- 100% free
- No sign-up
- Full 1080×1920
- No watermarks
The format
A Short is just a vertical video
There’s no secret Shorts file format. YouTube stores a Short like every other video — an MP4 stream framed at 9:16 instead of 16:9. A YouTube shorts video download is nothing exotic, then: an ordinary MP4 that plays anywhere.
NoTube takes the best vertical stream YouTube holds, usually a full 1080×1920, audio in sync. It’s the actual file rather than a screen recording, so the edges aren’t cropped and no second encode softens the detail. Horizontal video? That’s our YouTube to MP4 converter. Only after the audio? Run the same link through the YouTube to MP3 converter.
- Full 1080×1920 vertical resolution
- Original audio track, in sync
- Standard MP4 — plays on anything made this century
What you get
- Resolution
- 1080 × 1920
- Container
- MP4
- Audio
- Original track, in sync
- Processing
- None — original stream
- Watermark
- None
9:16 vertical — the ceiling YouTube applies to Shorts
Standard file — plays on anything made this century
Taken from the source stream, not re-recorded
No re-encode, no cropped edges, no quality loss
YouTube burns no logo into Shorts, and we add nothing
- Not a screen recording — the actual file
- Drops into TikTok, Reels and Snapchat as-is
- Works in the browser on phone or desktop
Older or low-bitrate Shorts may top out at 720 × 1280. NoTube always offers the highest resolution the uploader actually provided.
Spec sheet
Shorts vs regular videos
Same platform, same codecs, different frame. Here’s what changes when a video is a Short.
Shorts
- Aspect ratio
- 9:16
- Portrait — fills a phone screen edge to edge
- Maximum length
- 3 minutes
- Raised from 60 seconds in October 2024
- Top resolution
- 1080×1920
- Full HD vertical — where almost every Short tops out
Regular videos
- Aspect ratio
- 16:9
- Widescreen, the living-room default
- Maximum length
- 12 hours
- The cap for verified accounts — effectively no limit
- Top resolution
- 1920×1080
- Full HD, whenever the uploader provides it
One practical note: never upscale. A Short at its native 1080×1920 beats one stretched to fake a bigger number. For horizontal video, the YouTube downloader handles those — up to real 1080p Full HD.
Where the file goes
How to download YouTube Shorts in gallery
The most common complaint about any yt shorts downloader isn’t a failed download. It’s that the Short saved fine and then vanished — nowhere in Gallery, nowhere in Photos. Here’s the fix.
Android: move it into Photos
Chrome drops the MP4 into /storage/emulated/0/Download. Gallery and Photos don’t scan that folder, which is why people assume the download failed. It didn’t — it’s parked where the gallery isn’t looking.
- 1Open Files by Google and tap Downloads.
- 2Long-press the Short, tap the three dots, choose Move to.
- 3Pick Internal storage › Movies or DCIM — Photos indexes both.
- 4Refresh Photos. The Short lands in Recents.
iPhone: save it to Photos
Safari never writes video into Photos. It saves to Files, under On My iPhone › Downloads, and Photos only reads its own library. One tap moves it across.
- 1Tap the download arrow beside Safari’s address bar, then the file.
- 2Long-press the MP4 in Files and choose Share.
- 3Tap Save Video. It appears in Photos › Recents, full resolution.
Android’s media scanner indexes DCIM, Pictures, Movies and Music. Not Downloads — by design, so every PDF you grab stays out of your camera roll. Move the file once and the gallery picks it up. Same folders, same fix, for a regular YouTube video download — same folders, same fix.
Before you repost
Repost with respect
Downloading a Short takes ten seconds. Deciding what to do with it deserves longer:
Credit the creator
Name them and link back. That’s the difference between sharing someone’s work and taking it.
Ask before reposting
Most creators are glad to see their work travel, when someone asks. A comment or a DM usually gets a yes.
Your own uploads need no permission
Backing up or re-editing Shorts you made is always fine, as is anything you’ve licensed or found under Creative Commons.
Keep the original intact
Don’t crop out handles or cut credits. If it wasn’t yours going in, it isn’t yours coming out.
Hold rights to something and have a concern? Our DMCA page explains how requests are handled.
How it works
Save from YouTube Shorts in three steps
Ten seconds from copied link to saved file, phone or laptop.
- 1
Copy the Shorts link
Tap Share under the Short and choose Copy link, or copy the URL from the address bar on desktop. Share-sheet links carry tracking junk on the end; leave it, it’s ignored.
- 2
Paste it into the box above
NoTube resolves the video and lists the vertical MP4 streams it can serve. No account, nothing to install.
- 3
Pick a resolution and save
Take the top row on offer, usually 1080×1920. A short download of a 60-second clip finishes before you’ve switched tabs. The file lands where your browser normally saves — Downloads on Android and desktop, Files on iPhone.
For creators
Made for people who make Shorts
The most common reason to download a Short is that it’s yours.
Back up your channel
YouTube isn’t a backup service. Keep a local copy of every Short you post, so a strike never costs you the only version.
Cross-post without reformatting
A 9:16 MP4 drops straight into TikTok, Reels and Snapchat. Save once, publish wherever you hold the rights.
Archive before you unlist
Pruning old Shorts? Save them first. Unlisted today becomes deleted-forever in next year’s clear-out.
What a YouTube short video download weighs
A YouTube video shorts download is small by nature. A 60-second Short at 1080×1920 lands between 8 MB and 15 MB, and even a three-minute one rarely passes 40 MB. Dance clips sit at the top of that range, because the encoder has more to describe.
Twenty Shorts is about a quarter of a gigabyte. Drop to 720×1280 and you halve that, at a difference you cannot see on a phone at arm’s length. Keep Full HD for clips you plan to re-edit.
Long-form is another story: an hour of 1080p runs past a gigabyte, which is where our free YouTube downloader comes in.
Shorts, reels, clips — the same file
Plenty of people type youtube reels download when what they want is a Short. Reels is Instagram’s, Shorts is YouTube’s, but the file underneath is identical: a 9:16 MP4 with an AAC audio track. Nobody invented a codec for vertical.
Which is why a saved Short cross-posts without conversion. The same MP4 uploads to Reels, TikTok and Snapchat as it is.
Want the cover image? The YouTube thumbnail downloader pulls the still at full resolution, and how downloading works covers the rest.
Straight answers
What this Shorts downloader won’t do
Every tool page lists what it can do. Here’s the other half.
No batch download of a whole channel
One link, one file. Paste a playlist URL and NoTube says plainly that it can’t queue the lot, so forty Shorts means forty pastes.
Private and members-only Shorts stay private
There’s no login, which is the point — but anything you can’t open in a logged-out tab is out of reach. If the Short 404s in incognito, it 404s here.
1 GB per file
Irrelevant here, honestly — a three-minute vertical clip isn’t close. The cap exists for long-form video.
Quality is whatever the creator uploaded
No tool adds detail that was never in the file. A Short uploaded at 720×1280 downloads at 720×1280, and almost every Short tops out at 1080×1920 — so a 4K Shorts download is nearly always an upscale.
One legal line, and it matters: a YouTube short video download is for personal use — offline viewing, backing up Shorts you made, or material you’ve licensed. Downloading someone else’s work transfers no right to republish or monetise it. The downloader safety and legality FAQ covers where that line sits in more detail.
FAQ
Shorts questions, answered
What people ask before their first download.
Related tools
More ways to save
Every NoTube tool shares the same engine — paste a link, pick a format, done.
Your Shorts, saved in seconds
A YouTube short video download is a paste, a resolution and a tap — free, no account, and what arrives is a clean 1080×1920 MP4 that plays on anything.