How to download YouTube videos
Copy the link, paste it, pick a quality. That is the whole method, and it works the same on every device you own.
The short version
Open the video, copy its address, paste it into the YouTube downloader here and press Download. Every stream the upload carries is listed with its resolution, so you pick and save.
Nothing is installed and no account is created. The file goes from the source to your device, and we keep no copy of it.
Copying the right link
In the app, tap Share then Copy link. In a browser, the address bar already holds what you need.
Shortened youtu.be links, full watch links and Shorts links all resolve to the same video, so any of the three is fine.
A playlist address points at the list, not a single video. Open the video first, then copy.
Picking a quality that is worth the space
1080p is the practical default. It looks sharp on a laptop or a TV and a ten minute clip lands somewhere between 100 and 300 MB.
4K is only there when the creator published it, and the files are several times larger. Check the quality menu on YouTube before you expect it.
720p halves the size of Full HD and still looks clean on a phone, which matters when you are saving over mobile data.
On iPhone
Use Safari. After the download finishes, tap the arrow next to the address bar, tap the file, then Share and Save Video to move it into Photos.
Files saved this way play offline in the Photos app like anything you filmed yourself.
On Android, Windows and Mac
On Android the file lands in Downloads and the gallery indexes it within a minute or so.
On desktop it goes to your normal downloads folder. Any player opens it, since it is a plain MP4 with no wrapper around it.
When you only want the audio
For a podcast episode, a lecture or a track you are studying, the picture is dead weight. Convert the same link to MP3 instead and the file drops to a few megabytes.
If you already saved the MP4, the MP4 to MP3 tool strips the audio out without re-recording it.
Videos that will not download
Private and unlisted uploads, age gated videos and members only content need your logged in session, so no downloader can reach them.
Live streams resolve once the broadcast ends and YouTube finishes publishing the replay.
Very fresh uploads sometimes expose only lower resolutions for a few minutes while processing finishes. Waiting usually fixes it.
What is fair to save
Keeping a copy for offline viewing, study or reference is ordinary use. Reuploading someone else's video as your own is not.
When you want other people to see it, sharing the link sends the creator the view. Save the file for yourself.