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YouTube Video Downloader

Save a YouTube video as a clean MP4 in up to 1080p. Paste the link, choose the quality you want, and the file downloads straight to your device — no account, no extension, no watermark stamped on the output.

Download a video
Watch, youtu.be, Shorts, embed and live links

Please download responsibly. Save your own uploads, Creative Commons material, or content you have permission to use. Downloading or re-uploading copyrighted videos without the owner's consent breaches YouTube's Terms of Service and may infringe copyright.

How it works

Download a video in three steps

Paste the video link

Copy the YouTube URL from your browser or the share sheet — watch links, youtu.be links and Shorts links all work — and paste it in.

Pick a resolution

The available MP4 qualities are listed with their approximate file sizes, from 360p up to 1080p where the video offers it.

Save the MP4

Click download. The file is prepared and sent straight to your device as a standard MP4 with no watermark and no overlay.

Features

What you get

Up to 1080p MP4

Full HD where the source offers it, in the universally playable MP4 container — no obscure codecs to convert afterwards.

No watermark

The stream is passed through untouched. Nothing is burned into the corner and no intro card is prepended.

No account needed

No sign-up, no email wall, no browser extension and no bundled installer trying to change your search engine.

Works on any device

It is a web page, so it runs the same on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS without anything to install.

Honest format list

Only the qualities that genuinely exist for that video are offered, with approximate sizes, so nothing fails after you have waited for it.

Shorts supported

Vertical Shorts download at their native aspect ratio, uncropped and unpadded.

Background

When downloading a video is the right call

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to want a local copy. Creators archive their own uploads because a channel strike, an accidental deletion or a lost account can take years of work offline in an afternoon, and YouTube is not a backup service. Editors pull down footage they hold the rights to so they can cut it offline. Teachers save Creative Commons material for a classroom with unreliable internet. Researchers keep copies of sources that may be edited or removed later.

The line that matters is ownership. If the video is yours, licensed for reuse, or you have the copyright holder's permission, saving a copy is uncontroversial. If it is not, downloading it breaches YouTube's Terms of Service regardless of what you intend to do with it, and re-uploading it is straightforward copyright infringement — the kind that gets channels terminated, not just demonetised.

A practical note on quality: YouTube stores video and audio as separate streams above 720p, so a true 1080p download has to fetch both and mux them back together. Tools that promise instant 1080p with no processing step are usually handing you a 720p file with a 1080p label. The format list here reflects what is actually retrievable for the specific video you paste.

If downloading is a regular part of your workflow rather than an occasional need, do it locally. Vynex Studio is free, queues multiple links, and runs the extraction on your own machine, which is both faster and not subject to anyone else's rate limits.

FAQ

Video downloader questions

Is it legal to download YouTube videos?

It depends what you download and what you do with it. Downloading your own uploads, videos published under a Creative Commons licence, or content you have the copyright holder's permission to save is fine in most jurisdictions. Downloading copyrighted material you do not own — and especially redistributing or re-uploading it — is not, and it also breaches YouTube's Terms of Service. This tool is provided for the legitimate cases; what you download is your responsibility.

What resolutions can I download?

Up to 1080p MP4, depending on what the video was published in. A video only ever uploaded at 720p cannot be downloaded at 1080p — the tool lists exactly which qualities exist for the link you paste rather than promising sizes it cannot deliver.

Do I need to install anything or create an account?

No. It runs in your browser with no extension, no desktop install and no sign-up. If you download videos regularly, the desktop version in Vynex Studio is faster because it does the work locally instead of routing through a server.

Is there a watermark on the downloaded file?

No. You get the original MP4 stream exactly as YouTube serves it, with no overlay, no intro card and no branding added.

Can I download YouTube Shorts?

Yes. Shorts links are recognised alongside standard watch links, youtu.be short links, embed URLs and live URLs.

Why does my link fail with "private, age-restricted or region-locked"?

Those three cases genuinely cannot be fetched: private videos need an account with access, age-restricted videos need a signed-in session, and region-locked videos are unavailable from the server's location. Members-only and premium content is blocked for the same reason.

Can I download just the audio as MP3?

Not from this page — it serves MP4 video only. The desktop build in Vynex Studio can extract audio tracks locally.

Can I download an entire playlist or channel at once?

No. This tool deliberately handles one video per request to keep it usable for everyone. Bulk downloading is a desktop job, and Vynex Studio queues multiple links for exactly that reason.
More tools

Other free tools from Vynex

Downloading more than the odd video?

Vynex Studio is a free Windows app that runs the same downloader locally — queue several links at once, no rate limits, plus a thumbnail downloader, image compressor and Gemini watermark remover in the same window.

Get Vynex Studio
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