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YouTube Video Downloader

What is YouTube Video Downloader?

YouTube Video Downloader is a powerful, reliable, and easy-to-use tool designed to automate downloading YouTube videos and audio. It can convert content to various formats (MP4, MP3, WEBM, AVI, MKV, FLAC, and more) and quality tiers ranging from 144p to 4K (2160p).

Say goodbye to manual downloads! With this Actor, you simply plug in one or more YouTube URLs, configure your preferred video quality and format, and the videos will be automatically downloaded and uploaded directly to your chosen cloud storage: AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, or Google Drive.

Built with advanced bot-bypass mechanisms, it fully supports Apify Residential Proxies and custom YouTube Cookies to seamlessly download age-restricted or private videos without triggering the "Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" errors.

How to download a YouTube video automatically?

YouTube Video Downloader is designed to be developer-friendly yet simple enough for beginners. Here’s how you can use YouTube Video Downloader online:

1. Create a free Apify account.
2. Open the YouTube Video Downloader Actor.
3. Add the YouTube video URL(s) you want to download.
4. Select your preferred video quality (e.g., 1080p, audio-only) and format (e.g., MP4, MP3).
5. Fill in the access keys for your cloud storage (AWS, GCS, Azure, or Google Drive).
6. Click the Start button and wait for your videos to be saved directly to your cloud.

🔼 Input options

The input JSON for the YouTube Video Downloader supports multiple YouTube video URLs and detailed configuration for quality, formats, and bot protections.

• URLs: Add as many links as you want.
• Video Quality: Choose from best, 2160p (4K), 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, 240p, 144p, or audio-only.
• Format: Dozens of formats supported including mp4, webm, mp3, wav, and more.
• Smart Audio/Video Splitting: Download video-only, audio-only, or both side-by-side.
• Bot Bypass: Fully supports Apify Residential Proxy integration and Netscape-formatted YouTube cookies for age-restricted content.

Go to the Input tab for a full explanation of the JSON input schema.

🔽 Output and Auto-Upload

Unlike simple downloaders, this Actor doesn't just store files temporarily. It acts as a data pipeline, uploading your high-quality downloaded media directly into your preferred cloud storage ecosystem. You can choose from:

• AWS S3
• Google Cloud Storage (GCS)
• Azure Blob Storage
• Google Drive

Integrate YouTube Video Downloader and automate your workflow

Thanks to the Apify platform, you can connect this YouTube Video Downloader with almost any cloud service or web app to build seamless media pipelines.

Integrate natively with:

• Make
• Zapier
• Slack
• Airbyte
• GitHub
• Google Drive
• ...and much more.

Alternatively, you can use webhooks to trigger actions whenever an event occurs. For example, your app can get an instant HTTP notification whenever a video successfully finishes uploading to your AWS S3 bucket.

Bypass YouTube Bot Detection

YouTube aggressively blocks datacenter IPs. This Actor provides robust solutions to keep your pipeline running:

1. Apify Residential Proxies: Automatically route requests through residential IPs to appear as a regular user.
2. YouTube Cookies: Paste your cookies.txt (Netscape format) to authenticate your session, avoiding bot captchas and unlocking age-restricted or members-only videos.

❓ FAQ

How much does it cost to use YouTube Video Downloader? YouTube Video Downloader uses our pay-per-event (PPE) model, meaning you pay for specific actions of the Actor. If you’re on the free plan, you pay $0.006 every time you start the actor, and another $0.06 for every 10MB of video you’ve downloaded.

If you subscribe to our paid plans, these numbers will fall thanks to discounts; read all the details in the Actor’s pricing tab.

Can I download age-restricted or private videos? Yes! By providing your YouTube cookies in the Proxy & Cookies Configuration section, the Actor can authenticate as your YouTube account and download anything you have access to.

How can I use YouTube Video Downloader with the Apify API? The Apify API gives you programmatic access to the Apify platform. The API is organized around RESTful HTTP endpoints that enable you to manage, schedule, and run Apify actors remotely. To access the API using Node.js, use the apify-client NPM package. To access it using Python, use the apify-client PyPI package. Check out the Apify API reference docs for full details or click on the API tab for code examples.

Your Feedback

We’re always working on improving the performance and reliability of our Actors. If you’ve got any technical feedback for YouTube Video Downloader, feature requests, or simply found a bug, please create an issue on the Actor’s Issues tab in Apify Console.