- 100% free
- No sign-up
- Up to 1080p
- Audio included
File sizes
Know what each resolution costs
Every rung up the ladder roughly doubles the download. Here’s what a typical 10-minute video weighs at each stop.
What actually happens
MP4 YouTube downloads, start to finish
Search results call this converting. It isn’t, really — and knowing why explains most of what people find confusing about MP4 downloads.
YouTube already stores almost everything as H.264 video in an MP4 container. What it doesn’t do is keep the picture and the sound together above 360p. Above that rung, the video track and the AAC audio track live as separate files and your browser stitches them on the fly while you watch. That single detail is why so many downloads come back silent: the tool grabbed the video stream and stopped there.
We resolve the link, read the list of streams YouTube publishes, merge the matching audio back in, and hand you a signed link to the finished file. There is no re-encode anywhere in that chain, so the YouTube MP4 file you end up with is the same stream YouTube served your browser a moment earlier. People search for this as ytmp4, yt to mp4, or youtube converter mp4. Same job, same page.
How to download YouTube videos to MP4
Copy the URL from the address bar or the Share sheet, paste it in the box above, and wait a second or two while the formats load. Each row shows a resolution and its real file size, pulled from the source rather than estimated. Click the row you want. On Windows and macOS the file lands in your downloads folder named after the video, ready to drop into Premiere, DaVinci, CapCut, or a PowerPoint slide without a single conversion step.
How to download MP4 from YouTube on a phone
Same flow, one extra tap at the end. On Android the MP4 goes to Downloads and shows up in your gallery within a minute or two, depending on how often the media scanner runs. iPhone is the fussier one: open this page in Safari, since Chrome on iOS routes downloads oddly, and the file arrives in Files under Downloads. Tap it, hit the share icon, choose Save Video, and it moves into Photos. Nothing to install either way.
How to convert YouTube videos to MP4
If the video is on YouTube, it is already MP4, so the honest answer is that you download it rather than convert it. Real conversion only matters in two cases: you want a smaller file than 360p gives you, or you need a format YouTube never serves, like MOV for an old Final Cut project. Both are jobs for HandBrake after the download, not for this page. And if it was only ever the audio you wanted, the YouTube to MP3 converter saves you the 400 MB.
Format
Why MP4 and not WebM or MOV
WebM squeezes files a little smaller and MOV is comfortable inside Apple’s ecosystem. MP4 is the one you never have to think about again — it opens first try on anything you plug into a screen.
| Feature | MP4Recommended | WebM | MOV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plays everywhere | Yes: Every phone, TV, and browser since 2007 | Partially: Browsers and Android; patchy on TVs | Partially: Apple hardware first, mixed elsewhere |
| Editing support | Yes: Native in Premiere, Final Cut, DaVinci, CapCut | No: Most editors want a conversion first | Yes: Native in Apple’s editors |
| Quality per MB | Yes: Strong with H.264, better with H.265 | Yes: Strong with VP9 and AV1 | Partially: Often larger at the same quality |
| iOS and TV playback | Yes: Plays natively, no extra apps | No: No native playback on iPhone or most TVs | Partially: Fine on iPhone, unreliable on TVs |
Support means stock playback — what each device handles out of the box, with no codec packs or player apps installed.
Honest guidance
1080p is the sweet spot
1080p Full HD is the top of the menu here, and it’s sharp on every screen you own. On a 6-inch phone or a 13-inch laptop, the detail is packed tighter than your eye can resolve at arm’s length — you’re seeing every pixel the uploader captured. We don’t list anything above it, because we won’t promise resolution the source doesn’t actually have.
Our advice is boring and honest. Choose 1080p when you want the crispest picture — it’s the default for a reason. Choose 720p when storage is tight or you’re on hotel wifi, and 480p or 360p when the video is mostly a person talking and you just want it small. Every rung shows its exact size up front, so you’re never guessing. And if you only need the sound, skip video entirely and use the YouTube to MP3 converter instead.
One note on fair use: stick to videos you uploaded, licensed, or that carry a Creative Commons license. Our DMCA policy has the details.
