Quality
How to download a YouTube video in 4K
The 4K option is missing more often than people expect, and almost always for a reason that has nothing to do with the downloader.
First: does the video actually have 4K?
A downloader cannot offer a resolution the upload does not contain. If the creator published at 1080p, no tool anywhere will hand you 2160p, and anything that claims otherwise is upscaling: same detail, bigger file.
The quickest check is on YouTube itself. Open the video, click the gear icon and look at the quality list. What you see there is the ceiling any download can reach.
Why the option can disappear on a video that has it
- YouTube stores high resolutions as video-only streams, with audio in a separate file. A tool that grabs one stream and stops will show you 720p or a silent 4K file.
- Freshly uploaded videos are processed in stages. The 4K rendition can take hours to appear after the 360p one is already live.
- Some 4K uploads use the AV1 codec, which older phones and TVs cannot play back smoothly even after downloading.
How BipBup handles it
The quality list on the download screen is read from the video itself, not from a fixed ladder. If 2160p shows up, the file has it; if it does not, the option is simply absent instead of failing halfway through.
When you pick a high resolution, the separate video and audio streams are fetched and merged before the file reaches you, which is why the result has sound.
When 1080p is the better choice anyway
A 4K file is roughly four times the size of the same video at 1080p. On a phone screen the difference is close to invisible, and on a slow connection the wait is not.
Pick 4K when the footage will be edited, cropped or shown on a large screen. For watching offline or sending to someone, 1080p is usually the smarter file.