Pick up exactly where you stopped
Interrupted or paused downloads continue from their .part files — even after you close YDM or reboot Windows. Session state is restored automatically on launch.
YouTube Download Manager · v4.1
A calmer, smarter way to download YouTube videos on Windows.
YDM is a fast, stable, resumable video and playlist downloader. One self-contained executable with a high-performance download engine built in — paste a link, pick your quality, and let the queue handle the rest.
Free & open source (GPLv3)
Windows 10 / 11
No account, no telemetry
The YDM desktop interface — queue, progress and live metrics.
Resumable across restarts
Single & playlist downloads
Up to 4K quality
MP4 · MKV · WebM · MP3
Clipboard link detection
Multi-job queue
Zero re-encoding merges
Why YDM
Built for people who download more than one video.
Most download tools stall, lose progress, or fall over on large playlists. YDM is engineered around the boring things that matter: resumes, retries, disk safety, and honest metrics.
Playlists without the pain
Paste a playlist and select videos individually, with checkboxes or compact index expressions like 1-10 or 3,6,8. Ascending or descending numbering keeps files in order.
Adaptive concurrency
Fragment workers auto-tune between 2 and 12 based on measured throughput and error rate, with hysteresis so they never oscillate. Prefer fixed behavior? Choose Conservative, Balanced, or Aggressive.
Zero re-encoding
Separate video and audio streams are merged without re-encoding — no quality loss, no wasted CPU. Audio-only MP3 is the only explicit conversion, and only when you ask for it.
Clipboard link detection
Copy a supported YouTube link and YDM notices — offering a one-click “Add to Queue” popup or a native toast, without even opening the window. Detection keeps running from the tray.
Real metrics, honestly reported
Instant and rolling-average speed, ETA, worker count, retry counts, and per-file progress for dual-stream downloads — computed from real data, never invented.
How it works
From link to file in four steps.
Paste a link
Paste any direct YouTube video or playlist URL into YDM — or just copy it to the clipboard and let detection offer it to you.
Analyze & select
YDM lists every entry with title, duration, and status. Tick videos individually or use index expressions like 5,9-20.
Choose quality & format
Pick from 144p up to 2160p (4K), best-available, or audio-only — in MP4, MKV, WebM, or MP3. Sensible defaults (360p MP4) are always one click away.
Download & resume
Jobs run in the multi-job queue with pause, resume, reorder, and live progress. Close the app — everything resumes where it left off.
Formats & quality
| Video quality | Best, Best MP4, 144p – 2160p (4K) |
|---|---|
| Audio | Best audio, MP3 (re-encode) |
| Containers | MP4, MKV, WebM — always stream-copy merged |
| Numbering | Ascending, descending, or original titles |
| Speed limit | Optional per-session throttle (e.g. 2M, 500k) |
When a chosen format can't be delivered as separate streams, YDM automatically falls back to the best single-file version available.
Designed for the background
YDM keeps working while you don't watch it.
The window is a face, not the process. Downloads, clipboard detection, and notifications all run from the system tray — close the window and everything continues.
Tray-first operation
Open the window, pause link detection, review activity, or quit — all from the tray menu. Closing the window hides it instead of killing your downloads.
Native notifications
Know when a queue finishes or a link is detected — via native Windows toasts, even with the window closed. A compact popup offers one-click queueing.
Private by design
No telemetry, no updater phoning home, no accounts. YDM talks to YouTube only, and everything it knows lives on your machine in %APPDATA%\YDM.
Questions
Good to know before you download.
Is YDM free?
Yes. YDM is free and open source software, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3. There are no ads, no upsells, and no feature paywalls.
What can I download with YDM?
Single YouTube videos, playlists, Shorts, live streams, and channel video tabs — as video up to 4K (2160p) in MP4, MKV, or WebM, or as audio including MP3. Only download content you have the right to save, such as your own uploads or content offered under a permissive license.
Does YDM work when my connection drops?
Yes — that's its core strength. Interrupted downloads resume from .part files with gentle retry backoff, even across app restarts. A disk-space guard checks free space before and during every job.
Which version of Windows does YDM need?
YDM runs on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit) as a self-contained executable with no runtime prerequisites — nothing else to install. If you see the interface in your browser instead of a dedicated window, that's YDM's built-in fallback doing its job; everything works the same either way.
From the blog
Guides for getting more out of YDM.
Download without losing progress
Why big downloads fail on Windows — and the resumable workflow that survives drops, reboots and full disks.
Download a whole playlist
Select exactly the videos you want, keep them in order, and let the queue handle a forty-part batch.
Is a downloader safe?
An honest six-point checklist for judging any downloader before you install it — including YDM.
Ready when you are.
One executable. No installation wizard required — though a friendly per-user installer is included if you want shortcuts.