Steam Trailer Guide: What to Show, Specs, and Upload Steps

2026-08-27

Last verified: 2026-09-26, against Valve's Steamworks documentation (sources at the bottom).

Steam requires a trailer on every store page, and it sits at the top of the page where most visitors look first. Valve's own guidance on what to put in it is short and specific: show gameplay, show it fast, and don't rely on sound. This guide covers that guidance, the export specs Valve documents, and the upload workflow from Steamworks to a published page. Where something is my own advice rather than Valve's, I say so.

The short answer

Open with gameplay. Valve says most Steam users are looking for gameplay and recommends the first trailer be primarily gameplay, shown from the player's perspective. Save studio logos and story setup for later in the video.
Export 1920×1080, 30 or 60 fps, 5,000+ kbps, MP4 (H.264 video, AAC audio). Use the highest resolution you have, but not above 1080p.
The first two valid trailers appear before your screenshots. Everything after that sits behind the screenshot row, so order matters.
The first six seconds get reused. Steam builds an automatic six-second loop from the first visible trailer, and you can't edit it.
Preview before you publish. Use "Preview changes in store" in Steamworks, and don't start a trailer conversion right before launch.

What Valve says about the first seconds

Valve's trailer documentation frames the problem around how little time you get. Customers browsing the Discovery Queue spend, in Valve's words, less than 10 seconds deciding whether a game is interesting, and some watch with no audio at all. Valve suggests asking two things of your trailer: how long does it take a customer to learn what your product is, and can they learn it without sound?

From there the guidance is consistent across Valve's docs and announcements:

Most Steam users are looking for gameplay. The first trailer should be primarily gameplay, showing the player what they will actually be doing, from the perspective they'll be interacting from.
Showing the HUD or interface is often beneficial, because it tells the viewer how the game is played.
Get right to the action. Save company logos and narrative setup for further into the trailer, and show gameplay as quickly as possible.

Valve doesn't publish a recommended trailer length or a maximum. The only number it gives is that ten-second remark about the Discovery Queue. So the practical reading is not "how long should it be" but "what does a stranger understand at second 10?" If the answer is a logo and a fade-in, cut them.

What to show, in what order

The following is my suggested structure for a solo developer, built on Valve's guidance rather than taken from it:

Seconds 0 to 10: the core loop. Drop straight into moment-to-moment play. A player doing the thing your game is about, with the HUD visible. No title card yet.
Seconds 10 to 40: variety. Show what changes over a session: new enemies, new areas, a build coming together, an upgrade paying off. This is the answer to "will I get bored?"
Last few seconds: identity and next step. Now the logo, the platform, and "Wishlist now" or the release date if you have one.

Two things to check on your rough cut. First, mute it and watch the first ten seconds. If you can't tell what the game is, add short on-screen text or tighten the cut. Captions are my suggestion here, not a Valve rule. Second, look at every frame for content that isn't in the game yet. Valve's review process explicitly says trailers, screenshots, or features that show incomplete or planned content have to be removed. The same store-page review also rejects screenshots that are concept art or pre-rendered stills, so keep everything on the page honest about what the player will actually get (see the screenshot capture guide for capturing clean footage).

Music is outside Valve's docs entirely. My advice: only use tracks you have a clear license for. Trailers tend to get re-uploaded to YouTube and social platforms, and a copyright claim on the audio then follows the video everywhere.

Technical specs

All values below come from the Steamworks trailer documentation unless noted.

Item	Spec	Notes
Trailer required?	Yes	Valve says you will be required to upload a trailer. For Early Access, the bare minimum is a trailer that shows gameplay.
Resolution	Highest you have, up to 1920×1080	Odd resolutions are the most common cause of failed conversions. Stick to 1920×1080 or 1280×720.
Frame rate	30 / 29.97 or 60 / 59.94 fps	Match your capture rate (my advice: pick one and keep it constant)
Bitrate	5,000+ kbps	Valve's Adobe Media Encoder preset is H.264 at 20 Mbps with AAC stereo audio at 192 kbps
Container	.mp4, .mov, .wmv	Steam can transcode many other formats
Codec	H.264 video, AAC audio (preferred)
Audio	44 kHz or 48 kHz sample rate	Downmixed to stereo when transcoded. A non-standard sample rate is the second most common cause of failures.
Aspect ratio	16:9 preferred, 4:3 accepted	Valve's 2025 player update says any ratio is scaled or letterboxed, but the doc text still says 16:9, so 16:9 is the safe choice
Max file size	Not published	The trailer documentation doesn't state a limit
Min/max length	Not published	No length limit is stated
Auto poster image	600×380	Shown until the video loads
Auto thumbnail	232×130	Generated automatically
Custom poster/thumbnail	1920×1080 .jpg or .png	Must be a frame taken from the video itself. Valve says to avoid text.

A few details behind that table are worth knowing:

Categories. Each trailer is assigned a category (General/Cinematic, Teaser, Gameplay, or Interview/Dev Diary) and a name. The category and name appear at the top left of the player and in the thumbnail tooltip, so give it a friendly public name rather than a filename like "final_v7_export".
Order. The first two valid trailers appear before your screenshots. The rest appear after the screenshot row. You can reorder by drag and drop in Store Page Admin under Trailers. Put your strongest gameplay trailer first.
Microtrailer. Steam makes a six-second loop out of six one-second clips from your first visible video. It's used in category hubs, sale pages, and on the homepage during seasonal sales. You can't customize it, which is one more reason the opening of your first trailer matters twice.
Localization. Under Advanced Settings you can upload per-language trailers (the base video is English) and restrict a trailer to specific countries using ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes such as DE, FR, US.
Old uploads. Valve notes that trailers uploaded before summer 2020 no longer have their original files on its side. If yours is that old, re-upload it for the best quality, and periodically hide outdated trailers.
Video in the description. Short .mp4, .webm, or .gif clips in "About This Game" are not trailers. Valve's pages describe them as up to 12 seconds, but the size caps in Valve's documentation don't agree with each other, so check the current numbers in Steamworks before relying on a figure.

