Download YouTube videos in MP4 format. Free 480p downloads, or sign up to unlock HD, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Extract audio as MP3. Fast and watermark-free.
YouTube is the world's largest video platform with over 800 million videos. For content creators, it is both a publishing platform and a research library. Downloading YouTube videos lets you study editing techniques frame by frame, repurpose your own content for other platforms, and archive important videos before they disappear.
The most common use case is content repurposing. A 10-minute YouTube video can be clipped into 5-10 short-form videos for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. But to do this, you need the source file on your device. Our downloader gives you the MP4 file in seconds, ready to import into any video editor.
For the text version of any YouTube video, pair this tool with our YouTube Transcript Extractor. Together, they let you extract both the video and the full text from any YouTube video for maximum repurposing potential.
Our downloader accepts every standard YouTube URL format. You do not need to modify or clean up the URL before pasting.
| Format | Example | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard watch URL | youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ | Browser address bar |
| Short share URL | youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ | YouTube share button |
| YouTube Shorts | youtube.com/shorts/dQw4w9WgXcQ | Shorts feed or share |
| Embed URL | youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ | Embedded players on websites |
| Mobile app share | m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ | YouTube mobile app |
This tool offers two tiers. Free downloads (360p and 480p) require no account. HD and above (720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K) require a free GhostShorts account, which also unlocks the rest of our creator toolkit.
The maximum quality available on YouTube for videos uploaded in 4K. Use this when you need maximum flexibility for cropping, zooming, or reframing during editing. A 4K source gives you room to crop down to 1080p or vertical 9:16 with no visible quality loss. File sizes are large: 200-400MB per minute. Not every video is available in 4K. If the original was uploaded at a lower resolution, the tool will select the highest available.
A great balance between 4K's flexibility and 1080p's file size. Popular with creators who do heavy reframing or cropping for vertical reposts, but do not need the full 4K pixel count. File sizes sit around 100-200MB per minute.
The standard for most editing work in professional software (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut). Choose this when you plan to clip, overlay text, or otherwise modify the footage. The higher resolution gives your editor more data to work with, resulting in better output quality even after re-encoding. File sizes range from 50-100MB per minute.
Good enough for social media repurposing since platforms like TikTok and Instagram re-compress everything anyway. 720p files are roughly half the size of 1080p, meaning faster downloads and less storage used.
Free to download with no account. Use these when you only need a quick reference, preview, or thumbnail frame, or when you are on a slow connection and file size matters more than quality. Not recommended for any content you plan to re-upload or edit professionally.
Extracts just the audio track. Perfect for saving podcast interviews, music, sound effects, voiceover references, or creating audio versions of educational content. MP3 files are typically 1-2MB per minute, making them extremely lightweight compared to video. Free across all tiers.
Watch the video (or read the transcript) and mark 3-5 moments that stand alone as compelling short clips. Look for strong opinions, surprising facts, emotional moments, or self-contained tips. Each clip should make sense without context from the rest of the video.
Download the video using this tool. For editing work we recommend 1080p or higher, since platforms like TikTok re-compress everything on upload and starting from a better source preserves more quality. If you plan to reframe from horizontal to vertical, 1440p or 4K give you extra pixels to crop without losing sharpness. Import the MP4 into your preferred editor (CapCut, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, or even a mobile editor).
Each platform has different optimal specs. TikTok and Reels want 9:16 vertical video under 90 seconds. YouTube Shorts caps at 60 seconds in 9:16. Add captions (most short-form viewers watch without sound), a strong opening hook in the first second, and a clean ending. Do not just chop the video. Restructure each clip to work as its own piece.
Each clip needs its own title and hashtags optimized for the destination platform. Use our YouTube Title Generator for YouTube Shorts titles and our AI Hashtag Generator for TikTok and Instagram hashtags.
YouTube Shorts are vertical videos up to 60 seconds long. They use the same underlying video infrastructure as regular YouTube videos, which means they can be downloaded identically. The only difference is the URL format: Shorts URLs contain /shorts/ instead of /watch?v=.
Shorts are typically uploaded at 1080 x 1920 (9:16 vertical). When you download a Short, the file will maintain this vertical orientation. This makes them ready to re-upload to TikTok or Instagram Reels without any reformatting. If you download your own Shorts for cross-posting, this is the fastest repurposing workflow available.
Note that some Shorts are created from longer videos using YouTube's built-in clipping tool. These download as standalone clips, not the full source video. If you need the full video, find and download the original long-form version instead.
YouTube's Terms of Service state that users should not download content unless a download button is provided by YouTube. However, the legal landscape is more nuanced in practice. Downloading for personal offline viewing exists in a gray area. Downloading your own content is always fine since you hold the copyright.
Fair use protections apply when using downloaded content for commentary, criticism, education, or parody. If you download a clip to include in a review video with your own analysis, this is typically protected. Re-uploading someone else's full video without modification or commentary is copyright infringement.
The safest approach: download your own videos for repurposing, use short clips from others only with commentary or transformation, and always credit original creators. Our tool is designed for legitimate use cases like content repurposing, research, and offline viewing.
Yes. 360p, 480p, and audio-only MP3 downloads are completely free with no signup and no watermarks. Paste a YouTube URL and download instantly. HD downloads (720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K) require a free GhostShorts account, which also unlocks the rest of our creator toolkit.
Yes. YouTube Shorts download exactly like regular videos. Paste the Shorts URL (which contains /shorts/ in the path) and select your preferred quality. The downloaded file will be in 9:16 vertical format, ready for TikTok or Instagram Reels.
Our tool supports downloads up to 4K (2160p). 360p and 480p are free. 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K are part of the HD tier, which requires a free GhostShorts account. The actual quality depends on what the creator uploaded. If a video was recorded and uploaded at 720p, you cannot download it at 1080p since that resolution does not exist for that video. Our tool automatically selects the closest available quality to your selection.
Yes. Select “Audio Only (MP3)” from the Download Type dropdown. This extracts just the audio track and saves it as an MP3 file. Useful for podcast clips, music, voiceover references, or listening to video content on the go. MP3 files are much smaller than video files.
Common reasons: the video is private or age-restricted (requires login), the URL is invalid or from an unsupported platform, or the video has been removed. Make sure the video is publicly accessible by opening the URL in an incognito browser window. If it plays without logging in, it should be downloadable.
Download links expire after 10 minutes for security and storage reasons. If the link expires before you download, simply paste the URL again and generate a new link. The process takes just a few seconds.
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