YouTube Download Bookmarklet, Autoselect

Update

Out with the old, in with the new. It has been quite a while since this article was written, and it was seriously out of date. I have updated the bookmarklets, included here for convenience. Be sure to use these links here at the top, and click and drag them to your bookmarks bar.

YouTube MP4 DL

YouTube FLV DL

More information about this newest version can be found in my post detailing them.

I’ve spent a couple hours looking at YouTube code and videos and have updated my bookmarklets accordingly. Instead of only offering HD and SD download of MP4s this defaults to download the highest available quality of the specified type: FLV or MP4.

They’ve been tested only on Firefox 3.0.4 on Mac OS X 10.5.5, but I’ve no reason to believe that they won’t work in any browser on any OS.

Enjoy!

YouTube MP4 DL

YouTube FLV DL

5 thoughts on “YouTube Download Bookmarklet, Autoselect”

  1. Hey. Thanks a ton, i’ve been looking for something to preform this function. it preforms perfectly every time. and i’m even using it in safari.

  2. Thanks for your good work. however, it seem doesn’t work no more due to (i guess) youtube moved caching servers.

    So i’ll cheer you for keep do what you doing…

    Robert
    Thailand

  3. Hi,
    Great for posting these, thanks.

    I can’t get the autoselector to work sadly.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBG4vG1JX3c is a BBC vid w/ HD available (147mb) and SD (45mb) but each time it only sends the SD version of the mp4; I can’t get the flv version to work at all.

    Using firefox for this- other HD dl bookmarklets work but I’d love one like this which auto selects the highest quality file available.

    Has YT changed it’s coding or am I the only one not getting this autoselector to work?

    Thanks
    David

  4. I’ve tried "YouTube MP4 DL" in Firefox 3.0.11 for a couple of videos which have high definition versions. The download works OK but when I play the saved .mp4 files they are LOW definition – for example examining the properties in Media Player Classic it says:

    Audio: AAC 44100Hz stereo 176Kbps [Audio Output 0]
    Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 480×360 24.96fps 502Kbps [Video Output 0]

  5. Hey Everybody,
    YouTube is continuing to update their formats, I’ll review their formats again soon and update to map this back to the best available formats.

    Best,
    Nathan

Comments are closed.