Picking the Right Image Format

When you download a YouTube banner through banner.yt, you can choose between WebP, AVIF, JPEG, and PNG. Here is what actually matters when picking one.

Quick comparison

Format	Typical size (2560x1440)	Browser support	Best for
WebP	200-400 KB	All modern browsers	Default, general use
AVIF	100-200 KB	Chrome, Firefox, Safari 16+	Newest browsers, smallest files
JPEG	400-800 KB	Everything	Old browsers, email, universal compat
PNG	2-8 MB	Everything	When you need lossless quality

WebP

The default. A good 50-80% smaller than JPEG at similar quality. Supported in every browser released after 2020. Use this unless you have a specific reason not to.

AVIF

The newest format. 30-50% smaller than WebP at the same quality. Slightly slower to encode on the server. Not supported in Internet Explorer or very old Safari. Good choice if your audience is mostly on modern browsers.

JPEG

The oldest and most compatible. Works in email clients, apps that don't support WebP, and old browsers. Noticeably larger file size. Use it when compatibility matters more than file size, like sending banners via email or importing into older software.

PNG

Lossless. The full uncompressed image. Use this when you need to edit the banner further and don't want any compression artifacts. File sizes are much larger (often 4-10x bigger than WebP).

What banner.yt uses by default

All banner and avatar endpoints return WebP at quality 80 by default. You can override this with the format and quality parameters. For example: ?format=avif&quality=85.

The quality parameter goes from 1 to 100. Quality 80 is a good default. Going above 90 starts giving diminishing returns at much larger file sizes. Quality 60 is still visually acceptable for banner images.