Is it legal to download YouTube videos?

No question about downloading gets asked more often, or answered worse. Most download sites wave it away with a paragraph of reassurance; plenty of warnings overstate the opposite. The truthful answer has two halves, and they’re governed by two different rulebooks.

Two different rulebooks

“Is it legal?” bundles together two separate questions. The first is whether downloading breaks YouTube’s Terms of Service — a contract between you and the platform. The second is whether it breaks copyright law — rules set by your government. You can violate one without the other, and the consequences differ completely.

What YouTube’s terms say

YouTube’s terms are blunt: you may not download content unless YouTube itself shows you a download button, or you have prior written permission from YouTube or the rights holder. Using a third-party downloader for anything else is a breach of that contract.

But a contract breach is not a crime. The realistic ceiling is account-level: YouTube could, in principle, terminate an account over it. In practice, its enforcement has focused on services that download at scale rather than individual viewers — which is a description of where the attention goes, not the same thing as permission.

What copyright law says

Copyright is the separate, heavier rulebook. Making a copy of a protected work without authorization can infringe copyright regardless of any platform’s terms — a video belongs to its creator from the moment it’s made, and downloading creates a copy. Whether a given personal download actually infringes depends heavily on where you live, and this is where the picture gets genuinely murky.

Personal use, region by region

• United States.There is no general private-copying exception. Fair use exists, but it’s a four-factor, case-by-case defence — not a blanket rule that personal copies are fine. No court has squarely ruled on personal-use YouTube downloading.
• European Union.Many member states have private-copy exceptions, typically funded by levies on storage media. But the EU’s top court has held those exceptions don’t cover copies made from unlawful sources, which keeps the question circular.
• United Kingdom. A personal-copying exception was introduced in 2014 — and quashed by the High Court in 2015 after rights holders challenged it. Private copying has sat in a grey zone there ever since.
• Elsewhere. Canada, Australia, and others each have narrow, format-specific exceptions written for earlier technologies. Almost nowhere has law drafted with streaming platforms in mind.

The pattern is consistent: legislation runs a decade behind the technology, personal-use cases almost never reach a courtroom, and none of that ambiguity adds up to a permission slip.

Downloads that are clearly in bounds

• Your own uploads. You hold the copyright; keeping a local copy of your own work is your right.
• Creative Commons videos. The license explicitly allows copying — honor its terms, such as attribution, and check which CC variant applies.
• Explicit permission. A creator who says “yes, save it” has authorized the copy.
• Public domain material. Government archives, expired copyrights, and works dedicated to the public domain carry no restriction.

The route YouTube sells

YouTube Premium includes offline downloads inside the official apps. It is the fully sanctioned option, with real limits worth knowing: files are DRM-locked to the app, can’t be moved into an editor or onto another device, and lapse if you don’t reconnect roughly every 30 days. For pure offline viewing it’s the simplest legal answer. The gap it leaves — an actual file you own, of your own work — is the legitimate use downloaders exist for.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Copyright law varies by country and changes over time — if a real decision hangs on the answer, ask a lawyer licensed where you live.

Where NoTube stands is simple: the tool is built for saving your own uploads, licensed and Creative Commons material, and content you have permission to keep — the uses our terms of servicedescribe. If you’re a rights holder with a concern, our DMCA policy explains exactly how to reach us.