As you probably know, YouTube saves audio and video separately for high-quality videos like 1080P, 2K, 4K, and 8k. previously, I need to download the audio and video and then combine them manually. Finally, I have found a few ways to do that automatically and I will share them with you. No matter what operating system you use, you can use one of the 5 methods to download videos from YouTube in 1080p, 4K, or 8K, if available.
Free Download High-Quality YouTube Video Online
The easiest way to download high-quality YouTube videos with sound would be using a free online YouTube Downloader tool. Since it is a web service, all your devices have a web browser that can use this method.
The process is simple, you just paste the URL of the YouTube video that you want to download and then select your desired video quality. The tool will take some time to combine the video and audio. When finished, you can click the Download button to download the video to your device.
2K or below videos will be downloaded as MP4 while 4K and 8k videos will be downloaded as Webm. If you want to download YouTube video online from iOS device, you need iOS 13 or 14 to download videos from Safari. You need a little track to download files on iPhone from Safari on iOS 12 or previous versions.
Download YouTube Video with Siri Shortcuts
If you are using iPhone or iPad, you certainly have heard of Siri Shortcuts, the automation tool for iOS. Someone has made a shortcut to help you download 4K videos from YouTube on iPhone easily. Well, if you have downloaded the Shortcuts app, I suggest you do it now because Shortcuts is so powerful. It can do many more than just downloading videos. You can check my YouTube channel to see some amazing shortcuts.
Once you get the Shortcuts app installed. Open this link in Safari to download the Ture YouTube HD Downloader shortcut. Then you can run this shortcut from Share Sheet to download any videos with sound.
You will be asked to select the video quality and then just let it run in the front. If you select 1080P or below, the video will be saved to Camera Roll automatically when the download is finished. If you choose 4k or 8K, you will be asked to pick a Files app location to save the video.
As mentioned, 4k or 8k videos downloaded from YouTube are formatted as Webm. Your iOS device cannot play this kind of video. You can download apps like VLC to play WebM videos.
However, this Loader shortcut relies on a third-party server. In case the server is down, you can also check our YouTube Downloader Shortcuts.
4K Video Downloader for Mac or Windows
4K Video Downloader can download videos from YouTube with audio and many other websites. More importantly, the speed is better, and pause or resume your downloading tasks whenever you want.
You just need to paste the URL and click to download. By default, it will get the best quality available (supports 8K). It offers a built-in browser, so you can log in to YouTube to download private YouTube videos.
With one click, you can also download all videos from a YouTube playlist or channel. What’s more, it allows you to download videos from Instagram, Facebook, Dailymotion, etc.
Download YouTube Video from Command Line
You may have heard of the yt-dlp as the replacement for YouTube-DL for downloading videos and many other websites. By default, yt-dlp will download the highest video with sound, which in many cases is 720P. If you also install FFmpeg, it will download the video with the highest quality and merge the sound with it automatically.
If this sounds good to you, you can refer to the steps below to set it up. Yt-dlp is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. I will just take Windows as an example.
Step 1. Download yt-dlp.exe and move it to your user folder (C:/User/YourName).
Step 2. Download FFmpeg and extract the file.
Step 3. Open the FFmpeg folder and copy everything from the Bin subfolder to your user folder where the yt-dlp.exe is placed.
Step 4. Press Windows + R. Type “CMD” (without quotes) and press Enter.
Step 5. In the Command Prompt window, type “yt-dlp.exe [youtube video url]” and press Enter.
Then you can see the videos are in downloading progress. When it is done, you can check the user folder to watch the downloaded YouTube video. As mentioned, this tool can also be used to download video or audio from many other websites. You can use it to download private Facebook videos in HD.
There is also a configuration file. You can modify that file to change some default options. If you have a Mac, you can also use yt-dlp on Mac.
Download 4K YouTube Videos on Android
Seal is a free Android app that lets you instantly download videos from popular social media networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and others.
Seal allows you to store videos for offline viewing that you could previously only watch online through the app. It saves them locally on your device’s storage.
Seal’s main feature are as follows:
- The built-in browser allows you to log into social media sites and download private videos.
- Simply click the download icon to download videos.
- Downloads from Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms are supported.
- Maintains original video quality up to 4K resolution
- There are no advertisements or distractions in this app.
- Seal works by automatically retrieving session cookies, allowing you to stay signed in to websites and download content seamlessly. It is not necessary to re-enter credentials each time.
Seal is a must-have Android app if you frequently find great videos on social media that you want to keep. Get it on GitHub now and begin creating your offline video collection.
Bonus: Download YouTube Videos with ByClick Downloader
Allavsoft may seem a little bit expensive if you only want to download videos from YouTube. In that case, you can check a dedicated YouTube downloader, ByClick Downloader. It allows you to download YouTube videos in the highest quality available, up to 8K.
You can also use it to download all videos from a playlist or channel in one go. If you want to download private YouTube videos, it can get YouTube Authentication through Google Chrome, so you don’t need to input your YouTube login credentials to the app.
Conclusion
That’s all the three ways to download 1080P/4K YouTube videos with audio. Personally, I prefer the yt-dlp method. I also installed yt-dlp on my iPhone and Android phone. If you prefer a GUI tool for downloading 4K YouTube videos, then I recommend 4K Video Downloader. Now, it’s your turn. Which one do you prefer? Let me know in the comments.