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A dim YouTube picture is nearly always a setting on the device rather than the video itself. Work through the likely causes in order, from phone to computer to TV.
Or choose one from your computer to begin. Photos work too.Pick the over-bright clip from your photos or files.
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If YouTube looks dim, the most likely causes are your screen’s automatic brightness, a power-saving mode, an HDR video playing on a screen that tones it down, or a dimming setting in the device’s accessibility options. Check whether other apps look dim too: if they do, it is the screen; if only YouTube does, it is usually HDR or the app’s own display settings.
Below are the checks in the order that fixes most cases. If the video in question is your own and it only looks dim after uploading, skip to the last section: that is a different problem with its own fix.
Try these in order and re-check the video after each one.
Play a different YouTube video and a photo from your gallery. If everything is dim, it is the screen or a device setting; if only one video is, it is that video or its HDR version.
Raise the brightness by hand and switch off the battery or power-saving mode, then play the video again.
On iPhone, look for Reduce White Point; on Android, Extra dim; on Windows, the HDR and battery options under Display settings. Turn them off to test.
HDR videos can look dimmer on screens that can’t show them fully. On a TV, switch the picture mode away from an energy-saving one and turn off any light sensor.
Phones lower the screen in dim rooms and when they get warm. A video full of dark scenes can also trigger it, because the phone adjusts to what it sees around it. To test, turn auto-brightness off (iPhone: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Auto-Brightness; Android: Settings → Display → Adaptive brightness) and set brightness by hand.
Low Power Mode on iPhone and battery-saver modes on Android trade display performance for battery life, and on some Android phones they lower the maximum brightness directly. Turn the mode off, play the video, and see whether the difference is the saver.
iPhone’s Reduce White Point (Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size) and Android’s Extra dim (in the Accessibility settings on Android 12 and later) dim everything below the normal minimum. They are easy to switch on from a shortcut and forget about.
A hot phone, for example in sunlight or while charging, limits its peak brightness to protect itself. HDR videos are hit hardest, because they rely on that peak. Let it cool and the brightness returns.
Many YouTube videos now come in HDR, marked with “HDR” in the quality menu. On a screen that can show it, HDR looks brighter in the highlights than ordinary video. On one that can’t, YouTube plays a standard-range version, and on some laptops and monitors the operating system squeezes the HDR picture down instead, which can make the whole video look dim and flat.
In a browser, YouTube’s dark theme with Ambient mode on fills the area around the video with a soft glow taken from its colours. Some people find the video looks dimmer next to it. Turn it off in the player’s settings (the gear icon → Ambient mode) to compare.
Browsers decode video on the graphics chip. If one browser shows the video dimmer or washed out and another doesn’t, try turning hardware acceleration off and on in that browser’s settings, and update the graphics driver. Night-light and blue-light filters (Night light on Windows, Night Shift on Mac) also make pictures look warmer and dimmer; turn them off while testing.
TVs often ship in an energy-saving or eco picture mode, and many lower the backlight with an ambient light sensor. Switch the picture mode to Standard or Movie and turn off the energy-saving and light-sensor options in the picture settings; the names vary by brand. If only HDR videos look dim, the TV may be applying a darker HDR picture mode; HDR modes have their own settings, separate from SDR ones.
When your upload looks darker on YouTube than on your editing screen, it is usually one of three things: the video was graded on a very bright screen, it was recorded in HDR (as recent iPhones do by default) and YouTube’s standard-range version looks different, or the export used a different brightness range from the one the editor showed.
This site is built for the opposite problem: footage that is too bright. If a clip of yours is glaring or washed out, open it in the tool at the top of this page, or read how to fix an overexposed video.
Usually because the video is HDR and your screen or operating system is toning it down, or because the YouTube app is following a dimming or night-light setting. Compare an HDR video with a non-HDR one to find out which.
Auto-brightness reacts to a dark video or a darker room, and a phone that heats up lowers its peak brightness. Turn auto-brightness off and keep the phone cool to test.
In the video player, open the settings (the gear icon) and switch Ambient mode off. It only appears with the dark theme.
Recent iPhones record HDR by default. On screens and in apps that show the standard-range version, an HDR clip can look darker or flatter than it did on the phone. Exporting an SDR copy before uploading avoids the surprise.
Only on your side: brightness, HDR and picture settings on your device. The video itself can only be changed by the person who uploaded it.
No. It is built to darken over-bright and overexposed videos and photos, and to recover their highlights. Every page runs the same darkening tool.