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YouTube Video Direct Download Link

Copyright © Walker 25 Feb 2008 02:15
You like YouTube? I do. You want to download some of the nice YouTube video clip for offline leisure. So am I.
Besides relying on freeware, you could also copy the YouTube video clips from browser’s cache folder. Now, there is another trick where you could find a hidden direct download link of each YouTube video clips.
Best of all, you don’t have to worry about installing too many freeware (that potentially slow down Windows performance) nor you’ve to watch the video and then locate it from cache folder.

How to extract the hidden direct download link of YouTube video?

With this trick means you could directly download the YouTube video clips to local hard disk!

1) For example, click these links to open the Jumper trailer or the Batman The Dark Knight trailer hosted at YouTube (you could just open any video clips hosted on YouTube) with your favorite web browser.

2) Right-click on the empty / blank place to bring up the web browser context-menu, then click the View Source (IE7) or View Page Source (Firefox 2.0.0.12)

Extract the hidden direct download link of YouTube video

3) Press CTRL+F hotkeys to bring up Find function dialog box and search for watch_fullscreen

4) On the same line, copy all the text from video_id up to title.

E.g. Copy the red-color highlighted text only:

YouTube page source of Batman The Dark Knight trailer:
var fullscreenUrl = '/watch_fullscreen?fs=1&q=batman&e=h&sourceid=ys&video_id=WaIR9dAZRR0&l=127&sk=VCaWxqmJZiKonU1nSiudlwC&t=OEgsToPDskIruDrrzg8rrmEurgby4CAq&hl=en&plid=AARG6hg5eMe3TU0HAAAAoARKYAA&tk=qFuW4Ccd3bcw0maq8nDIEhW4w-HlY7INZ_61k0CTk6utKedGb4Uveg%3D%3D&title=Batman - The Dark Knight Trailer HD';

YouTube page source of the Jumper trailer:
'/watch_fullscreen?fs=1&e=h&video_id=9rz5NekSUTM&l=149&sk=GJ-xz7O9MhF7a9YqeK9xQwC&t=OEgsToPDskJfBx_V8_vxpGb1nnFNj6Ky&hl=en&plid=AARG6j6Dw6RqOq7AAAAAoAAYYAE&title=Jumper Trailer - World Premiere';

5) Open another new browser window, type this URL

www.youtube.com/get_video?

and then press CTRL+C keyboard shortcut to APPEND the copied text in step 4.

E.g. these are how the hidden direct download links of YouTube videos look like:

The Jumper Trailer direct download link:
www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=9rz5NekSUTM&l=149&sk=GJ-xz7O9MhF7a9YqeK9xQwC&t=OEgsToPDskJfBx_V8_vxpGb1nnFNj6Ky&hl=en&plid=AARG6j6Dw6RqOq7AAAAAoAAYYAE&title

Batman The Dark Knight Trailer direct download link:
www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=WaIR9dAZRR0&l=127&sk=VCaWxqmJZiKonU1nSiudlwC&t=OEgsToPDskIruDrrzg8rrmEurgby4CAq&hl=en&plid=AARG6hg5eMe3TU0HAAAAoARKYAA&tk=qFuW4Ccd3bcw0maq8nDIEhW4w-HlY7INZ_61k0CTk6utKedGb4Uveg%3D%3D&title

Now, just press ENTER key and you’ll prompted to save the get_video file. Before saving the file, you may rename it with a meaningful filename and append the .flv as the flash video file extension.
With reference: Lawrence@NextMile


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  1. windbell February 26th, 2008 11:13 AM

    Tks, and here I found a guide that told two ways to capture free video from youtube, myspace, google, etc for free, share it here:
    http://www.aimersoft.com/tutorial/free-download-youtube-video.html

  2. Extract URL To Direct Download YouTube Video – Walker News March 16th, 2008 9:27 AM

    [...] one month ago, I posted a wonderful trick to extract the direct download links of (any) YouTube video. Have you found it useful? The answer is yes and no. (There is always two end, where a solution [...]

  3. JRobb April 24th, 2008 5:37 AM

    There is another(easier) way of doing this, simply create a bookmark with this as the target, then when you want to download a youtube video, click it. You will see a message under the info box “Download as “Mp4″. Right click, and select “download as”. choose a name, and PUT A .mp4 extension on it, or it will not work. then allow it to download, and no need to convert it to another file type. YAY!!!!!!!

  4. Windows Movie Maker: How To Extract Audio Track From Video Clip – Walker News August 16th, 2008 4:00 PM

    [...] low-end, self-made video posted to YouTube, demonstrating how to extract audio music from a video clip with Windows Movie Maker (a video [...]

  5. Glorback April 10th, 2009 4:25 AM

    It doesn’t seem to work anymore, the youtube “getvideo” link is likely to be blocked or dead.

  6. Walker April 13th, 2009 1:17 AM

    @Glorback, thank you highlighting this.

  7. oldcartoons August 13th, 2009 12:24 PM

    Thanks, this was great. They seem to have changed things though. This was working as of August 09, 2009, but as of August 12, they seem to have changed the code. video_id= is not in the source anymore.

  8. asdas July 26th, 2010 1:08 PM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZJcVAdmBfg