How to Download YouTube Videos Without Premium
YouTube Premium is supposed to be the “ideal” YouTube experience. Although the service is perfectly usable for free, premium users obtain additional advantages, such as no ad, free YouTube music and a list of constantly increasing features. This is why it is interesting to see YouTube experiment with free premium exclusive feature – at least, a sweetened version of it.
As Techradar points out, some YouTube users see the possibility of downloading videos in the application, without having paid for Premium first. It has long been a premium advantage, and for a good reason: offline reading is a great feature for anyone who travels somewhere without an active internet connection, such as when you fly or on a train with spotted service, or when you keep an eye on your use of data. As such, it is a strong incentive to subscribe to the premium for anyone who really needs to watch videos when they wish.
Techradar highlights this post Reddit, where the poster shows the download capacity of their YouTube application for iOS. All users have the “Download” button when visualizing a video, but generally, free users will only see invites to switch to Premium if they press. This user, however, found that after accidentally supporting the “Download” button, he was invited to download the video herself.
From the screenshot provided, you can see that the application gives them the possibility of downloading the video in quality “Medium (360p)” or a quality “low (144p)”. I would barely call the 360p “medium” and 144p is what children formerly called the “quality of the potato”, so these are not ideal resolutions. This is where YouTube gives an inch, while taking a mile: just below these options, you will see the choices to download the video in “Full HD (1080p)” or “High (720p)” ” just Under a banner for Premium Youtube. YouTube reminds you conveniently that “for high quality unlimited downloads, without advertising and background game, get YouTube Premium”.
What do you think so far?
In addition to these quality restrictions, you will not be able to download free video clips. This is probably due to artists’ royalty problems, because youtube would give people a way to listen to music without the announcement or bonus income. If you want to save clips on your iPhone, you will have to pay.
I do not yet have the functionality on my side, so it is not clear to what extent this experience can be widespread. That being said, there are ways to download YouTube videos as you wish, without premium YouTube, as long as you agree on the rules.
