Overview

The YouTube Video Downloader Actor allows you to download YouTube videos directly from provided URLs. It is designed for developers and businesses who need a dependable solution for downloading videos as part of larger workflows such as content archiving, research, automation, or backend processing.

The Actor runs fully self-contained on the Apify platform and does not rely on external third-party APIs.

Features

• Download videos directly from YouTube URLs
• Support for multiple video qualities
• Works with logged-in sessions (age-restricted, private, or region-limited videos when access is available)
• Output files stored in Apify Key-Value Store for easy access

Input Parameters

The Actor expects a JSON input with the following fields:

url (Required)
Type: String

Description: The YouTube video URL to download.

quality (Optional)
Type: String

Default: "best"

Description: Desired video quality. If the exact quality is not available, the closest available option is used.

Input Example
{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELS4S74XWJo",
  "quality": "best"
}

After a successful run:

The downloaded video file is stored in the Apify Key-Value Store

Compute unit usage depends on:

Video length Selected quality

Bugs, Fixes, and Updates

This Actor is under active development. If you encounter issues or have feature requests, please report them through the Apify platform.