Video Storage Calculator

How video file size is actually calculated

It all comes down to one formula: file size = bitrate x duration / 8. Bitrate in megabits per second, duration in seconds, and the divide-by-8 turns bits into bytes. The shortcut worth memorising is MB per minute = Mbps x 7.5, so a 24 Mbps stream writes about 180 MB for every minute you keep the camera rolling.

Resolution, frame rate and format only matter because they set the bitrate. More pixels, more data per frame. More frames per second, more frames to store. A better codec squeezes the same picture into fewer bytes. Some calculators multiply pixels by frames by colour depth and hand you a number in the hundreds of gigabytes; that maths describes uncompressed video, which is not what any phone or camera has ever written to disk.

Every answer here is an estimate, and there is no way around that. Modern encoders use variable bitrate, so a static shot of a wall compresses to a fraction of what a windy tree line costs at the same setting. Apple's own in-device numbers are estimates for exactly the same reason. Treat the total as give or take 15%.

How much space 1080p, 4K and ProRes really use

These are the numbers the calculator runs on, lifted from Apple's own in-camera storage estimates (Settings, Camera, Record Video). High Efficiency is HEVC, the iPhone default. Most Compatible is H.264, and it costs roughly double.

The extremes deserve stating plainly. An hour of 4K 60 fps is about 24 GB, which outweighs roughly 9,600 HEIC photos. An hour of 4K ProRes is about 360 GB and will not fit on most phones at all. That is why Apple makes you own a 256 GB model before it will even let you switch it on.

How many minutes fit in the space you have left

Run the formula backwards and you answer the question people actually ask before they hit record: will this fit? Free space in GB, times 1,000, divided by MB per minute. At 4K 30 fps, 15 GB of free space holds about 88 minutes. At 4K 60 fps the same 15 GB holds about 38 minutes.

Advertised capacity is not usable capacity. A "128 GB" phone reads as roughly 119 GB once formatting and the OS have taken their cut, and iOS, your apps and your photo library get first claim on what is left. The capacity table above applies the usable factor already, but it has no way of knowing how much of your phone is spoken for.

There are three levers you can pull to buy recording time before you shoot a single frame:

• Drop 60 fps to 30 fps: at 4K that cuts 400 MB a minute to 170, so 15 GB goes from 38 minutes to 88.
• Drop 4K to 1080p: 170 MB a minute becomes 60, and 15 GB stretches to more than four hours.
• Check you are on High Efficiency: Settings, Camera, Formats. Most Compatible roughly doubles every figure on this page.

If none of that is enough and the phone is simply full, the other option is to buy storage. The iCloud storage cost calculator turns the gigabytes you are short into a monthly and a yearly bill, so you can see what the easy way out costs before you take it.

When the answer is "delete something instead"

Before you pay for space or downgrade the camera, check what is already sitting on the phone. The dead weight is always the same stuff: the clip you shot three times because the first two takes were not quite right, videos watched once and never again, slo-mo experiments that ran to 480 MB a minute, near-identical bursts from a single moment.

Swipe44 is built for that job. You go through the camera roll by swiping, right to keep and left to delete, working from Recents, Random, or one month at a time so it never eats a whole afternoon. Duplicates get found by perceptual hashing on the phone itself and grouped for you to review. Everything you mark collects in a pending pile, then the whole batch goes at once behind a single system confirmation, and you get a tally of the gigabytes you got back. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account. iCloud originals are never downloaded, because the work happens on your device.