How to download videos you uploaded to YouTube
YouTube Studio gives you a quick copy, Google Takeout gives you your original files. Here's which to use, and when a downloader is quicker.
2 min read · Updated
Lost the original file of a video you published? YouTube offers two official ways to get your own uploads back, and they give very different results. Which you should use depends on whether you need a quick copy or the original.
Option 1: YouTube Studio — quick, but not full quality
YouTube Studio can download any video on your channel:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio and choose Content.
- Find the video, open its Options menu (⋮).
- Choose Download.
According to YouTube's help centre, these downloads are MP4 files at 720p or 360p, depending on the video's size. That's fine for a quick share or a reference copy, but not for re-editing or archiving a 1080p or 4K video.
Option 2: Google Takeout — your original files
Google Takeout exports your YouTube data, including the video files exactly as you uploaded them — without the re-encoding YouTube applies before publishing.
- Go to takeout.google.com and sign in with the account that owns the channel.
- Choose Deselect all, then tick YouTube and YouTube Music.
- Open the options for that item and make sure videos are included.
- Create the export and wait for the email with download links.
For a large channel this can take hours or longer, and the export arrives split into several archives. It's the right choice for a full backup.
Option 3: a downloader, for one video at full streaming quality
When you need a single video at 1080p or 4K right now, pasting its link into the YouTube downloader gets the best version YouTube serves, with the sound merged in, in seconds. It's YouTube's published version — already re-encoded — rather than your original file, which only Takeout returns.
For a series of your videos, put them in a playlist and use the playlist downloader to take them as one zip.
Which should you use?
Match the method to the job:
- Archiving your channel, or recovering originals for re-editing — Google Takeout.
- A small copy to share or reference — YouTube Studio.
- One video at 1080p or 4K, quickly — a downloader.
- A batch of published videos at streaming quality — a playlist download.
Keep an archive going forward
The simplest protection is never relying on YouTube as your only copy. Keep the exported master of every video in two places — an external drive and a cloud folder, say — named with the publish date and title so you can match them to your channel later.