YouTube upload checker

Is your export set up the way YouTube recommends?

YouTube publishes the settings it recommends for uploads: the container, the H.264 encoding, frame rate, bitrate, colour and audio. Drop in your export and see where it matches, and where it doesn’t, with what to change. Only the file’s headers are read, in your browser.

Drop the video you’re about to upload

Only the file’s headers are read, so a long 4K export takes seconds. Nothing is uploaded.

What matters most

Fast Start. An MP4 has an index (the moov atom) that says where everything is. Some editors write it at the end, so nothing can be read until the whole file has arrived. YouTube recommends it at the front. Moving it doesn’t touch the picture or sound: ffmpeg does it with -c copy -movflags +faststart.

Interlacing. Footage from broadcast cameras and some older camcorders is interlaced. YouTube recommends deinterlacing before upload (1080i50 to 1080p25, 1080i60 to 1080p30), so the result is under your control rather than left to a generic conversion.

Bitrate. YouTube re-encodes everything, so the upload is its starting point. Uploading under its recommended bitrate means losing detail twice.

What it can’t check

Headers say how a file is encoded, not how it looks or sounds. Whether the frame rate matches what you shot, whether the picture is sharp, and how loud it is are beyond them. For loudness, use the YouTube loudness checker. Some encoders also don’t record GOP details in the header; those show as “can’t tell” rather than a guess.