YouTube is adding a new experimental feature for desktop users: the ability to record videos offline and watch them later. The experimental functionality, identified for the first time by Android Police, would be available to YouTube Premium users in India and France.
However, the new feature isn’t here to stay just yet, and YouTube’s Experimental Features page tells us that it’s only available until October 19. The feature is also “only available on computers with the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, or Opera browsers.” “
This would work by adding a “Download” button below a video, similar to the implementation on smartphone apps. Clicking on it should allow you to save the video offline and later you can watch the saved videos from youtube.com/feed/downloads. Similar to how it works on phones, recorded files will only be accessible on YouTube and not through third party file managers or media players.
It’s also worth noting that the feature will allow users to select a default download quality, but this will be maximum at 1080p. This means that even higher resolution videos like a 4K clip will only be recorded at maximum 1080p.
One of the important features of the YouTube mobile app for some time, but the website was lacking, was the ability to download videos for later viewing when users are not connected to the web.
Without native functionality to emulate this on the web like YouTube’s smartphone apps, users would often resort to third-party sites that would turn YouTube URLs into downloadable videos in multiple file formats.
However, the security of these third-party tools and websites could never be guaranteed, let alone the cumbersome process. That is changing with the new feature now available natively for some YouTube users.