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Download YouTube Shorts

Save vertical Shorts as MP4 at the resolution YouTube stored, with the audio attached.

Shorts look like TikToks and behave like YouTube videos, which is the source of most confusion around saving them. The link shape is different, the encoding is different, and the file sizes are dramatically smaller than people expect.

On a phone the only fiddly part is where the file ends up afterwards. Our guide to saving YouTube Shorts to your gallery on Android covers that step, including what to do when the video does not show up in Google Photos.

Paste a /shorts/ link exactly as you copied it. There is no need to rewrite it into the older watch?v= form, though that works too since both point at the same video.

How to download YouTube Shorts

  1. 1

    Copy the Short link

    Tap Share on the right side of the player, then Copy link. You get an address containing /shorts/ followed by the video ID. On desktop the address bar works equally well.

  2. 2

    Paste it above

    Both youtube.com/shorts/ and youtu.be short links resolve correctly. Timestamps and playlist parameters are ignored.

  3. 3

    Choose a quality

    Take the highest option that includes audio. Shorts are small enough that the top quality is rarely a storage problem, usually just a few megabytes.

Why Shorts files are so much smaller

A 30 second Short is often under 5 MB, while 30 seconds of a regular 1080p YouTube video can be 15 MB or more. Same platform, same stated resolution, three times the difference.

The reason is bitrate. Shorts are encoded for phone playback on mobile data, in a feed where the next video must start instantly. YouTube allocates them a much smaller data budget than a regular upload, which is invisible on a phone screen and quite visible on a monitor.

Resolution and aspect ratio

Most Shorts are 1080x1920 vertical. Some are 720x1280 when the creator uploaded from an older device or over a weak connection. A few are landscape videos that YouTube has cropped into the Shorts feed, and those download in their original shape rather than the cropped one you saw.

That last case surprises people. The crop is applied by the player, not stored in the file. If you save a Short that was really a landscape clip, you get the landscape original, which is arguably better source material anyway.

The audio question

Shorts using the platform's own audio library carry that track in the file, and that audio is licensed for playback on YouTube rather than for redistribution. Re-uploading a saved Short to Instagram or TikTok with the original sound intact is the fastest route to an automated copyright claim.

Shorts made with original audio have no such problem. If you are planning to reuse a clip, checking which kind you have takes a moment and saves an argument later.

Shorts versus the main downloader

This page and our main YouTube downloader run the same extraction, so either works. The difference is context: Shorts have their own limits, their own encoding, and their own link format, and lumping them in with two hour documentaries produces advice that fits neither.

If you are saving a long form video rather than a Short, the main YouTube page covers separate audio streams, 4K file sizes and the codec choices that matter at those resolutions.

Want just the audio?

Plenty of Shorts are saved for the sound rather than the picture: a voiceover, a pronunciation, a hook you are trying to identify. Keeping 20 MB of vertical video for half a megabyte of audio is wasteful, so try our YouTube Shorts to MP3 converter instead. Same link, same paste, audio track on its own.

The walkthrough of converting a Short to MP3 goes through the three methods that work, what bitrate to expect from the source, and the fixes for a download that comes back silent.

Everything above also applies to the rest of YouTube video downloads, and our piece on Shorts and watermarks goes further on the parts people get stuck on.

YouTube Shorts Downloader questions

Usually 1080x1920 vertical, sometimes 720x1280 for older uploads. Shorts are encoded at a lower bitrate than regular videos of the same resolution, so the file is smaller and fine detail is softer, which is a deliberate platform choice for mobile playback.

No. Paste it exactly as copied. Both link formats point at the same video and both resolve here. Rewriting URLs by hand is a habit left over from older tools that could not follow the newer format.

Because the upload was landscape and YouTube cropped it into the Shorts feed at playback time. The crop is not stored in the file. You are getting the original framing, which is usually more useful if you plan to edit the clip yourself.

Yes. Use Safari, paste the link, and the MP4 saves into Files, from where you can move it to Photos. No app install is needed, which matters because the App Store does not allow dedicated video downloader apps.

Yes. Our YouTube Shorts to MP3 page does exactly that, offering the audio as MP3 at 128, 192 or 320 kbps, or as the original untouched stream. Bear in mind that library audio is licensed for YouTube playback, so extracting it does not give you the right to publish it elsewhere.

Age restricted content, members only uploads, private videos and region blocks all fail because they need an authenticated session we deliberately do not have. Check the link in a logged out browser to see what a stranger actually gets.

Shorts themselves are capped at 3 minutes by YouTube. Anything longer is a regular video and downloads through the main YouTube page, where resolution and file size decisions matter far more than they do here.

No. The view was counted when you watched it in the app. Downloading later neither adds nor removes views. It does mean any rewatching happens off platform, which is worth remembering if you like the creator and want their numbers to reflect it.

Related guides

Longer write-ups on the questions people run into most here.

How to Download YouTube Shorts Without a WatermarkYouTube does not stamp its own logo on Shorts. If your downloaded Short has a watermark, it came from somewhere else, and knowing where t...How to Convert YouTube Shorts to MP3Shorts are full of audio worth keeping and YouTube gives you no way to save it. Three methods that work, what quality to expect from each...

More YouTube tools

All YouTube downloadsYouTube Shorts to MP3

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The same job on the other platforms, each with its own quirks.

Instagram Reels DownloaderThe vertical short-form format specifically, saved at the resolution Instagram stored, audio included.TikTok No Watermark DownloaderStraight answers about the watermark, and every rendition TikTok serves for a post. No crops, no blur patches.Facebook Reels DownloaderMeta's short vertical format on Facebook, saved at the resolution the upload carried.