How big is a 1-hour iPhone video? About 3.6 GB at 1080p.
Going by the per-minute estimates in the iPhone's Camera settings, an hour of video is roughly 3.6 GB at 1080p 30 fps, about 5.4 GB at 1080p 60 fps and about 10 GB at 4K 30 fps. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes, and credits never expire.
Phone video in gigabytes
Why an hour of iPhone video is so heavy.
Check your own setting
Settings, then Camera, then Record Video lists how much space a minute takes at each resolution and frame rate. Multiply that by 60 for the hour. Figures vary by model and by whether the phone saves High Efficiency or Most Compatible files.
The usual hour
On High Efficiency, roughly 40 MB a minute at 720p, 60 MB at 1080p 30 fps, 90 MB at 1080p 60 fps and about 170 MB at 4K 30 fps, where offered. That is about 2.4, 3.6, 5.4 and 10 GB for an hour. Most Compatible files run larger.
Only the speech is needed
The transcript comes from the sound, so the picture is dead weight. On a Mac, QuickTime Player's Export As, Audio Only saves an M4A of roughly 60 MB an hour, which uploads in moments from this page or the upload page.
Or skip the upload
If the video already sits in Google Drive, paste the share link and the file is fetched for you; the same works for a YouTube or Vimeo link. The 10-hour and 5 GB limits per file still apply to what is fetched.
The phone-video problem
An hour of footage, gigabytes of upload.
✗ Sending the whole video
Phone video is recorded for picture quality, which makes a lecture or talk far heavier than its words need.
- 4K hours far above 5 GB
- Uploads stalled on mobile data
- Storage full halfway through filming
- Video editors needed just to cut size
- Tools capped at a few hundred MB
- Waiting on upload, not on transcription
✓ Sending what the transcript needs
Pick the lightest file that still carries the voices and the hour turns into text quickly.
- 1080p hour uploads once a pack is active
- Audio-only M4A for anything bigger
- Drive or YouTube link instead of upload
- About two minutes to text
- Chapters and a brief for the hour
- The speaker named in the summary
Sample output
An hour-long talk filmed from the third row.
Illustrative lines only, not from a real talk. The clock follows the video from the moment recording started.
Export
One transcript. Five clean formats.
Every pack exports all five — no format is held back for a higher tier.
Plain text
De-ummed paragraphs. Ready to paste.
SRT captions
Timed to the speech. Every video editor reads this.
WebVTT
HTML5 player + YouTube uploads.
Show notes
Formatted with chapters and pull-quotes.
Machine-readable
Timestamped text for your own tools.
Pricing
Honest pricing, no surprises.
A pack from $4 (300 minutes) opens the full transcript. After that, no subscription and no auto-renew — every tier is a one-time minute pack, and credits never expire. Buy once, use the minutes whenever you need them.
Casual pack
$4/300 min
5 hours of audio — $0.80 an hour. One-time — credits never expire.
- 300 minutes of audio
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
- Executive summary & key quote
Best value
$18/3,000 min
50 hours of audio — $0.36 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 3,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- All export formats
- AI chat over the whole transcript
Bulk pack
$32/6,000 min
100 hours of audio — $0.32 an hour. Credits never expire.
- 6,000 minutes of audio
- Summary, chapters and key quotes
- API access for batch pipelines
- All export formats
FAQ
An hour of iPhone video, answered.
Can I upload a 1080p hour straight from the iPhone?
Yes, once a pack is on the account: at about 3.6 GB it is under the 5 GB file limit, so it uploads with or without a pack. Choose the video from the Photos library when the page asks for a file, preferably on Wi-Fi.
What do I do with a 4K hour?
At about 10 GB it is over 5 GB, so send the audio on its own, a 1080p copy that is under 5 GB, or a Google Drive link to a smaller version. The transcript is the same either way, because only the speech is used.
How long does an hour of iPhone video take to transcribe?
About 2 minutes after the upload finishes. Resolution and frame rate make no difference to processing; they only change how long the upload itself takes.
What does it cost?
An hour is 60 minutes. Packs start at $4 for 300 minutes. Credits never expire and there is no subscription.
Will the transcript catch voices far from the phone?
Speech that is clearly audible over the room comes through; music, applause and crowd noise are not transcribed. For talks, filming near the speaker or a clip-on mic matters more than resolution.
Which exports come back, and in which languages?
TXT, DOCX, SRT, VTT and JSON, so the SRT can go straight back into a video editor as captions. 99 languages are detected automatically. Videos are transcribed on our own servers and are never used for training.
Related
More on phone video and size.
An hour of iPhone video. About two minutes to text.
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