In early 2021, YouTube rolled out Shorts, a short (up to 60 seconds) and entertaining video format. It is quite like TikTok and Instagram Reels where the videos are attractive and fun to watch. For whatever reason, if you want to download YouTube Shorts, here are 5 working methods.
In most cases, you will be watching YouTube shorts on the YouTube app, so I will focus mainly on downloading shorts from YouTube on Android and iOS devices. Surely, you will also learn how to download them from a Windows PC or Mac.
Download YouTube Shorts Online
Whether you use Android or iPhone. You can use online downloaders to save YouTube Shorts to your Gallery. You can find a few websites to help you through a quick Google search. Here, I will take ShortsNoob as an example to show you how it works.
Step 1. Within YouTube app, tap on the Share icon and choose the Copy link to copy the link to the YouTube Shorts that you want to download.
Step 2. Open your web browser on your phone or PC and navigate to ShortsNoob.com. Paste the copied link in the available box and tap the Search button to continue. If you use iPhone, use Safari or any other browsers that allow you to download files on iPhone.
Step 3. In a few seconds, it will display a few options regarding the video resolution and format. You can tap on the corresponding button to download the YouTube Shorts.
On Android, you can find the video with your File Manager app once downloaded and you can easily move it to your Gallery. Since iOS 13, Safari allows you to download files and you can choose to save the downloaded files to the Files app or iCloud. Either way, you can open the Files app to save the YouTube Shorts to your Camera Roll.
YouTube Shorts Downloader Shortcut for iOS
Have you ever used the Shortcuts app on your iPhone or iPad? It is a stock app for iOS automation. With the Shortcuts app, you can download any videos from YouTube on your iOS device. If you have never used it, I have a post to help you get started with Shortcuts fast.
Since shortcuts are available in the Share Sheet, you can download Shorts videos from YouTube without leaving the YouTube app.
Step 1. Get the YouTube Shorts Downloader shortcut by clicking the button above. You may get more useful shortcuts from our YouTube Shortcuts collection.
Step 2. Open YouTube and scroll to the YouTube Shorts video that you want to download. Tap on the Share button, select More, and select the YouTube Shorts Downloader shortcut.
Step 3. In a few seconds, you can choose to download Video or Audio to download the YouTube Shorts to Photos Gallery on your iPhone or iPad.
This new version supports YouTube live stream videos and imporved download speed.
Once the process is done, you can continue to watch and download more YouTube Shortcuts. Afterward, you can open the Photos app to check all the downloaded videos. In addition, you can also use a multi-source downloader shortcut to download YouTube shorts on iPhone.
Download YouTube Shortcuts on Android
For Android users, you can also use an open-source app, New Pipe, to download videos from YouTube Shorts. In addition to the download feature, New Pipe allows you to watch YouTube videos without ads.
Since it is not available in Google Play Store, you can install the New Pipe APK from GitHub or the official website. During the process, you have to grant permission to install apps from unknown sources. If you don’t like to install apps outside of Google Play Store, you can check other YouTube Downloaders for Android.
At the moment, New Pipe does not have a section for YouTube Shorts, so you need to paste the link to the Shorts video and tap on the search icon. Once the Shorts video is loaded, you can tap the Download button under the video to download it.
New Pipe will continue adding support for more services. Right now, it supports YouTube, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, PeerTube, etc. That is to say, you can also use NewPipe to download music from Soundcloud.
By Click Downloader
You can also watch YouTube Shorts on PC or Mac. You just go to the YouTube website and search for “shorts#”. Then you click on the first result to view all shorts. On Windows PC, you can use a dedicated program By Click Downloader to download any videos from YouTube.
When you copy the YouTube Shorts video link, the program will automatically detect the link you copied and offer you an option to download it immediately. Within the main interface, you can change the preferred video quality and format.
There are many YouTube Downloader programs. I choose By Click Downloader mainly because of the smooth download experience, especially for downloading private YouTube videos. Once you allow access to your Google Chrome credentials, you can easily download YouTube age-restricted video and private videos effortlessly.
However, ByClick Downloader is only available for Windows. If you use a Mac, I recommend 4K Video Downloader.
Local YouTube Download Script
Google has removed all Chrome extensions to download YouTube videos. It will be quite convenient to download shorts videos or long videos from YouTube right on your web browser. If that is also what you want, you can install the Tampermonkey extension, which is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
Once you have Tampermonkey installed, then you get this YouTube Direct Downloader script. That’s it. When you watch any video on YouTube, there will be a Download button under the video.
You can click the Download button to quickly download it or click Show Links to display all download options regarding video resolution and format. If you like how it works, you can get more Tampermonkey scripts.
Since the Local YouTube Download script is discontinued, this one is a great replacement. However, it does not allow you to downlaod private YouTube videos. If you prefer to use mobile devices, you can also run Tampermonkey scripts on Android or iOS.
Conclusion
Those five ways to download YouTube Shorts are tested working in 2024. There is a possibility that some of these methods may be discontinued or fail to work due to DMCA or anything. If any of the methods fail to work, be sure to leave a comment to let me know. I can fix the shortcut or offer a few more alternative methods.