Has this ever happened—you go to watch a video from a creator, only to find it’s no longer available? Or maybe you came across an old channel that’s been deleted. Perhaps you’re a creator and noticed some of your own videos are missing. Whatever the situation, let’s avoid this from happening again.
Today, let’s learn how to download and keep your favorite channel’s media for good.
Can You Download an Entire Channel With YouTube Premium?
No, YouTube Premium doesn’t allow you to download an entire channel. With YouTube Premium, you can download individual videos for offline viewing on your mobile device, but it doesn’t offer an option to download an entire channel or playlist at once.
If you want to download multiple videos from a channel, you’ll have to do it one by one.
Is It Legal to Download Entire YouTube Channels?
The legality of downloading YouTube channels depends on how you do it and the specific content you’re downloading. Some key points to consider:
- YouTube’s Terms of Service — YouTube’s Terms of Service say that downloading content without the creator’s permission or using YouTube’s official options (like YouTube Premium) is usually not allowed.
- Content ownership — If the content is copyrighted, downloading it without the creator’s permission could break copyright laws.
- Fair use — In some cases, downloading content for personal use might be seen as fair use, but it depends on the situation and local laws.
If you want to download a YouTube channel for personal use, YouTube Premium lets you download individual videos for offline viewing within the app. However, it doesn't allow you to download entire channels.
How to Download All YouTube Videos From a Channel on Desktop
So, you want to save your favorite YouTube channel in high quality for offline use, right? 4K Video Downloader Plus is just what you need. Here’s how to get started:
- Open 4K Video Downloader Plus (it works on macOS, Windows, Linux, and Android).
- Copy the link to the YouTube channel you want to download.
- Click the Paste Link button in the app.
- Choose Download the Channel from the options.
- Select your preferred format, quality, and output folder.
- Hit Download to start the process!
Alternatively, you can browse YouTube right in the app and download channels instantly without switching to a browser. Here’s what you need to do:
- Launch the 4K Video Downloader Plus app and click the search bar at the bottom of the window.
- Click on the YouTube icon below the search bar or type youtube.com and press Enter to open the site in the app.
- If you’re downloading private content, click the Sign In button and enter your credentials for YouTube or any other site you need to access.
- Browse the YouTube site or use the search bar to find the channel you’d like to download.
- Once you’ve found the channel, click the Download button. Select your preferred format, quality, and resolution, then hit Download again.
The content will start downloading right away.
How Can I Get Permission to Download Content?
You’ll need to contact the creator or copyright holder directly. This might mean sending them a message on social media, via email, or using another method to get in touch. Be clear about why you want to use their content because different creators have different rules or preferences.
How to Download All Videos From a YouTube Channel on Mobile
This is a two-part process. You can’t download an entire channel in bulk on your phone because YouTube Premium lets you download individual videos.
For a workaround, the first step is to download the videos to your computer with VDownloader and then sync them to your phone:
- Head to the homepage and get VDownloader. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll be taken to your VDownloader dashboard.
- You can either paste the channel URL directly into the VDownloader’s URL bar or click on the YouTube icon to search for channels within the app.
- Select the quality and file format you want to download. You can choose to save it as a video or an audio file.
- Hit the ‘Download’ button. If subtitles are available, you can choose to download them as well.
- Before saving, you can change the title or location of the file and save it directly to a cloud storage folder.
- Click Save to start downloading the video. You can track the progress in the Download section of the left-side menu.
Once the videos are downloaded, they will automatically be saved on your chosen Google Drive or Dropbox folder. So you’ll be able to access and sync them across all your devices, including mobile.
Can I Download My Own Videos?
Yes, you can download videos from your own channel without much effort. If you need to keep a copy or want to watch your content offline, there’s a native YouTube for that. This option is only available for your own videos.
How to Download YouTube Videos From My Own Channel
You can download MP4 versions of your uploaded YouTube videos in either 720p or 360p, depending on the video’s resolution.
- Sign in to YouTube Studio.
- Click Content from the left-hand menu.
- Select the video you want to download, click the Menu button, and choose Download.
As you can see, this method doesn’t allow you to download an entire channel, but you can still bulk-download your videos using this approach.
- You won’t be able to download your video if:
- It’s been removed from YouTube.
- It has a copyright or Community Guidelines strike.
- It uses a pre-approved audio track.
- You’ve already downloaded it five times in the past 24 hours. You can only download the same video five times a day. After a day passes, you can download it again.
Now, you can access your entire catalog with Google Takeout:
- Go to Google Takeout and start a new export.
- Select the data you want and choose where you’d like it to go.
- You’ll receive an email with a link to download the files when they’re ready. You’ll have one week to get them.
You can choose to export just once or set up recurring exports every two months for up to a year, and you’ll get a zip file to download.
Famous Cases of Lost YouTube Content
TotalBiscuit (John Bain) - The Cynical Brit
TotalBiscuit, a popular gaming YouTuber and commentator, had his YouTube channel and many of his videos removed in 2015. His content was often critical of the gaming industry, and in this case, his channel was taken down after a series of copyright strikes. The strikes came from game developers who weren’t happy with his critical reviews, which led to many videos being removed. The strikes and content removal were serious enough to affect his ability to run the channel as he once had.
3DPrinted
In 2017, the 3DPrinted YouTube channel, which had accumulated hundreds of videos showcasing 3D printing projects, was wiped out when YouTube mistakenly flagged their content as violating its policies on copyrighted material. Despite the fact that the channel’s videos were mostly original and free of any violations, YouTube’s automated system removed videos and eventually shut down the channel. The creators were unable to recover much of their content, and the entire channel was lost in the process.
In both cases, the content was never seen anywhere online again. That’s just one more reason why you should download channels that you really care about.
How Long Would It Take to Download All of YouTube?
Downloading all of YouTube would be practically impossible due to the sheer scale of the platform. As of recent estimates, YouTube hosts over 800 million videos. If we were to hypothetically attempt to download all of these videos, the size of the data would be in the exabytes (1 exabyte = 1 billion gigabytes).
Here’s a hypothetical assumption: At 1 Gbps (which is a very fast internet connection), you’d download about 125 MB per second. Assuming an average video size of 100 MB (which is conservative, as many videos are much larger, especially in high definition), it would take around 10 seconds per video.
Let’s assume the average video is 100 MB in size. If you attempted to download all 800 million videos, it would take:
- 100 MB per video x 800 million videos = 80,000,000,000 MB (80 exabytes).
At 1 Gbps, it would still take years, probably decades.
So, let’s stick to a few channels, shall we? Besides, you already know how.
