How to Download YouTube Videos

By marielise, builder, tinkerer, systems thinker. Ships SaaS products and publishes Apify actors. Published May 2026.

In This Guide

What You Need to Get Started

You need an Apify account (free tier works for small runs) and the URL of the YouTube video you want to download. No software installation. No browser extension. No local dependencies.

The YouTube Video Downloader actor runs on Apify's cloud infrastructure. It uses yt-dlp and ffmpeg internally, which means you get the same extraction power as running yt-dlp locally, without managing any local environment or keeping software updated.

Step-by-Step: Downloading a Video

The actor has three core input fields. Everything else is optional.

1. 1

   Open the actor on Apify

   Go to the YouTube Video Downloader actor page and click "Try for free" or "Run" to open the input form.

2. 2

   Add your YouTube URL

   In the urls field, add the video URL. Supported formats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID, https://youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID, https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID. Add multiple URLs for batch downloads.

3. 3

   Set quality and format

   Choose quality: 360, 480, 720 (recommended default), or 1080. Choose format: default for MP4 video, mp3 for audio only. See the quality and format sections below for detailed guidance.

4. 4

   Run and retrieve your files

   Click Run. When the run completes, open the dataset. Each successful item contains a downloadUrl link. Click any link to save the file to your device.

Choosing the Right Quality

Quality selection affects both file size and cost. The quality setting is a maximum, not a guarantee. If a video is only available at 720p, selecting 1080p returns 720p.

Rule of thumb: a 4-minute music video at 1080p is roughly 45 MB. The same video at 720p is roughly 25 MB. At 480p, roughly 15 MB. At 360p, roughly 8 MB.

MP4 vs MP3: When to Use Each

MP3 costs $0.010/min. 360p costs $0.020/min. The difference is output.

Choose MP4 when: you need the video track, you are archiving visual content, the video has on-screen text or visuals that matter, or you are distributing the content to others who need both audio and video.

Choose MP3 when: you only need the audio, you are producing a podcast or transcript, the video is a recording of a talk or interview, or you want to keep file sizes small for very long content. A 60-minute lecture as MP3 is typically under 100 MB. The same lecture at 480p video might exceed the 230 MB limit.

Downloading YouTube Shorts

Shorts use vertical aspect ratios and are typically under 3 minutes. The actor handles them identically to regular videos. Paste the Shorts URL directly: https://youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID.

One important caveat: 1080p Shorts fail on the standard proxy path more often than regular 1080p videos. YouTube's bot detection is more aggressive on Shorts at the highest quality tier. If you need 1080p Shorts reliably, enable the residential proxy fallback (residentialProxyMode: "fallback"). Note that this adds a $0.05/MB surcharge when triggered. For most use cases, 720p Shorts on the standard path work without issue.

Batch Downloads

Add multiple URLs to the urls array in a single run. The actor processes each URL sequentially to avoid YouTube rate limits. This means run time scales linearly: five 4-minute videos at 720p will take roughly 5x the time of a single video, plus startup overhead.

For large batches, set a "Max total charge (USD)" cap on the Apify run dialog. This hard-caps the total charge for the run. The actor stops after hitting the cap, so you will not overspend on unexpectedly large files or an unexpectedly long video list.

File Size Limits and Long Videos

The Apify key-value store has a 256 MB per-record limit. The actor uses a 230 MB limit to include a safety margin. For videos under 20 minutes at any quality, you are unlikely to hit this limit. For longer videos:

• 20 to 40 minutes: use 720p or lower
• 40 to 60 minutes: use 480p or lower
• Over 60 minutes: use 360p, or extract audio with MP3 format

If you configure Cloudflare R2 storage (custom storage option), you bypass this limit entirely. Files are stored in R2 and the download URL in the dataset still points directly to the file. This is relevant for power users running large archives.

API Integration

The actor is callable programmatically from any language. The Apify client libraries (Node.js and Python) handle auth, run management, and dataset retrieval. Here is the Node.js pattern:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('marielisedev/youtube-video-downloader').call({
    urls: [
        { url: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ' }
    ],
    quality: '720',
    format: 'default'
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

for (const item of items) {
    if (item.status === 'success') {
        console.log(item.title, item.downloadUrl, item.fileSize);
    }
}

The full product page includes Python and cURL examples. See the YouTube Video Downloader tool page for complete API documentation.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

FAQ