How to Download YouTube Videos in 1080P/4K

By Kim KardaUpdated on May 25, 2026

YouTube is a great and popular video sharing website where you can view various of video clips and share your experiences or ideas with friends, family or the world. If you want to watch YouTube video offline without internet, you’d better download YouTube videos. At this time, you need a YouTube Premium subscription.

But YouTube videos are only accessible within the YouTube app and YouTube website. Due to copyright, it’s not possible to export any downloaded YouTube videos for use on other apps and devices. Is there a simple way to download YouTube videos without a subscription? Yes! Here we will share 6 methods to download YouTube videos on your computer, especially HD 1080P, 4K and other UHD videos. Let’s go!

CONTENTS

Method 1. iMovieTool YouTube Movie Downloader

The first method is to use a professional YouTube downloader to download YouTube videos. iMovieTool YouTube Movie Downloader is an all-in-one streaming video downloading software, available on Windows and Mac. It is developed to download movies and TV shows from major streaming platform into MP4 or MKV formats for local storage and offline playback. What sets iMovieTool apart from many other YouTube video downloader software is its embedded web browser, which allows you to browse the content online or search for content directly within the software.

With iMovieTool, you can download full-length movies and shows from YouTube Movies & TV as 1080p MP4 or MKV files with AAC 2.0 audio tracks at ease. It also offers multiple options for audio tracks and subtitles to enhance your experiences. For instance, when you use it to download Korea drama, movies on YouTube, you can choose to the audio track and subtitles in a language such as English, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese so you can fully understand the content of the video. Better yet, it can batch save the entire season show or multiple movies at 50X faster download speed.

Next, let’s see how to download YouTube movies to HD MP4 using iMovieTool YouTube Video Downloader.

Step 1. Select YOUTUBE and Log In
Install and launch iMovieTool Video Downloader, choose YOUTUBE from the supported streaming platforms.

Then, sign in with your YouTube or Google account to access your movies, TV shows, rentals, and purchases.

Step 2. Adjust Output Settings
Click the “Menu” icon at the top right corner of the screen. Pick “Preference” to open the settings window. Set output format to MP4 and resolution to high 1080p. Choose output folder, subtitle language, and audio track. This ensures perfect download YouTube movies to HD MP4 results.

Step 3. Browse and Add YouTube Movies or Shows
Whether you want to download free, purchased, or rented movies and TV shows, iMovieTool makes the process simple and fast. Go to “Browse” section, type “movies” in the search bar.

Open the video page you want to download, then click the “+” icon to add the movie or show to the download list.

(Optional): In the pop-up window, click the “Gear” icon to set single video output settings, including output quality, audio and subtitles language for the video before downloading. For example, tap “Audio” tab, you can choose English or other language for your added video.

Step 4. Begin Downloading Movie/Show from YouTube
After confirming all download settings, click the “Download” icon to start saving YouTube movies to HD MP4. iMovieTool will quickly process and download the selected videos while keeping high video and audio quality.

For TV shows, you need to choose your target season and episodes, then press on “Download” button.

Step 5. Get Downloaded YouTube Videos
Once the download is complete, go to the “History” section to find your downloaded YouTube movies and TV shows.

You can open the output folder directly and watch the videos offline anytime without internet access.

Method 2. 4kFinder YouTube Downloader

4kFinder YouTube Downloader is a commonly used computer software for downloading YouTube videos and other online videos. It supports to download videos from YouTube, Vevo, Facebook, Dailymotion, Twitter, and more than 1000+ sites. This excellent software supports downloading SD, HD and UHD videos, such as 720P, 1080P, 4K and 8K from YouTube with zero quality loss. In addition, it is also a wonderful YouTube Music Downloader, which enables users to download music from YouTube Music without Premium subscription. It supports MP4, WEBM, MP3 formats. This means you can download YouTube videos to MP4 in HD quality. Next, let’s take a look at the user guide.

How to Download YouTube Videos with 4kFinder?

Step 1. Download and install 4kFinder YouTube Downloader on your Mac or PC.

Step 2. Go to YouTube website on browser, find and copy the URL link of the video you want to download from the address bar. Open 4kFinder program. Paste the video URL to the search bar, and click “Analyze” button.

Step 3. In the pop-up window, select MP4 or MP3 format, and select the resolution you want to download.

Step 4. Then click “Download” to start downloading the YouTube video to local computer. When finished, go to “Finished” and click “Open Folder” to find your downloaded YouTube videos.

Method 3. Modify the URL to Get YouTube Video

Open YouTube and play the video you want to download, notice the video URL in the address bar above, and add “ss” directly after “youtube” in the video link. At this point, the page will jump to a website for downloading videos, where you can choose the resolution to download, such as downloading the resolution of 720P, which is very simple.

These plug-ins are also convenient to use, but they can only download YouTube videos at up to 720P. To download YouTube HD 1080p, or 4K videos, a professional third-party YouTube Video Downloader is needed.

Method 4. Online YouTube Downloader

To download YouTube video, you can try some online video downloader tools. This method is also very easy to operate. Go to the site of Online YouTube Downloader, copy the video link to the specified box, and then select the output format and resolution (only up to 720p), click “Download” or “Convert”.

By using these online sites, you can easily save YouTube videos to your computer, mobile phone or tablet. But most online websites are unsafe, and come with annoying ads, plug-in, etc. You should pay more attention to it.

Method 5. Use Browser Plugin

To download YouTube videos, you can also use a browser plugin. Due to Google’s policy restrictions, it will remove most plug-ins that support to download YouTube videos. It is difficult to find a suitable one, here you can try this 1-Click YouTube Video Downloader. This plug-in enables you to download audios and videos from YouTube.

Step 1. Open the browser, search for “1-Click YouTube Video Downloader”,download and install it. After the installation is successful, restart the browser.

Step 2. Open YouTube, find the video you want to download. Click the “Play” button, and you will see a red “Download” button below the video playback information.

Step 3. Click the “Download” button, select the video resolution, and then begin to download the YouTube video.

Method 6. Command-line Program

Youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and some other video hosting sites. You can install youtube-dl on your Windows PC, Mac, or even Linux. But this method is complex, it requires the Python interpreter.

Conclusion

Here are the 6 workable methods to download videos from YouTube to computer. We’ve introduced you some commonly used YouTube video download software and tools, you can choose the best one according to your needs. Due to the constant changes in the YouTube algorithm, some of the popular download methods have also failed. To download high-quality YouTube videos effectively and fast, both iMovieTool YouTube Movie Downloader and 4kFinder YouTube Downloader are highly recommended. If you find a new and useful YouTube video downloader software, welcome to share!

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