How to download YouTube videos for offline viewing

YouTube Premium, the paid version of the online service, is a great official way to start downloading YouTube videos onto your devices. A membership gives you and up to five other family members access to the service and the ability to download videos for later viewing, so the service can be quite effective. There’s even a YouTube Premium free trial to give you several days of the service for free to see if you like it. As an aside, YouTube Premium also gives you the ability to play YouTube videos in the background on your phone and comes with YouTube Music Premium. In other words, this is a multi-dimensional service that goes way beyond downloading videos.

In any event, downloading videos from YouTube with YouTube Premium will be slightly different depending upon the device you’re using. If you need help, follow the relevant guide below.

Watching YouTube on a computer is very convenient. Here’s how to download videos on your computer for later viewing:

Step 1: Navigate to a video on YouTube that you want to download.

Step 2: Click ‘Download’ below the video.

Step 3: You will be prompted to choose a resolution to download videos in, which maxes out at 720p for the initial download. If you aren’t yet subscribed to YouTube Premium, you’ll be prompted to try a free trial.

Step 4: The video will begin to download to your device and the download button will read “Downloaded” once this is completed.

Step 5: You can also download a video from the home page by resting your pointer over the video, clicking the three-dots symbol, and selecting “Download”.

Step 6: To change your download quality and turn on smart downloads — which automatically downloads recommended videos for you — go to YouTube’s Download Settings page.

There’s no obvious download button on the YouTube mobile app’s home page, but you can still download videos there. Just follow these steps:

Step 1: From your home page, scroll down to the video you want to download.

Step 2: Tap the “…” symbol.

Step 3: Tap “Download” in the new menu that appears.

Step 4: Choose a download quality and tap the “Download” button again.

Step 5: If you want to download a video you’re already watching, swipe left on the bar below the video until download appears.

Step 6: Now, tap “Download” to download the video so you can finish watching it later.

Step 7: Changing your download settings on mobile is also a little bit trickier, but can be accomplished as follows:

1. From the home screen, tap your profile image in the bottom right.
2. On the next page, tap the settings cog symbol in the upper right.
3. Scroll down and select “Background & downloads” in the settings menu.
4. From here, you can turn on Smart Downloads, set a download quality, and make sure downloads are only downloaded over Wi-Fi.

When you download a video from YouTube with YouTube Premium, you are downloading a special file in YouTube format. As a result, you will not be able to open the video in your favorite video editing software (more on that in a moment) or video player. Instead, you’ll need to play the video via YouTube. Note that videos you download on one device will not appear on another device.

On a computer: Navigate to your YouTube downloads feed.

On mobile: Tap your profile image as we did above, then scroll down and tap the “Downloads” selection.

If, for some reason, your device does not connect to the internet for a period longer than 30 days, your downloaded videos will no longer be available.