# exporting your animation Your After Effects file is the construction project file that contains all the setup and details and settings. It isn’t a file you can share with others or use to upload to a video sharing site. For that, you will need to export your animation to a different rendered format. When you are ready to export, you may find the options a bit overwhelming. [YouTube accepts a number of different file formats](https://www.converter365.com/blog/what-file-formats-does-youtube-accept/). Your best option is to use a MP4 format with H.264 video codec because that is what the video hosting platforms will convert your files to anyway. Knowing that, you can safely ignore most of the overwhelming options you will be presented with. ## verify your composition settings You should have set up your Composition Settings when you started building your animation. It is worth checking them again before exporting to a movie file. Use the pull-down menus for **Composition > Composition Settings** or keyboard shortcut for **Ctrl-K**. In the settings, you can check and adjust things like **Height** and **Width** and **Frame Rate**. Change anything you need to change to fit your intended output. Note, changes will probably require you to go back and adjust your animation construction. Different Height and Width will change how things look and Frame Rate will speed up or slow down the timing. The **Duration** (animation length) is also adjusted here. The length may have changed as you worked and so you can adjust the end time here as well. Unless I know a specific length of time for a piece, I usually just leave the default 30 seconds at the start and then cut it down to the correct length when getting ready to export. ## export your animation There are few options for exporting your work. Since we are uploading our output to video hosting sites, we are going to use Media Encoder (a separate connected program). With the correct Comp loaded, use the pull-down menus for **File > Export > Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue…** ![[Pasted image 20221027093406.png]] It will take a minute for Media Encoder to load. When it finally opens, you will see a bunch of panels. All we care about is the **Queue** panel that is on the right side of the interface by default. ![[Pasted image 20221027094404.png]] You should see your Comp listed as the only one in the queue. You can change output information here, if you would like. Since we set this up already in After Effects, everything should look right. Clicking on the blue links in either **Format** or **Preset** columns opens the **Export Settings** dialog box where you can tweak a lot of settings. Again, don’t get overwhelmed by all the options. Make sure to click the blue link for **Output Name:** and change the file name and where you are saving it on your computer. After Effects has a tendency to save to weird temp folders, especially if you are working with a recovered project after a crash. Note, you can also change this in the Queue panel back in the main Media Coder interface. Click on the blue link in the **Output File:** column of the Queue panel. ![[Pasted image 20221027094926.png]] One cool thing is that under the **Publish** tab you can connect your Vimeo or YouTube accounts and publish directly to the sites. You don’t need to do this, you can just export to your computer and then upload manually to your hosting platform. When you are satisfied with the setup, press the **little green arrow** in the upper-corner of the interface or click in the Queue somewhere and press **Enter** on the keyboard. Now sit back and watch the encoding process at the bottom of the interface. If you have a big animation or a slow computer, you might want to use this time to go get a snack or another cup of coffee. When the encoding process eventually finishes, you will now have an animation ready to be uploaded to your sites of choice. Congrats!! --- Learn more… - <https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/mp4-after-effects> - <https://vimeo.com/blog/post/video-file-formats-101-containing-decoding-more/> --- tags: #aftereffects #resources home: [[! after effects]]