Per hour at 360p
0.45 GB
Six times smaller than 1080p
Per hour at 720p
1.4 GB
Plenty for a phone screen
Per hour at 1080p
2.5 GB
The balance point for most screens
Why NoTube
What you get with every file
No conversion queue
MP4 is the format YouTube already stores, so we hand you the source stream directly instead of re-encoding it on a server and making you wait.
Source quality, kept
Nothing is compressed on the way through. A 1080p download is the same 1080p the uploader published, frame for frame.
One file, every device
H.264 MP4 plays natively on iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, smart TVs, and consoles — no codec packs, no player apps.
Clean output
No watermark in the corner, no bundled installer, no browser extension. Just the video file, named after the video.
How it works
From YouTube video to MP4 in three steps
About ten seconds, start to finish, on any browser.
Copy the video link
Tap Share on any YouTube video and copy the URL — grabbing it from the desktop address bar works just as well.
Pick your resolution
Paste it above and choose a rung from 360p to 1080p. We list every quality the source video actually has, nothing invented.
Save the MP4
One click and the file lands in your downloads folder with the audio track already merged in.
Curious what happens between paste and save? The full breakdown is in how it works.
Desktop options
What are some YouTube to MP4 software for PC
A fair question, and the answer isn’t always us. Here’s what the desktop field actually looks like, including where each option costs you something.
| Tool | What it is | Installs | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| NoTube (this page) | Runs in the browser tab you already have open | Nothing | One video at a time, and files are capped at 1 GB |
| yt-dlp | Command-line downloader, open source | Python plus FFmpeg on your PATH | No window, no buttons — you type flags or you read the manual |
| 4K Video Downloader | Desktop app for Windows, macOS, Linux | An installer with admin rights | Free tier limits how many videos you can pull per day |
| VLC | Media player with a hidden stream-saving trick | Already on most PCs | The trick breaks every time YouTube changes something |
| HandBrake | Encoder, not a downloader | An installer | Only useful on files you have already saved somewhere else |
Prices and free-tier limits change without warning — check the vendor before you trust a number here.
Install a desktop app when you download in volume: whole channels, overnight queues, subtitle files, 4K masters for editing. yt-dlp is the best of them by a distance and it costs nothing, but you will be typing commands into a terminal and keeping FFmpeg up to date. That’s a real cost, just not a financial one.
A browser tool wins on the other case, which is most cases: one video, right now, on a machine where you can’t install anything. A work laptop. A school Chromebook. Someone else’s desktop. You paste, you pick 1080p, you close the tab, and nothing stays behind. We do handle one link at a time, and pasting a playlist URL tells you so rather than pretending otherwise. If you want an MP3 as well as the MP4, it is the first row in the list above — one resolve covers both.
Compatibility
One file that plays on everything
H.264 video with AAC audio is the closest thing online video has to a universal standard. Files saved here open first try on all of these — no codec packs required.
- Windows
- macOS
- iPhone & Android
- iPad
- Smart TVs
- Consoles
Saving from a platform that isn't YouTube? The video downloader runs the same engine for other sites.
FAQ
MP4 questions, answered
The things people actually ask before they hit download.
Before you use any YouTube to MP4 converter
One rule covers most of it: download what you have the right to download. Your own uploads, footage you licensed, Creative Commons clips, a lecture your university published — all fine to keep offline. A film someone re-uploaded is not yours to redistribute, and saving it locally doesn’t change who owns it. Personal use only, and our DMCA policy explains how takedowns work here.
Beyond that, the tool is deliberately small. No account, no installer, no watermark burned into the corner, no upsell after the second file. One link in, one MP4 out, capped at 1 GB. If you want the technical version of what happens in those ten seconds, how to download YouTube videos walks through it, and the safety and legality FAQ answers the questions people ask before they trust any converter. Otherwise, paste a link at the top of the page — YouTube to MP4, 1080p, audio included, in about the time it takes to read this sentence.
Related tools
More ways to save
Every NoTube tool shares the same engine — paste a link, pick a format, done.
Get the MP4 version of anything
Paste a link, pick a rung on the ladder, and the file is yours in about ten seconds — audio included.