How do I download or save a
YouTube video to my computer?
YouTube is designed only to allow users to watch and view videos on their website. Many users want to download or save their favorite YouTube videos to their computer so they can watch them without being connected to the Internet, or on other devices.
YouTube does not allow you to download videos directly from their site. You need to use a download service on another website to download a YouTube video. Below are several options for downloading and watching YouTube videos on your computer for free.
Note
This page only provides instructions for downloading or saving a video to your computer. Instructions for saving a video as audio is on our saving only the audio of a YouTube video to an MP3 file page.
Tip
To transfer videos to your smartphone or tablet after it's downloaded, see our how to download a YouTube video on a smartphone or tablet steps for these device
Today, many websites allow you to enter the URL of the video you want to save to your computer and get a link to download the video file. Below are the steps for downloading a YouTube video with one such website, KeepVid.pro.
Note
The functionality of downloading a YouTube video on the KeepVid.pro website does not work correctly in the Internet Explorer web browser. If you still use Internet Explorer, you will need to download a different browser, such as Firefox or Chrome.
- First, go to the YouTube page containing the video you want to download. When you've found the page, press Ctrl+L on your keyboard to highlight the text in the address bar, and then Ctrl+C to copy the Internet address. If you are on an Apple computer, substitute Ctrl with the Command key (⌘).
- Go to the website https://keepvid.pro.
- The page shows a text box where you can enter the URL of a YouTube video. Click inside the text box to place your text cursor there, then paste the address that you copied in step 1 by pressing Ctrl+V (or ⌘+V on a Mac).
- A preview thumbnail image of your video is displayed 5 to 10 seconds after pasting the YouTube video URL in step 3. Click the blue Best Download button next to the video preview.
- Depending on the Internet browser and its settings, you may see a prompt asking what you want to do with the video file. Select the Save option to save the file to your computer. The video file may also begin downloading immediately with no prompt.
If the video opens directly in your browser, right-click the video and choose Save Video As.
- The file name defaults to the video name or "videoplayback" with a file extension of either mp4 or webm, depending on the best quality video available for that URL.
Note
The "best download" button may not show you the actual file format you will download. For instance, the button may say "MP4" even if the best available format is WEBM.
- If desired, change the file name to something related to your specific video. You don't need to enter the file extension (such as .webm). The extension is added to the file automatically.
- Click Save to save your video. By default, it is saved to your downloads folder.
Download HD YouTube video with youtube-dl
If you want to download a YouTube video in HD (high definition), your options are limited. Most websites, such as the one listed above, do not allow you to download HD video for free.
However, the free program youtube-dl can download any available YouTube video format to your computer, including the HD version.
Youtube-dl can be downloaded for free at https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html. Click the Windows exe link to download the program.
The youtube-dl.exe executable file can be run directly from your command prompt. For example, to download the best quality of a YouTube video, run youtube-dl.exe URL, where URL is the URL of the video on YouTube.
In the example pictured above, the video downloaded by youtube-dl was the HD version, with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The file was saved in the MKV format, which is supported by many media players, such as VLC.
By comparison, the same video downloaded from the KeepVid website was the SD (standard definition) version, with a resolution of 640x360 pixels even though the site listed the "best download" as HD.
For a complete guide to using youtube-dl, see our article How to download YouTube videos and audio with youtube-dl.
What about a private video?
You cannot download private videos because the YouTube download service would not have the necessary rights to access them.
I still can't download a video
If after following the steps above, you do not get a preview like our example, make sure that the link you are using works by opening the page in a new window. Once verified as working, try the above steps again. If the steps continue not to work, try refreshing this page by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard and following the above steps again.