YouTube Premium as YouTube Downloader Review

YouTube Premium, formerly known as Music Key (2014–2015) and YouTube Red (2015-2018), is the subscription service provided by the online video sharing and social media platform – YouTube. Till January 2021, YouTube Premium has more than 50 million members in more than 101 countries and regions.

What are the benefits of YouTube Premium?

1. Watch YouTube videos and listen to YouTube music and videos uninterrupted by annoying ads whenever you sign in with your YouTube Premium account on your phone, tablet, game console, computer, or enabled TV.
2. Download videos and playlists to your mobile devices for offline watching when you are on the go or low on data, or the Internet connection is not stable or available.
3. Download songs and videos to your mobile devices for offline listening.
4. Playing videos and music in the background without interruptions when using another app or the screen is locked.
5. Enjoy music on your Google Home or Chromecast Audio.
6. Use YouTube Premium membership benefits in YouTube, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids apps.
7. Watch all YouTube Original series and movies.

How to download videos on mobile devices

1. Play a video in the app;
2. Tap the Download button under the video player.
3. Pick the video quality.
4. When the download is done, the Downloaded icon will appear below the player.

How to download YouTube videos on computer

Note: This new feature, Download videos from your browser (on computer), was an experimental program. It was rolled out in September 2021 and taken offline in early December 2021. You should be a YouTube Premium member, apply for the test manually and upgrade your Chrome, Edge or Safari browsers to the latest versions to experience the official video download functionality on your PC or Mac.

Here are the steps to download YouTube videos on PC and Mac:

1. Check whether your browser (Chrome, Edge or Safari) is running the latest version or not. If the answer is not, upgrade to the most current version first;
2. Visit the Labs page for YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/new in your browser;
3. Login with your Google account that has subscribed the paid YouTube Premium membership plan at the top section, Sign in to try new features, of the screen .



4. Find the Download videos from your browser experiment on the page and click “TRY IT OUT” to participate.



5. Go to the page that includes the video that you want to download;
6. Hit the Download button to the bottom of the video between Share and Save buttons.




7. Keep the tab open until the download process is complete.
8. The downloaded videos can be played back offline under the new Downloads section in the left sidebar.

 

Pros:

1. It’s an official functionality and absolutely the most secure way to save videos from YouTube.
2. It’s quite convenient to download a YouTube by directly clicking the Download button below the video instead of copying-and-pasting the URL to get the download link.
3. There is no risk of any copyright or legal issues to use the official download feature to download videos for offline viewing.
4. Downloading playlists is supported as many other video downloaders do.
5. Downloaded videos will be renewed automatically as long as you reconnect to Internet in your home country/region at least once every 30 days.
6. Unfinished downloads due to connectivity loss will resume when you reconnect to a network.
7. When a new video is added to the playlist which you downloaded as a whole or interacted with in the past 30 days, the new video will be downloaded automatically.
8. You can download certain videos from the YouTube mobile app to watch offline in one of the countries/regions listed here even without a Premium membership.
9. Currently, up to 1080p (Full HD) quality videos are supported to download for offline watching.

 

Cons:

1. It’s not free, only first-time YouTube Red, Music Premium, YouTube Premium and Google Play Music subscribers are eligible for 1-month free trials.
2. The download feature is currently only available on mobile devices. The experimental feature of downloading YouTube videos on PC or Mac is not available anymore.
3. There is no lifetime subscription, you are charged monthly.
4. YouTube Premium membership may not be available in some countries or regions.
5. The YouTube paid membership may not be available in some provinces or territories, even if the governing country/region is in the accessible list.
6. It’s a subscription service from YouTube, and you are only given the benefits of YouTube Premium membership. If you need to download videos or songs from other video sharing sites, you have to subscribe their services or use third-party video downloaders.
7. You are not allowed to download videos when you travel to a country or region that’s not on the support list. What’s more, the videos downloaded before travelling will be available offline for only 30 days.
8. Downloads in YouTube Music will only remain for 30 days if no Internet is available.
9. Downloaded music and videos can only be listened or watched offline, and there is no way to access, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, alter, modify or otherwise use them freely as you wish.
10. The downloaded videos are stored encrypted and won’t appear in your gallery.
11. You may have to set the video download quality in Settings of the app again when you need to download videos in other quality, which may be a little inconvenient compared with other video downloaders that let you select download quality when starting to download each video.
12. You must login into your YouTube Premium account to download videos and playlists.
13. Because of content restrictions from partners, the download buttons under some videos, for instance free movies from YouTube Movies & Shows, may not appear.
14. Owing to content restrictions from partners, some previously downloaded videos may not be available when you go online again.
15. Downloading audio, music and MP3 from YouTube is not supported.
16. If you are in one of the locations that allow some YouTube videos to be downloaded for offline watching without a paid membership, the videos are only available for 48 hours and you may need to connect the Internet every 48 hours to keep the videos accessible.  
17. The downloaded video quality is limited to 1080p or lower, if you need to watch 4k or 8k YouTube videos offline, you may need to turn to a professional downloader like IDM.
18. YouTube video downloads in the most current browsers on PC or Mac requires the account of YouTube Premium.
19. Downloading YouTube videos on computer is still a testing program and it’s not open for every Premium member during the experimental stage. You may need to join in the program manually first if you want to try out this new feature.
20. The testing program, Download videos from your browser (on computer), is only available for a limited time.
21. To experience the video downloading feature on your PC or Mac, you have to update your browser (Chrome, Edge or Safari) on your computer to the latest versions.
22. Downloading videos on computer was under test from September, 2021 to December, 2021. Currently, the feature experiment has been taken offline.