Download a YouTube playlist only the videos you want

Playlist link or video link?

When you click a video inside a playlist, YouTube's address holds both the video and the playlist (watch?v=…&list=…). Pasting that downloads just the one video — usually what people want when they copy it.

To download the playlist, use its own page: youtube.com/playlist?list=…. On a computer, click the playlist's title to open that page; in the app, open the playlist and tap Share. A link that carries only list= is treated as the playlist.

Choosing which videos to download

Every video that can actually be downloaded is listed in playlist order, numbered the way YouTube numbers it, with its length. Everything starts ticked; untick what you don't need.

Some videos never make the list: private videos, members-only episodes, deleted uploads and premieres that haven't aired. They're left out up front, so one unavailable video can't fail the whole download — and that's why the count can be lower than the one YouTube shows.

One quality for the whole playlist

A playlist gets one quality setting rather than a separate list per video. Treat it as a ceiling: each video arrives at the closest quality it actually has. A 720p upload in a playlist set to 1080p arrives as 720p, because nothing is upscaled.

Audio only works for playlists too, which suits lecture series, podcasts and music you have the right to keep.

Why the size is an estimate

A playlist listing tells us each video's length but not its file size, and asking every video separately would make listing slow. So the total is estimated by spreading the chosen quality's size across the videos by duration — a long episode counts for more than a short trailer. It's a good guide to whether a playlist will fit on your phone, not an exact figure.

What you receive

One zip file named after the playlist, with the videos numbered in playlist order so they sort correctly in any folder.

On a computer, double-click the zip to open it. On iPhone, tap the zip in the Files app and it expands into a folder beside it. On Android, open it from your Files app and choose Extract. Where downloads go on your phone covers finding it first.

Limits worth knowing

A few things work differently from single videos:

• Very large playlists are refused before any downloading starts — download the videos you need in smaller groups.
• Playlists can't be trimmed. To keep part of one video, open it on its own and use part of a video.
• The finished zip is deleted from storage about an hour after it's ready, and never kept more than four hours.

For one video at a time, the YouTube video downloader lists every quality with its exact size.