In its experimental program reserved for YouTube Premium, the online video service now gives the possibility of downloading videos legally and officially.
Source : Alexander Shatov via Unsplash
Google decided to let YouTube evolve. In recent months, the firm has launched numerous experiments: activating picture in picture on iPhone, translating comments or even a new navigation. The latest is perhaps the most interesting so far.
Access YouTube videos offline on PC
Uploading videos to YouTube has been in high demand since the early days of the service. This can allow you to make funny montages, create GIFs or even access videos even without an internet connection. There are many services today that offer to download YouTube videos, thus violating the terms of use of the platform. Google has decided to tackle it by offering a perfectly official way.
The feature can be found on YouTube's Experimental Features page. Remember that these tests are reserved for subscribers to YouTube Premium.
As on mobile, this function will allow you to download YouTube videos in a controlled environment in order to watch them later, without an Internet connection. We are perhaps less used to it on PC, but the option also goes through an application, a PWA web app. By clicking on the "download" button under a video, YouTube offers to install the application in question.
PWA applications have their own local storage system on PC. This is what YouTube will use to download the videos.
We then find a new “downloads” section to view all the videos downloaded upstream. Users of this function on mobile will not be out of place.
The function parameters are there, even if there are not many options. We can still choose a video quality for downloads and the possibility of deleting all video downloads with a single click.
According to the experiments page, this test will run until October 19th. After this date, we imagine that Google will decide whether or not to continue this function.
