6 Ways to Download Private YouTube Videos in 2024

There are a lot of free online YouTube downloaders that you can use to download public videos, but you cannot use them to download private YouTube videos. In this article, I will show you 6 ways to download YouTube videos that can only be viewed by those who are invited by the uploader without the need to install any software.

As long as you can view the private YouTube video, you can use one of the methods to download it to your PC. Of course, you can also use these methods to download unlisted YouTube videos, which can be viewed and shared by anyone with the video link.

Download Private YouTube Video with Firefox Add-on

The first method would be to use a Firefox Add-on called YouTube Video and Audio Downloader (WebEx). YouTube certainly doesn’t want you to download videos from YouTube, so you probably cannot find a similar Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.

If you prefer using Chrome, there are a few workarounds to install YouTube video Downloader Chrome extensions.

With this Firefox add-on installed, you can easily download any YouTube videos you can view online. You can follow the steps below to see how it works.

Step 1. Open Firefox Web browser, and go to the YouTube video page to watch the video that you want to download.

Step 2. Click on the YouTube Video and Audio Downloader (WebEx) add-on icon.

Step 3. From the dropdown list, you can select the video quality to download the private YouTube video online. Be aware that you should only choose the options with file size, because other options without file size require downloading another program.

As you may know, YouTube saves audio and video separately for high-quality videos (1080P or above), so this Firefox add-on only allows you to download YouTube videos with quality up to 720P. If you want to download 1080P or higher-quality videos, you can check the other options.

Download YouTube Video with ByClick Downloader

If you want to download private YouTube videos with a dedicated tool for better performance, then you need to try this ByClick Downloader(formerly known as YouTube By Click). As its former name suggested, it is mainly for downloading high-quality videos from YouTube.

You can download all videos from a YouTube playlist or channel. What’s more, you can also use it to download private videos from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and many more.

For private YouTube videos, you first need to click Option and under the Accounts tab, you can request to grant access from Chrome if you have logged in on Chrome. You can always revoke access if needed.

After that, you can copy any private YouTube video URL, and the program will detect it automatically, and then you can choose to download video or audio.

Of course, you can also use it to download public YouTube videos in any format. That’s it. this is probably the best YouTube private video downloader for Windows. You can check the next tool if you want to use one for your Mac.

Download Private YouTube Videos on Android

There is also a GUI app based on yt-dlp for Android, Seal. You can get the Seal app from GitHub. To download private videos, you need to go to Settings > Network > Cookies to generate new cookies for YouTube.

After that, you can paste the YouTube URL and start downloading videos. Alternatively, you can choose other YouTube downloader apps for Android to download videos from YouTube.

Private YouTube Video Downloader for Mac and Windows

4K Video Downloader is an ultimate media downloader program for Windows and Mac that allows you to download high quality video and music from YouTube and many other websites. You can also save YouTube private videos in the original video format, MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, WEBM, MKV, etc.

Refer to the steps below to download any private, unlisted, or public YouTube video.

Step 1. Free download 4K Video Downloader ( for Windows or Mac). Install and then launch it.

Step 2. Within 4K Video Downloader, click Preferences. Under the General tab, you will see the YouTube Log In button. Click on it to authenticate the private video using your YouTube credentials.

Step 3. Copy the URL of the private YouTube video that you want to download and paste the selected private YouTube video URL to the 4K Video Downloader.

Step 4. Select the video quality and download location, then click “Download”.

The latest version of 4K Video Downloader has a built-in web browser for downloading videos that require login or password. Besides YouTube videos, you can also use 4K Video Downloader to download videos from Instagram, Facebook, Gaia, etc.

Download Private YouTube Videos with IDM

You probably have heard about Internet Download Manager (IDM). In case you haven’t, IDM is a tool to increase download speeds by up to 5 times. With its integrated web browser add-on, you can download all your favorite videos from YouTube and other websites. If you don’t want to enter your password to third-party software and want to download a high-quality private YouTube video, this is the way.

Step 1. Download the latest version of IDM. Only after you successfully install IDM can you get to the next step.

Step 2. Open your favorite web browser, Chrome, Firefox, or Edge. You will get a prompt to enable the IDM add-on or extension, and be sure to enable it.

If you don’t get the prompt, you may install it manually. Open the folder where you have installed IDM and look for the file named “IDMGCExt.crx” or “IDMGCExt”.

