One YouTube video, four shapes of address

Several addresses, one upload behind them

Copy a YouTube video from a browser bar, from the Share button, from a blog post that has it embedded, and from a friend pointing at one moment in it, and you end up with four strings that look nothing alike. All four describe the same upload.

What they share is an identifier: a run of eleven letters, digits, hyphens and underscores that names that one video and nothing else. Every shape below carries it somewhere, and finding it in the string you were given is how you confirm you are holding a video.

The watch address from the browser bar

On a desktop, the address in the bar while a video plays is the plain form: the site, a watch path, then the identifier after a v= tag.

This is the shape to paste when you have it. Nothing in it has to be resolved before the page can be read. If the string in your clipboard has a v= followed by eleven characters, you are holding the address you want.

The short address the Share button produces

The Share button gives you a compact address on the youtu.be name with the identifier straight after the slash. There is no v= tag in it because the path itself is the identifier.

It works. The short address is followed through to the watch page behind it before anything is read, so it produces the same list as the long form. Trim any text a chat app wrapped around it, and if it returns nothing, open it in a browser and copy the full address you land on.

An embed address copied from another site

When a video plays inside an article rather than on YouTube itself, right-clicking the player can hand you an address with an embed path instead of a watch path. The identifier is still in there, after the last slash.

The embed form is built for a player frame rather than for a visitor, and some embeds are configured by the publisher for one specific website. Use the option in the player's own right-click menu that gives you the video address, and paste that instead.

An address that starts partway through

A link sent to make a point often carries a start time on the end, written as a t= tag holding a number of seconds or a value like 2m14s.

Paste it as it is. A start time is an instruction to the player about where to begin playback, and it changes nothing about which files the page publishes. The rows cover the whole upload and the file you save runs from the first frame to the last, because the portion after the timestamp is not published as a file of its own.

Which of the four to put in the box

In order of preference: the watch address, then the short share address, then a watch address rebuilt from an embed. All three end in the same list of rows, and the closer the string is to the address a person would visit, the less has to be worked out before the page can be read.

• Holding a watch address with v= and eleven characters: paste it unchanged.
• Holding a youtu.be address: paste it, and trim any text a chat app added after the identifier.
• Holding an embed address: take the video address from the player's right-click menu.
• Holding an address with a start time on the end: paste it as it stands and expect the complete video.

What free use covers for a YouTube save

A free account covers three files a day and holds each one to 150 MB, and the allowance is back at midnight UTC. A Pro subscription lifts all three of those: the daily count, the size ceiling and the ads.

Keep this tab open while the file transfers, because a prepared copy sits on a short timer. Once it finishes, the video is on your own device and plays with nothing connected.

Related pages

• Watch pages that return nothing
• Reading the rows on a long upload
• Short vertical uploads and their addresses
• Taking the sound row on its own
• Addresses that pass through a redirect