Save videos from a playlist one item at a time

What a playlist address actually describes

A playlist is a running order somebody assembled. The address stands for that order: these items, in this sequence, under this name. It says nothing about which item is playing. The items themselves live at their own addresses, and the list points at all of them at once.

A course, a music collection, and a season of episodes are all built this way. The playlist page is a table of contents. The watch page for one episode is the media. Confusing those two addresses is the most common reason Analyze returns nothing useful.

Some sites put the word playlist in the path. Others use list, set, album, or a query parameter. The pattern is the same: one URL names many titles. Paste the URL that names one title when you want a file.

Collaborative playlists and algorithm mixes behave the same way for this tool. The mix page is still a list. Open the specific video you care about until its own address is in the bar.

Why one list address produces no rows

Analyze reports the media files a page publishes. A list page publishes a set of thumbnails, titles, and durations, which describe items rather than serving one of them. The empty result is the accurate answer to the address you gave.

Nothing failed in the ordinary sense, and pasting the same list address again returns the same finding. Treating the empty box as a site outage leads people to retry for minutes instead of opening one item.

Channel homes and “watch later” style collections are the same class of problem. They are indexes. Indexes do not hold a single downloadable file for this page to prepare.

When a playlist page embeds an autoplaying first item but the address bar still shows the list URL, you are still on the list. Copy the item URL after the player focuses on one video, or open that item in a new tab.

Opening an item and taking its own address

Click the item you want so it fills the player and starts playing on its own. The address in the bar at that moment often names that single video. Copy that full address into the box on this page and run Analyze.

On some sites the player sits in a side panel while the list keeps its own address in the bar. Where that happens, open the item in a new tab first and copy the address from there. A right-click on the title that offers “open in new tab” is usually enough.

Share buttons on the item often produce a cleaner permalink than the address bar while a list UI is still loaded. Prefer the share permalink when the bar still shows playlist parameters only.

After Analyze lists rows, read the size in megabytes before you download. Free use refuses any single file over 150 MB and covers three downloads a day, resetting at midnight UTC.

List parameters hanging off a single item address

Clicking through a list often leaves extra instructions on the end of the address: the list identifier and the position of the item within it. The address still names one video at its front. Leave those extras where they are.

They tell the source which list you came from, and the tool reads the video identifier regardless of what follows it. Trimming an address by hand causes more failures than it prevents, especially when people delete the wrong segment.

If a shortened share link expands to a list URL, expand it fully in the browser, open the item, and copy again. Do not paste the shortener itself when it still resolves to a list home.

Timestamps appended for “start at 5:00” usually do not block Analyze. The important part is that the identifier points at one video rather than an ordered set.

Working through a list one item at a time

The box takes one address per press, so a list of twelve lectures is twelve separate jobs. Collect the addresses first in a notes file or a spreadsheet, then work down the column. That approach also lets you check each row before you save it.

A recorded lecture and a two-minute introduction from the same course have very different sizes. Skipping intros you do not need saves free downloads for the episodes that matter.

Rename each file as it lands rather than at the end. Items in a series often arrive with names that differ by one word, and telling them apart later takes longer than renaming them now. Include episode numbers from the playlist order when the titles are vague.

Pro removes the daily count and the 150 megabyte ceiling together, which matters when a course is long and several episodes are large. Free use spanning several days is normal for a twelve-part series.

Items in a list that are not all available

A long list assembled over years contains entries that have since been taken down, made private, or restricted to one country. The list still shows the title while the item behind it no longer opens. Those entries return an empty result, and the rest of the list is unaffected.

Move to the next address and carry on rather than treating one closed item as a fault on the whole series. Confirm in your own browser that the item plays signed out before you spend time pasting it here.

Region locks and age gates that stop your browser will stop this tool too. Fix access or skip that entry. Private unlisted items that only work with a special invite are the same class of miss for a signed-out fetch.

Deleted videos that leave a placeholder title in the playlist are common on large music and education lists. Seeing the title in the list is not proof a file still exists.

Three downloads a day against a long list

Free use covers three prepared files a day, and the count returns to three at midnight UTC. A twelve-part series therefore spans several days on free use unless you use Pro. Plan which three episodes matter most today instead of grabbing at random.

Each completed download subtracts one from the count whether the file is four minutes or two hours. Size and count are separate limits. A huge episode can fail the 150 MB free ceiling even when you still have downloads left for the day.

Keep this tab open until each transfer finishes. Prepared files expire on a short timer if you leave mid-download. Losing a large episode to a closed tab wastes both time and a free slot.

Rights stay with the uploaders. Offline study copies of a course you may access are not the same as re-uploading the series or selling the lectures. Follow the course publisher’s rules.

Related pages

• Lists assembled on YouTube
• Saving several videos in one session
• Pages that hold no video at all
• The page address against the media address
• Working through a column of links