How much space does video take? Per minute, by resolution, from phones and cameras
A reference table for how many MB or GB a minute of video takes at each resolution and frame rate, and how to work out what fits on your Mac.
Knowing roughly how big video is before you shoot or import it answers most storage questions in advance. These are the numbers to keep in mind.
iPhone video, per minute
Apple's approximations for the default High Efficiency (HEVC) format:
| Resolution and frame rate | Per minute | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| 720p at 30 fps | About 40 MB | About 2.4 GB |
| 1080p at 30 fps | About 60 MB | About 3.6 GB |
| 1080p at 60 fps | About 90 MB | About 5.4 GB |
| 4K at 24 fps | About 135 MB | About 8 GB |
| 4K at 30 fps | About 170 MB | About 10 GB |
| 4K at 60 fps | About 400 MB | About 24 GB |
| 4K ProRes | About 6 GB | About 360 GB |
Choosing Most Compatible instead of High Efficiency, in Settings, Camera, Formats, records H.264, which is noticeably larger for the same quality.
Other sources, as ranges
| Source | Per minute, roughly |
|---|---|
| Screen recording on a Mac, 1080p | 20 to 150 MB, depends on how much moves |
| Mirrorless camera, 4K | 300 MB to 1 GB, depends on bitrate setting |
| Video call recording | 10 to 50 MB |
| Streaming download, HD film | 20 to 60 MB |
Work out what fits
Divide your free space by the per minute figure. With 100 GB free and 4K at 60 fps, that is about 250 minutes, but you would not want to fill the disk completely. How much free space a Mac should have explains why.
# Your largest video files, biggest last
find ~ -type f \( -iname '*.mov' -o -iname '*.mp4' -o -iname '*.m4v' \) -size +500M -exec du -h {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tailTo make existing video smaller, see compressing video on a Mac. For ProRes specifically, ProRes taking up space.
Related: GoPro LRV and THM files on a Mac.
Common questions
How much space does 4K video take per minute?
On an iPhone in the default HEVC format, about 170 MB per minute at 30 fps and about 400 MB at 60 fps. ProRes is about 6 GB per minute.
How much storage does an hour of 1080p video use?
About 3.6 GB at 30 fps and about 5.4 GB at 60 fps from an iPhone in HEVC. Cameras recording at higher bitrates use more.
Is HEVC smaller than H.264?
Yes. HEVC, called High Efficiency on the iPhone, produces much smaller files than H.264 at similar quality.