How much does a video weigh by quality? File size table

In short: as a rough guide, one minute of video weighs about 25-50 MB at 720p, 50-100 MB at 1080p and 200-400 MB at 4K. Size depends mostly on resolution, but also on length, frames per second and the codec's compression.

Rough guide: one minute of video weighs roughly 25-50 MB in 720p, 50-100 MB in 1080p, and 200-400 MB in 4K. Size depends on resolution, length, frames per second, and compression. Before downloading a long video with PullVid, it's worth getting a sense of how much space it'll take.

What a video's size depends on

• Resolution: the factor that weighs the most. 4K takes about 4 times more than 1080p.
• Length: the size grows linearly with the minutes.
• Frames per second (fps): 60 fps weighs more than 30 fps.
• Compression/codec: H.265 or VP9 compress better than H.264 at the same quality.

Rough size-per-minute table

• 720p (HD): ~25-50 MB per minute.
• 1080p (Full HD): ~50-100 MB per minute.
• 1440p (2K): ~100-200 MB per minute.
• 4K (Ultra HD): ~200-400 MB per minute.
• Example: a 10-minute video in 1080p is around 0.5-1 GB; in 4K, easily 2-4 GB.

How to choose quality based on your space

If you're tight on storage or mobile data, 720p or 1080p give you good quality while taking up little. Save 4K for when you have plenty of room and a screen that makes the most of it. To decide between resolutions, see what resolution to download.

If the video is heavy and the download is slow

A big file takes longer and is more sensitive to connection drops. If your download slows down or gets interrupted, try choosing a lower resolution or review the guide on what to do if the download cuts out or is slow.

Comparison table: size by duration

Beyond the per-minute weight, it helps to see how size scales with the video's full length. These are approximate figures: the actual weight varies with the content (a mostly static interview weighs less than an action or sports video) and the codec used to compress it.

How to reduce the download's weight

If the file ends up too big for your available space or mobile data, there are several ways to lighten it without much hassle:

• Lower the resolution: dropping from 4K to 1080p cuts the weight by up to 75%, and from 1080p to 720p roughly halves it, without it being too noticeable on a phone screen.
• Download only the audio if that's all you need: for music, podcasts, or spoken classes, an MP3 weighs a fraction of what the full video does. You can extract it directly with the YouTube to MP3 downloader.
• Choose an efficient codec if you have the option: formats like H.265 or VP9 compress better than H.264 at the same quality, as we explain in the best video formats and quality.

If what worries you is mobile data usage rather than device storage, the guide does downloading videos use a lot of mobile data? breaks down the cost by quality and how to save it.

That said, it's not always worth saving space at all costs: if you're archiving a video for good or plan to edit it later, better to keep the highest resolution available even if it weighs more. You can always compress it or downgrade the quality later, but you can't recover the detail of a video you never downloaded in good resolution.

Recorded on a phone or downloaded: not the same weight

The figures above apply to a downloaded video, which arrives already compressed by the platform. A video recorded on your phone weighs considerably more, because phones record with plenty of headroom: they assume you'll edit it, not send it in a chat.

Hence a very common confusion: a downloaded 4K video can weigh less than a 1080p one shot on your phone. That isn't a mistake. Resolution says how many pixels there are; what decides the size is the bitrate, how much data per second is spent describing them. For an exact figure on a specific file: size (MB) ≈ bitrate (Mbps) × duration (seconds) ÷ 8.

And if you already have the video and just need it to take up less room, there's no need to re-download it at lower quality: you can compress it choosing the final size yourself, in the browser and without uploading it to any server.