SOLVED! 4K Option Not Showing On YouTube: What You Must Know

About 4K option not showing on Youtube, lack of support is the number one suspect and you should take a look at the screen specs of your device. Depending on the situation, it’s wise to disable the power-saving mode, change web browser, etc. Continue reading to be able to play videos in the resolution you like and get the most out of Youtube.

 

How Come The Option Is Unavailable

Issues on YouTube may be caused by plenty of things but if it comes to the missing of 4K quality, you should consider these possibilities

  • Lack of support: When people fail to find the 4K option among Youtube video quality settings, the most common reason is that their devices don’t support such a resolution. Only devices with 4K-capable screens could play 4K videos.
  • Power-saving mode: In a couple of devices, if the power-saving mode is turned on, the resolution of the display screen would be reduced. That is going to prevent the users from playing videos on the highest quality available.
  • Creator’s choice: On YouTube, the creators decide the resolution of the videos that they upload. As a result, if the creators don’t upload videos on 4K resolution, the viewers simply cannot select that quality.
  • Processing time: As YouTube processes uploaded videos, it creates multiple copies of varying qualities from as low as 144p all the way to 2160p604K. Considering the substantial size of 4K videos, it may take quite some time for YouTube servers to bring them up. So if the 4K option is missing on a recently uploaded video, it’s highly likely that YouTube is still in the middle of processing.
  • Incompatible codec: To put it plainly, YouTube encodes 4K videos on VP9 codec so only web browsers and devices that support it can play YouTube videos on the 4K resolution. That is why in some cases, people have no trouble watching 4K videos on almost every platform from Disney+ to Vimeo but struggle with YouTube.

How To Make The Option Show Up

Once you have a rough idea about what lead to the issue of 4K option not showing on YouTube, you could move on address it

  • Check out the screen specs

The first thing you should do when you are unable to find the 4K option in video quality settings on YouTube is to take a look at display specs of the screen of your devices. That would tell you if your devices support 4K resolution.

  • Disable the power-saving mode

As mentioned above, certain devices have a built-in power-saving mode that changes the resolution of the display screen. Go through the settings of your devices, locate the power-saving mode, disable it and see how things turn out.

  • Install a compatible web browser

If you happen to be an Apple fan and mainly surf the Internet using Safari, which supports H-265 codec, it’s suggested you install a compatible web browser (for instance, Google Chrome) in order to watch YouTube videos on 4K.

  • Rooting (for Android-run devices)

Download BuildProp Editor from Google Play Store to your devices. Next, open BuildProp Editor, tap the three-dot on the right corner and hit “New”. A pop-up box is going to show up with two input fields, one is “Name” and one is “Value”. You have to put sys.display-size right under Name and  3840×2160 right under Value. Hit save after you are done then force stop YouTube and clear its cached data. If everything processes smoothly, you could now find and select the 4K quality on YouTube.

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