Upload and publish workflow

Capture and cut. Record gameplay at 1920×1080 and 30 or 60 fps. Edit gameplay-first, then export as MP4 with H.264/AAC, 48 kHz audio, and a bitrate of at least 5,000 kbps.
Upload. In Steamworks, open your app, then Edit Store Page, then the Trailers tab. Upload the file, give it a public name, choose a category, and set the order (the top two slots are the ones that count).
Wait for conversion. Steam shows your queue position. Optionally upload a custom 1920×1080 poster taken from a frame of the video.
Preview. In Edit Store Page, click "Preview changes in store" to see unpublished changes in Store Beta Mode. The purchase button won't appear before release.
Submit for review. Complete the checklist and mark the page ready for review. Valve recommends submitting seven business days before your target date, and review itself takes 3 to 5 business days. The page also needs to be visible as Coming Soon for at least two weeks before release.
Don't touch trailers at the last minute. You can't release the game while a trailer is still converting. The queue is first-in, first-out, and re-submitting sends you to the back.

One thing worth knowing before you publish: publishing pushes all your assets, including trailers, screenshots, and library assets, to Valve's public servers even if they're hidden. Use the beta preview first. For the rest of the page, see How to Build a Steam Store Page and the Final Steam Launch Checklist.

Common mistakes and documented problems

Problem	What Valve documents	Fix
Conversion fails	Most common cause is an odd resolution, second is an audio sample rate that isn't 44 or 48 kHz	Re-export at 1920×1080 with 48 kHz audio
Upload seems stuck	Conversion is a first-in, first-out queue that can take hours, and re-submitting moves you to the back	Wait; don't delete and re-upload
Trailer shows unfinished content	Review requires removing trailers, screenshots, or features that show incomplete or planned content	Only show what ships at launch
Release blocked	A game can't be released while a trailer is converting	Upload trailers days before launch
Logo-first opening	Valve advises saving logos and narrative for later	Cut to gameplay in the first seconds
Poster frame is black or mid-transition	Custom poster must be a frame from the video, 1920×1080, and should avoid text	Pull a clear, high-contrast frame

Valve doesn't publish a trailer-specific rejection list beyond the transcoding failures above, and it doesn't document any rule on trailer music or length. If you see someone quoting one, treat it as folklore.

A few more habits that follow from the above. Don't make cinematic footage the whole trailer, because Valve's guidance is explicit that players want to see gameplay. Don't bury the game's hook behind a slow build-up. And don't upload once and forget: Valve suggests reviewing old trailers periodically and hiding ones that no longer represent the game.

Where a trailer connects to the rest of your launch

Your trailer isn't the only thing working on a visitor. The capsule gets them to click, and the trailer, screenshots, and description convert the click into a wishlist. That's the chain covered in How to Grow Your Steam Wishlist, and the capsule side is in the Steam capsule sizes reference. If you're aiming at Next Fest, Valve's promotional video for the event only uses a trailer that's publicly visible on your store page, and at least one publicly visible trailer is part of eligibility, so have a good one live before you apply. The Next Fest preparation guide covers the rest.

FAQ

Is a trailer required on Steam?

Yes. Valve's documentation says you will be required to upload a trailer for your product. For Early Access games, Valve says that at a bare minimum you need a video trailer that shows gameplay.

What resolution and codec should I export?

1920×1080 (or the highest resolution you have, but not higher), 30 or 60 fps, at least 5,000 kbps, as MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio at 44.1 or 48 kHz. Valve's own Adobe Media Encoder preset is H.264 at 20 Mbps with 192 kbps AAC stereo audio.

Do I need a 16:9 trailer?

The documentation says 16:9 is preferred and 4:3 is accepted. Valve's July 2025 player update says the player now scales or letterboxes other ratios, including vertical video, but the documentation hasn't been updated to match. The safest choice is still 16:9.

How many trailers appear before the screenshots?

Two. The first two valid trailers appear before the screenshots and the rest appear after the screenshot row. You can reorder them by dragging in Store Page Admin under Trailers.

Why did my trailer upload fail or get stuck?

The two documented causes of failed conversions are an odd resolution (use 1920×1080 or 1280×720) and an audio sample rate that isn't 44 or 48 kHz. Otherwise it's likely just the queue, which is first-in, first-out and can take hours. Re-submitting sends you to the back.

Can I customize the short autoplay loop?

No. The microtrailer is a six-second loop that Steam builds automatically from six one-second clips of the first visible video, and it can't be customized.

Can I set a custom trailer thumbnail?

Yes. Upload a 1920×1080 .jpg or .png that is a frame from the video itself. Valve says to avoid text. Otherwise Steam generates a 600×380 poster and a 232×130 thumbnail automatically.

Can I show different trailers per language or country?

Yes. In the trailer's Advanced Settings you can upload per-language versions (the base video is English) and restrict a trailer to specific countries using ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes such as DE, FR, or US.

Sources

Last verified: 2026-09-26. Valve's documentation carries no revision date, so re-check the pages below before you export.