How to download YouTube videos to your computer
Online YouTube converters tend to cap the quality, flood you with ads and ask to "allow notifications". A desktop app does the same job faster: paste a link, pick a quality, and the file lands on your disk.
Download Top Video Downloader
Free: 10 downloads a day up to 720p, no ads. 4K and unlimited downloads come with a subscription or credits.
Step by step
- 1
Open the video on YouTube and click Share → Copy, or copy the address from the browser bar.
- 2
Launch Top Video Downloader, paste the link into the field at the top and click Check formats.
- 3
Pick a quality: 720p, 1080p, 2K, 4K, or Audio only if you want an MP3.
- 4
Click Add to queue. The video downloads to the folder you chose (your Videos folder by default).
Which links work
- youtube.com/watch?v=… — a regular video
- youtu.be/… — the short link from Share
- youtube.com/shorts/… — Shorts
Good to know
Why 1080p and 4K take a little longer
At high resolutions YouTube stores picture and sound as separate streams. The app downloads both and joins them with the bundled ffmpeg without re-encoding, so there is no quality loss and nothing extra to install.
Age-restricted videos
YouTube only serves these to signed-in users. Sign in to YouTube inside the app (Account → Platform logins); the session is stored encrypted on your computer and never sent anywhere.
Playlists
Whole-playlist downloads arrive in the next major update. For now add videos to the queue one link at a time; up to three download in parallel.
Questions
Can I download just the music from a YouTube video as MP3?
Yes. After checking the link, choose Audio only and the app saves the soundtrack as MP3. It works on the free plan too.
How do I download a YouTube video in 4K?
Pick the 2160p 4K row in the quality list. The free plan caps at 720p; 4K comes with a subscription or credits. If a video has no 4K version, that row simply isn't shown.
Does it work with YouTube Shorts?
Yes. Links like youtube.com/shorts/… work exactly like regular videos.
Download only content you have the rights to: your own videos, freely licensed material, or videos the author allows saving.