YouTube Video Downloader

How to download a YouTube video

1. Copy the link. On the YouTube website, copy the address bar or use Share → Copy link. In the YouTube app, tap Share under the video and choose Copy link. Shorts and youtu.be links work too.
2. Paste it above and press Go. The video card appears with the title, channel and length.
3. Pick a quality. MP4 360p · instant saves straight from YouTube. 720p, 1080p and best prepare an HD file with audio, then show a Download button. MP3 audio gives you just the sound.
4. Save the file. Your browser downloads it like any other file.

What the quality options mean

• 360p, instant. This is the single combined file YouTube still serves for every video. It is small, plays everywhere, and is the right choice for a quick save on mobile data. Your browser fetches it directly from YouTube, so nothing passes through our servers.
• 720p. Sharp enough for a phone or tablet screen and roughly a third of the size of 1080p. The default for most people.
• 1080p. Full HD. Pick this for a laptop or TV, or if you plan to edit the clip.
• Best, up to 4K. The highest resolution the uploader provided. Files get large quickly: a ten-minute 4K video can be a gigabyte.
• MP3 audio. The soundtrack only, converted to a 192 kbps MP3. Good for talks, podcasts and music you are allowed to keep.

For 720p and above we fetch YouTube's separate video and audio streams and join them into one MP4 without re-encoding, so quality is identical to what YouTube plays and the wait is seconds rather than minutes. The prepared file stays available for about an hour.

Downloading on each device

iPhone and iPad. Use Safari. After the download starts, tap the arrow at the top of the screen, or open the Files app and look in Downloads. Videos saved this way play in Files; to add one to Photos, share it from Files to Save Video.

Android. Chrome saves to your Downloads folder and shows a notification when the file is ready. Any gallery or video player app can open it.

Windows and Mac. Files land in your Downloads folder. If the browser opens the video in a tab instead of saving it, use the Download button rather than the browser's own player.

When something goes wrong

• "That does not look like a supported link." Make sure you copied the full video address, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123xyz45 or https://youtu.be/abc123xyz45. Playlist and channel links are not videos.
• "This video is unavailable" or "private." The video is removed, private, or blocked in the region our servers use. We can only fetch what YouTube shows to a signed-out visitor.
• "YouTube is rate-limiting us." YouTube occasionally throttles automated requests. Wait a moment and try again; it usually clears within a minute.
• The HD file stopped at "Preparing…". Very long videos in 4K can take a while. If nothing happens after a couple of minutes, try 1080p or 720p.
• You hit today's limit. Guests get a small daily allowance. Sign up to raise it, or upgrade to Pro for unlimited downloads.

Shorts, playlists and long videos

Shorts links work exactly like normal videos: paste the youtube.com/shorts/… address and the card appears. Shorts are vertical, so "720p" means the shorter side; the file you get is the full-height original.

Playlist links are not accepted yet, and neither are channel pages. Paste the individual video's link instead. If you open a video from inside a playlist, the address bar contains both the video id and a list= parameter; that link works, and only the single video is fetched.

There is no length limit for downloads. A three-hour lecture at 1080p is a large file and takes longer to prepare, but it works. Transcripts and summaries do have a length limit that depends on your plan.

Why the file comes from YouTube, not from us

For the instant 360p option your browser talks to YouTube's own servers, so the speed you see is your connection to YouTube. For HD we fetch the streams on a server, merge them, and hand you the result from there; the server holds the file for about an hour so you can download it again, then deletes it. We keep no library of videos and never re-serve a file to anyone who did not request it.

More than a downloader

Every video you paste also gets a Transcript tab and a Summary tab. The transcript comes from the video's captions, with timestamps you can copy or export; if a video has no captions, we transcribe the audio instead. The summary is written from the transcript in one of three styles, so you can decide whether a 40-minute video is worth watching before you download it.

A note on copyright

vidstill fetches public videos on your behalf and does not host copies of them. Prepared files are deleted after an hour. Download only what you have the right to keep, and never re-upload or sell someone else's work. Rights holders can use the DMCA page to request removal of a public video page.