Widely considered the gold standard for high-quality downloads, 4K Video Downloader Plus allows you to save videos in up to 8K resolution.
Method 2: Download Direct to File Explorer (Third-Party Tools) how to download a video from youtube to file explorer
Note: These are "blobs" of data, not playable video files, and will disappear if you clear your browser cache. not playable video files
If you need to find where they are physically stored (for example, to see how much space they take), they are typically located in your browser's app data: how to download a video from youtube to file explorer
Navigate to the video you want and click the Download button located below the player.
C:\Users\[YourName]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB\https_www.youtube.com_0.indexeddb.blob
If you have a YouTube Premium subscription, you can officially download videos to your computer. However, there is a catch: YouTube stores these files in a hidden, encrypted format that is not easily accessible via File Explorer as a standard MP4.