stream=codec_name,profile,pix_fmt,r_frame_rate,color_primaries,color_transfer,color_space \
  -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 your-video.mp4

You want h264, High, yuv420p, your recording frame rate, and bt709 for the color fields.

What are YouTube’s recommended bitrates?

For standard dynamic range (SDR) video, which is almost everything:

The matching pixel sizes for 16:9 are on YouTube’s resolution page: 3840x2160 for 4K, 2560x1440 for 1440p, 1920x1080 for 1080p and 1280x720 for 720p.

What bitrate should you use for 1080p, 1440p and 4K?

• 1080p: 8 Mbps at 24 to 30 fps, 12 Mbps at 48 to 60 fps. A 10 minute 1080p30 video at 8 Mbps plus 384 kbps stereo audio comes to about 629 MB (our arithmetic: 8.384 Mbps x 600 s / 8).
• 1440p: 16 Mbps and 24 Mbps. Useful if you recorded at 1440p; there is no need to resize to it.
• 4K: 35 to 45 Mbps at 24 to 30 fps, and 53 to 68 Mbps at 48 to 60 fps. YouTube adds that viewers need a browser or device that supports VP9 to watch new 4K uploads in 4K.

Going above these numbers is allowed and can help footage with lots of fine detail, such as games, foliage or film grain. It also makes larger files that take longer to upload, and YouTube re-encodes every upload into its own streaming versions anyway.

What are the HDR export settings for YouTube?

HDR uploads need HDR metadata, 10 or 12 bit color, Rec. 2020 primaries and a PQ or HLG transfer function, according to YouTube’s HDR upload page. It warns that grading in another configuration, including DCI P3, “will produce incorrect results”. YouTube makes HDR versions for HDR screens and an SDR version for everyone else.

The recommended HDR codecs are VP9 Profile 2, AV1 and HEVC (H.265). ProRes, DNxHR HQX and 10-bit H.264 also work but need very high bitrates.

Is MP4 or MOV better, and H.264 or H.265?

MP4 with H.264 is what YouTube recommends for SDR video. MOV, ProRes, DNxHR, CineForm, WebM and HEVC are all on YouTube’s supported formats list, so they upload fine; they are just not the recommended delivery format. H.265 is recommended for HDR, not as the default for standard video. Files can be up to 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less, once your account can upload long videos (YouTube Help).

Should you export at 30 or 60 fps?

Match what you recorded. YouTube’s wording is direct: “Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded.” Exporting 30 fps footage at 60 fps only duplicates frames and moves you into the higher bitrate tier for no gain. Interlaced footage should be deinterlaced, for example 1080i60 to 1080p30.

What audio settings and loudness should you use?

YouTube recommends AAC-LC (or Opus) at 48 kHz, with audio bitrates of 128 kbps for mono, 384 kbps for stereo and 512 kbps for 5.1. It also notes that audio bitrate is not tied to the video resolution.

Why does my video look washed out after upload?

Usually a color tag problem. YouTube recommends BT.709 for SDR and converts anything else: untagged video is assumed to be BT.709, unsupported color spaces are converted to it, and YouTube “converts full color range to limited color range”. If your editor exports full-range video or tags it as something else, the conversion can lift the blacks and flatten the image. Exporting with BT.709 tags and limited (TV) range avoids the surprise. Check with the ffprobe command above.

What are the YouTube Shorts export settings?

A Short is a video up to 3 minutes long with a square or vertical aspect ratio (YouTube Help). The 3 minute rule applies to videos uploaded on or after October 15, 2024; older uploads stay long-form, and a Short over one minute with an active copyright claim is blocked (YouTube Help).

What is official, and what is folklore?

Three tips appear in nearly every guide. Here is what YouTube actually documents.

On the 4K trick, the most useful comment we found was a caution, not a recommendation:

Which numbers do other guides get wrong?

We checked the pages that rank for these searches against YouTube Help. The common mistakes:

• HDR numbers presented as normal 4K numbers. “66 to 85 Mbps for 4K60” is YouTube’s HDR figure. The SDR figure is 53 to 68 Mbps.
• Live streaming numbers on an upload question. “6,000 to 9,000 kbps for 1080p60” matches live streaming advice, not uploads. For uploads, YouTube recommends 12 Mbps.
• Old Shorts rules. “60 seconds or less” has been out of date since October 2024; the limit is 3 minutes.
• Invented maximums and minimums. Some guides call YouTube’s numbers “the absolute minimum” or quote an official maximum. YouTube publishes neither.
• H.265 as the default. For SDR, YouTube lists H.264.

Why does my upload still look blurry?

1. Processing is not finished. Creators often report that higher-resolution versions appear some time after the first playable one. Wait and check again before re-uploading.
2. Busy footage. Games, water, leaves and grain are hard to stream. YouTube says its processing “may remove some noise”, and that denoising before export gives you more control.
3. The wrong frame rate or interlacing. Export at the recorded rate, progressive.
4. Color tags. See the washed-out section above.
5. A source outside the spec. 4:2:2 or 10-bit H.264 is outside YouTube’s SDR recommendation of 4:2:0 H.264 High Profile; export that for standard video.

If you edit in Rushilo, its export is an MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio, at the project size or at 2160p, 1440p, 1080p, 720p or 480p, and at 24, 25, 30 or 60 fps. Its high quality setting comes out at about 12 Mbps for 1080p30, above YouTube’s 8 Mbps recommendation. Its audio is 192 kbps AAC, below the 384 kbps YouTube suggests for stereo, which is fine for speech.

Patel, O. (2026, October 12). Best export settings for YouTube in 2026, with the exact bitrates. Rushilo. https://rushilo.com/blog/youtube-export-settings

About the author

Om Patel

Founder, Rushilo

Om Patel is the founder of Rushilo, a desktop video editor driven by the user's own AI, and of BigIdeasDB, a research platform that reads real complaints and reviews to help founders validate products. He writes Rushilo's research articles with the same method: primary sources, dated numbers and the words real users write.

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