Google finally lets you download YouTube videos to your PC

YouTube

Google has begun testing a long-awaited feature by users the ability to download videos from the popular YouTube platform on computers. There is no shortage of third-party solutions for this problem on the Internet, but here we are talking about the video downloading function built into YouTube. Note that this function has been working for mobile devices for a long time, but it was absent in the web version. As with mobile devices, a paid YouTube Premium subscription is required to download videos.

Google is currently doing limited testing with YouTube Premium users. The new feature was first reported by users in India and France, then some enthusiasts of the XDA Developers community of mobile developers discovered it in the United States. As you can see by looking at the screenshot, you can also activate the innovation from Russia.

To activate, you need to go to the YouTube Labs page, and if you are among the ranks of potential testers, you will see a special "Try" button. It is noted that the function is only available on computers with the latest versions of the Chrome, Edge, or Opera browser. It will also be available in test mode until October 19. Google remains silent about its future plans.

To save the video, you need to click on the "Download" button, the saved videos are available in the "Downloaded" section ( youtube.com/feed/downloads ). The user can choose in what quality to download the video, with a maximum resolution of 1080p.

Of course, this is still an intermediate solution - the videos can later be viewed only through a browser, although an Internet connection is not required in this case. One can only hope that in the future, Google will implement the ability to play videos in third-party media players.