Download a YouTube Short
Paste the address of one Short and read what the results list offers for a vertical clip.
Paste a URL to download
Paste a public video or playlist URL.
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Note: Only download content you have the rights/permission to download. Some platforms rotate signed URLs; if a download fails, paste the URL again and click Download.
Paste one video URL per line (2–100 URLs on Pro or Creator). Upgrade to Pro to unlock batch mode.
Supported sites:
and 1000+ more — including YouTube Reels, Shorts & Stories, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and regional hosts.
YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook, Vimeo, Reddit, Dailymotion, Twitch, and 1000+ more.
Pro users enjoy an ad-free downloader. Free tier may show sponsored placements. No URL history sold. Optional Vidzilla extension for Page Media — same privacy standards.
Files go straight to your device.
Two address shapes for one upload
A Short can be reached two ways. The vertical player uses an address with the word shorts followed by the video identifier. The ordinary player uses a watch address with that same identifier after a question mark. The identifier is the same string in both.
Switching between them changes the player rather than the video, and YouTube often rewrites one into the other while you browse. Paste whichever address you copied. Analyze reads the page and reports the files it is serving, and both routes lead to the same upload.
When a Short opens in the full player instead
Opening a Shorts address on a desktop browser sometimes lands you in the standard player with a horizontal frame and black bars at the sides. That is a viewing decision by YouTube, based on the window you opened it in.
The bars are not in the file. The published copy is vertical, and what you save is that vertical copy rather than a picture with black edges baked in. Nothing needs correcting before you paste, and the row you pick describes the real frame size.
Why a Short is a small file
Two things keep the size down. A Short runs for up to a minute, and file size tracks runtime directly. It is also encoded for a phone held upright, so the frame is narrower than a landscape upload at the same height and carries fewer pixels per second.
The result is that most Shorts come back as a handful of megabytes rather than hundreds. Free use covers 3 downloads a day, resets that count at midnight UTC, and holds a single file to 150 MB, which a Short never approaches. Pro takes away the daily count and the ceiling, and clears the advertising.
Shorts cut out of a longer upload
Creators often publish a Short that is a section of a longer video they already uploaded. YouTube also links a Short back to its source, and a line under the player names the video the clip came from.
The Short is still a published file in its own right, with its own identifier, and Analyze returns rows for that file. Saving the Short gives you the short version. If the full video is what you want, follow the link to the source, copy the watch address from there, and paste that instead.
Addresses that hold no single Short
The Shorts feed is a scrolling list. An address that stops after the word shorts, with no identifier attached, stands for that list and therefore has no single file behind it. The same applies to a channel address and to the Shorts tab on a channel, which are collections rather than videos.
Copy from the player once one Short is open on its own. On a phone, the share menu on the Short gives the same address, and it is safe to paste with the tracking text some share menus add on the end, because the identifier in front of it names the video.
- Open one Short so it fills the player on its own.
- On a computer, copy the contents of the address bar.
- On a phone, open Share and choose Copy link.
- Check that an identifier follows the word shorts before you paste.
Reading the rows and saving the clip
The results list holds the encodings YouTube published for that upload, each with a frame size and a size in megabytes. On a Short those rows are close together in size, so the higher one costs little. An audio-only row appears when the source publishes audio separately.
Press Download file on your row and leave the tab open until the transfer finishes. The prepared copy expires on a short timer, so start it while you are at the page. Afterwards the clip is a file on your own device and plays with no connection.
The creator keeps the rights
A Short belongs to whoever uploaded it, and a clip taken from somebody else's longer video may involve a further rights holder as well. Saving a copy for yourself does not transfer anything. Vidzilla is not connected to YouTube and cannot grant permission on a creator's behalf.
Questions about Shorts addresses and files
Does a shorts address and a watch address of the same clip give a different file?
No. Both carry the same video identifier, so Analyze reads the same upload and returns the same rows for either address.
My Short opened in the wide player with black bars. Will the file have them?
No. The bars come from the player filling a landscape window, and the published file keeps the vertical frame the creator uploaded.
The Short I want is a cut from a longer video. Can I get the full version?
Follow the link under the player to the source video, copy that watch address, and paste it. The Short and the full upload are separate files.
Why do the rows on a Short look so similar in size?
A clip of under a minute in a narrow frame produces small files at every quality, so the gap between the top and bottom rows stays small.
I pasted the Shorts feed and nothing came back.
A feed address stands for a scrolling list rather than one clip. Open a single Short so an identifier appears in the address, then copy that.
There is extra text after a question mark on my Shorts link.
Share menus add tracking parameters. The identifier in front of them still names the video, so the address works exactly as copied.