Step 3. Go to YouTube and start playing the private YouTube video that you want to download. You will see a message from YouTube saying “Download this video”, and you just click the button and select the file attributes to download the video.

This will download the video with the same quality that you are watching, so if you want to download 4K YouTube video, be sure to play it in 4K from your web browser.

You can also use this method to download a private Facebook video, which works for the majority of web browsers.

Download Private YouTube Videos on iOS

As you may have heard about youtube-dl, an open-source program for downloading YouTube videos. Of course, you can also use it to download private videos. You can check this post to learn how to use it on Windows. Recently, I discovered how to run it on both Android and iOS.

Updates in 2023: youtube-dl is discontinued. Luckily, yt-dlp is a better replacement for youtube-dl. You can simply replace “youtube-dl” with “yt-dlp” in the following steps to use yt-dlp.

So first, let’s see how to install yt-dlp on iPhone to download private videos. 

Step 1. Download and install a free app called A-Shell from AppStore. 

Step 2. Open A-Shell app and run the following commands one by one:

pip install –upgrade yt-dlp

Step 3. Run the following command to download private YouTube videos be sure to replace the [YouTube URL], [your account], and [password] with your own accordingly.

yt-dlp [YouTube URL] -u [your account] -p [password]

Then you can open the Files app to find the downloaded video. For Android users, you can use the free app Termux to use yt-dlp on Android. However, if you have enabled two-factor authentication, you cannot use this method on mobile to download private videos. In that case, you can choose a private video downloader.

Bonus 1: Browser Developer Tools for Advanced Users

If you don’t want to install anything, not even an addon, you can just use the web browser’s Developer Tools to download private YouTube video on your PC or Mac. It is a little more complicated than the other methods though. video and audio will be downloaded separately. If that’s okay with you, follow the steps below to get started.

Step 1. Open your web browser and get to the private YouTube video-watching page. Edge and Firefox are recommended.

Step 2. Right-click on any blank space and select “Inspect Element” to bring out the Developer Tools window.

Step 3. Click on Network and then select Media under the Network tab. URLs to the audio and video files will be listed here. You may reload and play the video to see these URLs.

If you use Chome, there are probably no results. In that case, click the All tab instead of Media and sort them by size from largest to smallest. Then you will see the URLs to the media files since they are larger in size generally.

Step 4. Click on each link to see the content type under the “Headers” tab. You may see “audio/webm” or “video/mp4”. Just double-click on one of these links to open it in a new tab.

Step 5. In the new tab address bar, delete the range parameter in the query string, which is highlighted in the screenshot above, and press Enter.

Step 6. When the page is reloaded, you will see the video or audio is playable and you can right-click to select “Save As” to download the private YouTube video or audio. 

As mentioned, you have to download the video without sound and audio separately. Then you can use a media editor app to combine them. The downloaded video quality depends on your monitor’s resolution. If you use a 4k display, then you can use this method to download YouTube videos in 4K.

Bonus 2: Download YouTube Video with DumpMedia Video Downloader

DumpMedia Video Downloader is a professional third-party software application that has the ability to download not only video but also audio files from several sites including YouTube, of course, Vimeo, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Dailymotion, and a lot more.

If you want to change the resolutions of the videos or process a bunch of files in one go, you can use DumpMedia Video Downloader.

These are detailed steps as we want to let you immediately use the app after installation.

Step 1. Launch the app and make sure that you have your YouTube video link ready. Once you open the app, you’ll immediately see a bar. Paste the YouTube video’s URL and click the “Analyze” button afterward.

Step 2. Then you can select the output formats available. The video resolutions and sound quality will be displayed on the screen. You can choose any that you prefer.

Additionally, it is suggested to define a storage location wherein the output files will be saved. So, select one as well for easy access. 

Step 3. Once done with these things (setting up), just tick on the “Download” button that you’ll surely immediately see.

Conclusion

These 6 different methods (plus 2 bonus ones) to download private YouTube videos all are tested to work in 2024. If you dislike inputting your YouTube password, choose the Firefox add-on or ByClick Downloader.

Besides these downloader tools, You can also use a multi-source downloader, Allavsoft, to download videos from YouTube. I often use it to download songs from Spotify to MP3.