How to download videos with YouTube Premium

With a YouTube Premium membership, you can download videos to watch offline.

Offline viewing is great for when you’re or on the go or in an area with limited internet connection. There are two ways to download videos on YouTube -- manually, or with the Smart Downloads feature.

00:00 | Introduction
00:14 | Manual Downloads
00:31 | Smart Downloads
00:55 | Find Your Content
01:23 | Troubleshoot Download Settings
01:52 | Closing

[Phaethon]

This system is inadequate. We need to download the video in an actual file in our computers. What you do is a youtube buffering like Netflix . This is not the service we want.

[aakifazeez]

This is BS, I got Youtube Premium specifically so I can download videos to my computer wtf is this

[SirDella]

This is not downloading, this is pre-caching

[darthtubius]

If a file is not on your own computer for you to view as you please, then it has not been downloaded, pure and simple.

[LiborTinka]

I wanted to purchase Premium just for the download feature, but this seems to only allow watching the downloaded videos through the app, i.e. YouTube keeps control over the downloaded content, never giving user the actually MP4 files... The problem is obviously that the downloaded videos can be unilaterally removed by YouTube at any time for whatever reason (by the creator, due to censorship, marked dangerous by some authority, "no longer watchable in your country" etc. etc. etc.)
I am aware of the piracy issues, but I watch a ton of educational videos whose creators want to share information freely and won't mind copying, not even using any licensed music.
If YouTube at least allowed creators to mark videos to be available for download and copy, that would be great.

[youtubin]

this is useless. i can't download the video to my laptop. it only downloads to youtube

[AndyMangele]

You don't seem to understand what the term download means.

[mountainfilms]

There is no option for download in the 3 dots. I do have Premium

[michaelweyenberg]

Can you actually download the video? All this does is save a copy of it to your Youtube account.

[Chris-byeh]

so you only get 29 days and then they get deleted. can you back them up ? like on the PC and copy to another folder ?

[letmebreakitdownu]

There is NO download option.
Gee wizz....can someone give real info?!

[ИванСнежков-зй]

When "smart download" puts a video on my device, does the creator get paid for viewership.
Aka, does youtube know when a video has been watched off-line?

[MrBrigadierArchived]

Being unable to watch downloaded video on offline PC makes this feature more useless.

[Christianpreaching]

I'm glad I watched this video and read these comments because I was going to get premium just so I can download and instead I found out that it's not actually downloading since it's only for 29 days!!

[LiborTinka]

Allowing people to download watermarked files would be much better solution IMO. The way it is now does not help the users and doesn't prevent copying either - it's just the worst of both worlds - the stream can be captured, or heck even screen captured, so I don't understand why just complicate the life of YouTubu users while not preventing piracy...

[chemical-or]

Yeah this is basically useless I can't download the movies I've purchased nor the episodes of shows I own. I succeeded at downloading 5 childrens videos and one movie and that was that - nothing else lets me download. On the purchased tab I get a bunch of junk not purchased like 'continue watching' and 'primetime shows for you' then finally at the very end, stuff I've purchased. Finding a list of content that is allowed to be download is a fools errand. I'm certain this is not what you expected when you thought of this feature, but that is what we currently have.

[mountainfilms]

Sounds simple, but I do not see any option that shows download. I have Youtube Premium

[KR_ANIMATES]

if you randomly go notified pls like


Also did you know that if double tapping a comment has a feature.

[Ahmad_Aljohar]

After presenting YouTube to laws that prevent some videos, YouTube is no longer good, Become boring

[CelestialHeathen]

Pointless, my downloaded videos get deleted automatically even though I log into my account daily.