YouTube Video Downloader
Paste a YouTube link to save the video in the best quality available. Free, no watermark, nothing to install.
Works with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, VK and X
- Up to 1080p Full HD
- No watermark
- Always free
- Fast servers
Free to use. We never post anything or store your video after it expires.
About downloading from YouTube
YouTube publishes each upload at several resolutions, and above 720p it stores the picture and the sound as separate streams. GetYTMP3 reads the whole list, then fetches the video and audio and joins them back together, so a 1080p download arrives as one playable file with sound rather than a silent clip. Regular videos, Shorts and music uploads all go through the same box.
YouTube downloader specifications
Exactly what you get, with no guessing
- Maximum resolution
- 1080p Full HD (1920×1080)
- Video codec
- H.264 (AVC) preferred, VP9/AV1 as fallback
- Audio
- Merged from the separate stream, always included
- Container
- MP4
- Watermark added
- None
- Typical file size
- ~50–150 MB for a 10-minute 1080p video
How to download YouTube videos
Copy the link, paste it here, pick a quality
- 1
Copy the link
Open the video on its original platform and copy the link from the address bar or the app's share menu.
- 2
Paste and analyse
Drop the link into the box above and choose Get video. We read the available resolutions and file sizes for you.
- 3
Pick a quality and save
Choose the resolution you want and start the download. The finished file lands in your downloads list, ready to keep.
What our YouTube downloader does
Built around how YouTube actually serves its video
Full HD, with audio
High-resolution YouTube streams are video-only. We pair each one with the best audio track and merge them, which is the step most downloaders skip.
Shorts and regular videos
Vertical Shorts links and standard watch links are both recognised, including youtu.be short links and URLs that carry a playlist parameter.
H.264 for compatibility
Where YouTube offers a choice, we prefer H.264 so the file plays on older phones, TVs and editing software without a codec pack.
YouTube links that work
Paste any of these formats — we resolve the rest
- youtube.com/watch?v=… — the standard watch page
- youtu.be/… — the short share link
- youtube.com/shorts/… — vertical Shorts
- m.youtube.com/… — copied from the mobile app
- youtube-nocookie.com/… — privacy-mode embeds
- Links with extra &list= or &t= parameters work as-is
Getting the most out of YouTube downloads
Practical notes from how YouTube really behaves
Shorts links need no special handling
A youtube.com/shorts/… URL goes through the same box as a normal watch link. The result keeps its vertical aspect ratio — nothing is cropped or padded.
H.264 is chosen on purpose
Where YouTube offers VP9 or AV1 alongside H.264 at the same resolution, we take H.264. It is slightly larger but opens in QuickTime, Premiere, DaVinci and on older phones and TVs without installing anything.
Re-pasting the same link is instant
Parse results are cached for six hours, so if you paste a link you already looked at, the quality list appears immediately instead of hitting YouTube again.
YouTube download not working?
The failures we actually see, and what to do about each
YouTube treats requests from cloud-server IP ranges far more suspiciously than home broadband, and our servers sit in a datacentre. The video itself is fine; the request was challenged before it ever reached the file.
Try a different video first — the challenge is applied unevenly and often does not reappear. If it keeps happening on every link, the problem is on our side and the server operator needs to refresh the stored YouTube session cookies.
We check for the age-limit flag before downloading anything and stop there. This is a deliberate policy rule, not a technical failure — 18+ material is out of scope for this service.
Nothing. Age-restricted videos will not download here regardless of whether you are signed in.
The cap is ours, not YouTube's. 1080p in H.264 plays on essentially any device without extra codecs, and it keeps file sizes and merge times reasonable on a small server.
Pick the 1080p option — it is the real 1080p stream, not an upscale. There is no way to request 4K at the moment.
Everything above 720p on YouTube is published as a video-only stream plus a separate audio stream. Both have to be downloaded in full and then merged with ffmpeg, and the merge happens after the download bar already reads 100%.
Let it finish — the last stretch is the merge and the upload, which have no progress to report. Downloads are allowed up to two hours before timing out.
When a URL carries a &list= parameter we deliberately read just the single video it points at, so one paste never turns into fifty queued tasks.
Open each video on its own page and paste those links one at a time. Each becomes its own task and they process in order.
YouTube downloader questions
Answers specific to saving YouTube videos
Anything above 1080p has to be stitched together from a separate video stream and audio stream. That merge happens on our server after the download finishes, and it adds a few seconds for a long video.
Not in a single action. Paste the links one at a time; each becomes its own task in your downloads list and they are processed in order.
Pick the lowest-resolution option if you only care about the sound. A dedicated audio-only export is not available yet.
Other downloaders
The same tool, tuned for other platforms