One of the key perks of subscribing to YouTube Premium is the ability to download videos and watch them offline on your smartphone. While YouTube’s Android and iOS mobile app has supported this feature for a while now, YouTube is working on making offline video downloads possible on your desktop browser. Think of it as offline downloads from leading streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video and not something you get from a typical YouTube video downloader site that lets you download the mp4 file.
Download YouTube Videos from Desktop Browser
YouTube is currently testing offline video downloads on desktop. To try it right now, head to the YouTube Labs page and look for the new ‘Download videos from your browser‘ experiment. The test is active until October 19 and you will see a ‘Try it Out’ button if you are a YouTube Premium subscriber.
After enrolling in the test, you will find a new Download button between the current ‘Share’ and ‘Save’ buttons. Open a YouTube video in the browser and click on ‘Download’ to watch it offline later. Anmol from our team tested the feature and here’s how you can download YouTube videos:
Soon after you hit the Download button, a progress indicator appears in the bottom-left corner of the screen. It reminds you to keep the window open until the download process is complete. It’s also worth mentioning that you can browse the website or watch other YouTube videos while you are downloading a video.
You will find all your downloaded videos under the new ‘Downloads’ section accessible from the left sidebar. Downloads will expire if you don’t connect your device to the internet at least once every 30 days.
You can change the download quality from the Downloads Settings page. You have four available options, including Low (144p), Medium (480p), High (720p), and Full HD (1080p). You also have a button to delete all downloaded videos to help free up disk space.
You will need the latest version of Chrome, Edge, or Opera browser to download YouTube videos offline, at least for now. We will have to wait until the official rollout to know if Firefox support is coming too. Either way, offline downloads on the YouTube desktop website is a promising feature and we hope YouTube brings it to all Premium subscribers over the coming months.
