YouTube Is Temporarily Supporting Downloading Videos On Web

Latest Updated on 9 January 2023

YouTube is giving desktop users the option to store videos offline and watch them later as a new experimental feature. YouTube Premium customers in India and France will soon be able to access the experimental function which was first seen by Android Police.

The experimental features page on YouTube informs us that the new function is only available until October 19 and that it isn't yet a permanent addition. The function is only supported on devices running the most recent versions of Chrome, Edge, or Opera.

It will function by including a "Download" button under a video much like how smartphone applications do it. By clicking on this you should be able to download the video and watch it later on youtube.com/feed/downloads. The stored files will only be available on YouTube and not through other file managers or media players, similar to how it operates on mobile devices.

Another significant aspect of the service is that users will be able to choose a default download quality but this will only go as high as 1080p. Therefore only videos with a maximum resolution of 1080p will be saved including those with higher qualities like a 4K clip.

The option to download movies so viewers may watch them later when they are not connected to the internet is one of the crucial features that the YouTube mobile app has had for a long but the website has been missing.

Users would frequently turn to third-party sites that would convert YouTube URLs into downloaded videos in a number of file formats as there was no native feature to replicate this on the web like YouTube's smartphone apps.

The security of these websites and third-party programs could never be guaranteed. With the new feature is now natively available to specific YouTube users that have changed.

Last Updated on 27 September 2021

YouTube is adding a new experimental feature to desktop users – the ability to save videos offline and view them later. The new feature, however, isn’t going to last longer, and YouTube’s experimental features page tells us it is only available until October 19. The feature is also only available on Desktops.

It is also noteworthy that the feature will allow users to select a default download quality, but this will max out at 1080p. This means even videos of higher resolution like a 4K clip will only be saved in 1080p maximum. With no native functionality to mimic this on the web like YouTube’s smartphone apps, users would often resort to third-party sites which would turn YouTube URLs into downloadable videos in multiple file formats. However, the safety of these third-party tools and websites could never be guaranteed.