YouTube as we all know it is a place for almost anything and everything. You can find videos which act as tutorials, music videos, original shows and even movies. It has an active viewership of about 63 million users every day and has become the largest search engine for its users. From the numbers, we can see that the sheer quantity of content being consumed is very large, but this comes with one requirement that can often be a deterrent and that is a good internet connection.
Well, imagine if you could take your videos on-the-go with you and not have to worry about having a good connection? YouTube has features in place for this and this is available to free and paid users of the service.
Downloading videos offline on YouTube
If you didn’t already know about this, under all eligible videos YouTube has a download button, which can be used to store content on your device in an encrypted form. Users with a premium subscription also get to take original shows, videos and music. The premium subscription also allows for background play.
If you don’t live in a country where YouTube Premium is available, here are a few tips to play YouTube videos on a locked screen.
Also read: What it takes to be a YouTuber in 2019
Download limit on YouTube
Unlike Spotify, Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, YouTube has no limit based download system but downloads are only allowed on the mobile application. Basically, you can download unlimited videos. However, the number of videos you can download depends on the storage of your device. If your device has 5% storage available, YouTube won’t download any videos — you’ll need to free up space.
Also, unless you’re a YouTube Premium member, the downloads have to be refreshed by connecting to the internet 48 hours after the time of download. This is done to refresh to downloads, allow the app to check for the video’s availability and also see if any changes have been made to it during that time.
Premium members have the liberty to go online every 30 days in order to refresh their downloaded videos.
Note: Not all videos are available to be downloaded for offline viewing. Unavailable videos will have their ‘Download button’ disabled. You can also download videos using the scaled-down YouTube Go app, for smartphones running Android ‘Go edition’.
Also read: Top 11 tech channels on YouTube that you must check out
Tips and tricks for managing downloads on YouTube
You never know how downloads rack up over time and take up all possible storage space on your device. To help with storage management YouTube offers the ability to download videos in your desired quality while using a connection of your choice to avoid large cellular bills.
Following are the steps to set download quality and connection priorities:
1) Open the YouTube application and tap on your ‘profile button’ in the right top corner.
2) Now head into the Settings menu option.
3) You will now be able to see a section labelled Downloads, under which you’ll see the following options:
- Download quality
- Download over WiFi only
- Recommend downloads
- Downloading help (redirects to an FAQ section)
- Delete all downloads
- A bar that shows how storage is used for storing videos.
4) Set desired download quality using the Download quality option. The available options are 1080P, 720P, 480P and 144P.
5) If you want to save up your mobile data, then you can also set the application to only download over WiFi by toggling the Download over WiFi only option.
Also read: Top 9 Android anti-theft apps that can help you protect your device
List of countries where you can download videos on YouTube
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- Angola
- Antarctica
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Benin
- Bhutan
- Botswana
- Bouvet Island
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Brunei
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Federated States of Micronesia
- Fiji
- French Guiana
- French Polynesia
- Gabon
- Georgia
- Ghana
- Grenada
- Guam
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Israel
- Jordan
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Macau
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mali
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Nepal
- New Caledonia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palau
- Palestine
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Qatar
- Republic of the Congo
- Reunion
- Rwanda
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Saint Helena
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Slovakia
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sri Lanka
- Sudan
- Svalbard and Jan Mayen
- Swaziland
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- The Gambia
- Timor-Leste
- Togo
- Tonga
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Tuvalu
- Uganda
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Also read: Top 5 free music streaming apps for Android
Featured image by Christian Wiediger
