Mastering for YouTube: what YouTube publishes, and what it does not.

Does YouTube have a LUFS target?

Not one it publishes. We read YouTube’s Stable volume page, its audio-enhancement page, its recommended upload encoding settings and YouTube Music’s audio-quality page on 19 September 2026, and searched its help centre: none of them states a loudness figure in LUFS or LKFS. The −14 that circulates for YouTube is not in YouTube’s help documentation. Independent measurements exist and are worth what any measurement of a system you cannot see is worth — they are not the platform’s own number, so this page does not print one.

Does YouTube change the volume of music?

It documents “Stable volume”: “By default, stable volume is turned on when you’re watching videos on YouTube. Stable volume balances the range between quiet and loud, continuously adjusting volume levels to reduce variations in sound.” And the part that matters for a release: “This feature is turned off for YouTube Music and official music videos” (YouTube Help).

Note what that describes: continuous level riding, not normalisation to a single figure.

Can I stop YouTube adjusting my audio?

For your own uploads, yes. YouTube says audio enhancements “may include: Automatic adjustments to volume levels and sound mixing”, and creators can turn them off in YouTube Studio: “Check or uncheck the Let YouTube enhance audio quality box.” It applies going forward only: “The setting does not affect ads or videos you already uploaded” (YouTube Help).

What audio should I upload?

YouTube’s recommended upload encoding settings give “Audio codec: AAC-LC or Opus or Eclipsa Audio”, “Sample rate: 48kHz”, and recommended bitrates of “Mono 128 kbps … Stereo 384 kbps … 5.1 512 kbps” (YouTube Help). The page opens by saying “These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager”, so treat them as recommendations rather than requirements.

YouTube Music streams at “Normal - Default setting - Upper bound of 128kbps AAC & OPUS”, with 256 kbps on the higher settings (YouTube Music Help).

So what level should I master to for YouTube?

There is no YouTube figure to hit. What is left is the same decision every release makes: how much of the dynamic range you want to spend on level, knowing that Spotify plays anything above −14 LUFS back at −14 and that YouTube documents no equivalent. Master the record the way it should sound, measure it, and know the number: the free LUFS meter reads your file in the browser, and the targets page lists every figure any platform actually publishes.