Testing a video URL before you download it

Why the address is worth a test first

An address that plays a video for you inside your own browser is not proof that the video is public. Your browser carries the accounts you are signed into, the consent choice you made on that site weeks ago, and the region you are in. Our servers carry none of that.

So the useful question is not whether the video plays for you. It is whether the video plays for a visitor with no history on that site. There is a two-minute check that answers it, and it saves you from pasting an address that returns an empty list and wondering why.

The private-window test

Open a private or incognito window, paste the address into it, and watch what loads. A private window carries no sign-in and no stored consent, which is close to the conditions the download runs under.

• The video starts playing on its own: the file is public and the address is worth pasting.
• A sign-in form loads instead of the video: the source is holding the file behind an account, and no downloader reaches it.
• A payment page or a subscriber notice loads: same answer. The file is not public.
• A removal or unavailable notice loads: the video is gone from that address and nothing can be recovered from it.
• A notice about cookies or consent covers the player: the video is reachable, and the address needs one more step before you copy it.

What a consent notice does to an address

Many sites answer a first-time visitor with a consent notice before they serve the video. Until that notice is dealt with, the page is serving a small interstitial rather than a media file. An address in that state returns nothing useful, because there is nothing behind it yet.

Some sites also rewrite the address while the notice is up. You get a consent host in front of the real one, or a redirect parameter carrying your original address as a value inside it. Copying at that moment gives you the address of the notice, not the address of the video.

Getting the address the page settles on

In the private window, answer the consent notice, wait for the player to appear, and let the page finish moving. Then read the address bar again. On sites that rewrite the address, the value there has changed since you pasted it.

Copy that settled address and use it here. It points at a page in the state where the video is being served, which is the state our servers need to read.

• Answer the notice, then wait until the player is visible before you copy anything.
• If the host name in the address bar is a consent or gateway domain, the page has not settled. Wait for it to hand you back to the video host.
• If the address now contains your original address as a parameter, copy the whole thing rather than cutting it apart.

Reading the test result before you spend time

The point of the test is a decision, not a diagnosis. A public video that plays in a private window is worth pasting. A video behind an account is not, and the honest outcome there is to watch it on the site.

One case sits between the two. A page that plays after you answer a consent notice works from the settled address, and fails from the address you started with. When a first attempt here returns an empty list, that is the first thing to re-check.

When the test passes and the list is still empty

A source that is refusing automated requests at that moment answers on a second attempt. Press Analyze on the same address again after a short pause.

If the address survived the private-window test and still returns nothing, check what the path actually points at. A channel, a feed, a profile, a playlist, or a search result has no single video file behind it, and a page that plays a video inside it needs the address of that video rather than the address of the list it sits in.

Related pages

• Trying a site you have not used before
• How downloads behave in your browser
• What happens once Analyze starts
• The kinds of pages that work
• What we keep and what we do not