Why one Reddit post produces two rows

The picture and the sound are published apart

Video uploaded to Reddit is not kept as one file. The moving picture is stored on its own, the sound is stored on its own, and the player on the page fetches both and runs them together while you watch. You never see the seam because the player hides it.

The results list does not hide it, because the list is an inventory of what the page actually serves. Two rows for one post is that arrangement showing through, and it is the normal shape of a Reddit result rather than a fault.

What the picture row contains on its own

A row with a height figure on it, such as 480p or 720p, carries the moving picture and nothing else. Saved and played, it shows the clip from start to finish in complete silence.

Nothing was lost in the transfer and nothing was stripped out on the way to you. Files are handed over exactly as the source published them, and what the source published under that address is a picture track.

What the sound row is, and how small it is

The other row has no height figure, because there is no picture in it. It holds the audio for the same post: the speech, the music, the noise of whatever was filmed.

It is a small fraction of the size of the picture row, which makes it cheap to save and quick to transfer. Taken on its own it is a perfectly ordinary sound file, and that is enough when what you wanted from the post was a line of dialogue, a song or a sound effect rather than the footage.

Taking a combined row when the list offers one

Some Reddit posts come back with a row that carries both parts in one file. When you see it, take it. That file plays with sound the moment it lands, on any device, with nothing else to do.

Read the list before assuming which case you are in. The presence of a row with picture and sound together depends on what that particular post published, so a post you saved last week and a post you are saving now can give you different lists.

Putting two saved files back together

When the list separates them and you want one clip with sound, download both rows and join them on your own device. Both files describe the same recording and the same running time, so they line up from the first frame without any adjustment.

Any video editor accepts this: import the picture file, add the sound file to the audio track beneath it, and export. Some desktop players load an external audio track alongside a video file, which is enough when you only want to watch it once.

Posts that were silent from the beginning

Not every silent Reddit clip is half a pair. Plenty of posts are recorded, screen-captured or edited with no audio in them at all, and for those the list has one row because there is nothing else to list.

Telling the two apart takes a moment on the post itself. Play it on Reddit with the volume up. If the player shows no sound control, or the control is there and the clip is quiet, then a single picture row is the whole post and nothing is missing from your download.

Two files, two downloads, and the daily count

The free count is spent per file rather than per post. Taking a picture row and a sound row from the same post uses two of the three downloads a free account gets in a day, and the count returns to three at midnight UTC.

Each file is measured against the 150 MB ceiling on its own, and Reddit clips sit well under it. A Pro subscription drops the daily count, drops the size ceiling and takes the advertising off the page. Keep the tab open through each transfer, because a prepared file expires on a short timer.

Related pages

• Which Reddit addresses can be read
• Posts holding a gallery of items
• Keeping the sound from a page
• Reading a results list row by row
• What an audio-only file is