Export

Exporting converts your OpenShot project (clips, effects, animations, titles) into a single video output file (using a process called video encoding). By using the default settings, the exported video will be compatible with most media players (such as VLC) and websites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook) and creates a MP4 (h.264 + AAC) formatted video file. See MP4 (h.264).

Click on the Export Video icon at the top of the screen (or use the File→Export Video menu). The default values will work fine, so just click the Export Video button to render your new video. You can also create your own custom export profiles, see Profiles.

Simple Mode

While video encoding is very complicated, with dozens of interrelated settings and options, OpenShot makes it easy, with sensible defaults, and most of this complexity hidden away behind our Simple tab, which is the default export view.

Simple Setting	Description
Profile	Common presets (combinations of presets and video profiles grouped by category, for example: Web)
Target	Target presets related to the current profile (collections of common formats, codecs, and quality settings, see Preset List)
Video Profile	Video profiles related to the current target (collections of common size, frame rate, and aspect ratios, see Profile List or create your own Profiles)
Quality	Quality settings (low, med, high), which relate to various video and audio bitrates.

Advanced Mode

Most users will never need to switch to the Advanced tab, but if you need to customize any of the video encoding settings, for example, custom bitrates, different codecs, or limiting the range of frames exported, this is the tab for you.

Advanced Options

Advanced Setting	Description
Export To	Export both video & audio, only audio, only video, or an image sequence
Start Frame	The first frame to export (default is 1)
End Frame	The final frame to export (default is the last frame in your project to contain a clip)
Start at First Clip	This checkbox will toggle the Start Frame between 0.0 and the start of the first clip/transition position.
End at Last Clip	This checkbox will toggle the End Frame between the end of the furthest clip/transition and the full project duration. The project duration can be adjusted by dragging the right edge of any track. You will need to zoom out (Ctrl+Scroll Wheel) of the timeline before you can drag the right edge of a track.

Profile

A video profile is a collection of common video settings (size, frame rate, aspect ratio). Profiles are used during editing, previewing, and exporting to provide a quick way to switch between common combinations of these settings. The Export Dialog will default to the same profile used by the project.

NOTE: It is important to choose a **Profile* with the same aspect ratio used when editing your project. If you are exporting at a different aspect ratio, it might stretch the image, crop the image, add black bars, or otherwise introduce an issue which changes the exported video, making it appear differently than the Preview inside OpenShot.*

Profile Setting	Description
Profile	The video profile to use during export (collection of size, frame rate, and aspect ratios, see Profile List)
Width	The width of the video export (in pixels)
Height	The height of the video export (in pixels)
Aspect Ratio	The aspect ratio of the final exported video. 1920×1080 reduces to 16:9. This also takes into account the pixel ratio, for example 2:1 rectangular pixels will affect the aspect ratio.
Pixel Ratio	The ratio representing pixel shape. Most video profiles use a 1:1 square pixel shape, but others will use rectangular pixels.
Frame Rate	The frequency that the frames will be displayed at.
Interlaced	Is this format used on alternating scan lines (i.e. broadcast and analog formats)
Spherical	When enabled, injects spherical 360° metadata (SV3D atom) into the exported file so compatible players immediately recognize it as a 360° video.

Image Sequence Settings

Image Setting Name	Description
Image Format	The string format that represents the output file name in a sequence of images. For example, %05d.png would pad a number with 5 digits: 00001.png, 00002.png.

Video Settings

Video Setting Name	Description
Video Format	The name of the container format (`mp4`, `mov`, `avi`, `webm`, etc…)
Video Codec	The name of the video codec used during video encoding (`libx264`, `mpeg4`, `libaom-av1`, etc…)
Bit Rate / Quality	The bitrate to use for video encoding. Accepts the following formats: `5 Mb/s`, `96 kb/s`, `23 crf`, etc…

Audio Settings

Audio Setting Name	Description
Audio Codec	The name of the audio codec used during audio encoding (`aac`, `mp2`, `libmp3lame`, etc…)
Sample Rate	The number of audio samples per second. Common values are `44100` and `48000`.
Channel Layout	The number and layout of audio channels (`Stereo`, `Mono`, `Surround`, etc…)
Bit Rate / Quality	The bitrate to use for audio encoding. Accepts the following formats: `96 kb/s`, `128 kb/s`, `192 kb/s`, etc…

Social Media Quick Reference

The table below shows the recommended Target and Video Profile settings for common social media platforms. Select these in the Simple tab of the Export dialog.

Platform	Target	Video Profile	Notes
YouTube (landscape)	`YouTube`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Use `YouTube (4K)` for 4K
YouTube Shorts (vertical)	`YouTube Shorts`	`FHD Vertical 1080p 30 fps`	Up to 60 fps
TikTok (vertical)	`TikTok`	`FHD Vertical 1080p 30 fps`	Up to 60 fps
Instagram Reels (vertical)	`Instagram Reels`	`FHD Vertical 1080p 30 fps`	Up to 60 fps
Instagram (landscape/square)	`Instagram`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Square (1:1) also available
Snapchat (vertical)	`Snapchat`	`FHD Vertical 1080p 30 fps`	Up to 60 fps
Facebook	`Facebook`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Square and vertical also available
LinkedIn (landscape)	`LinkedIn`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Square and 4:5 portrait also available
Twitter / X	`Twitter / X`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Vertical also available
Vimeo	`Vimeo`	`FHD 1080p 30 fps`	Use High quality setting

Hardware-Accelerated Export

OpenShot supports GPU-accelerated video encoding on supported hardware, dramatically reducing export times. Hardware-accelerated targets are shown with a badge in the Target dropdown. Select the appropriate target for your hardware:

Target (Export Dialog)	Badge	Requires
`MP4 (h.264 nv)`	NVENC	NVIDIA GPU (Kepler or newer)
`MP4 (h.264 va)`	VA-API	Linux with AMD or Intel GPU (VAAPI driver)
`MP4 (h.264 qsv)`	QSV	Intel GPU with Quick Sync Video
`MP4 (h.264 videotoolbox)`	VideoToolbox	macOS with Apple or Intel GPU
`MP4 (h.264 dx)`	DirectX	Windows with DirectX-compatible GPU
`MP4 (HEVC va)`	VA-API	Linux VA-API — produces smaller HEVC files

MKV variants (MKV (h.264 nv), MKV (h.264 va), etc.) are also available for each accelerator. If none of these targets appear or export fails, your system either lacks the required driver or the hardware encoder is not supported — fall back to the standard MP4 (h.264 + AAC) target, which uses the CPU-based libx264 encoder and works on all systems.