In this case, the videos are downloaded onto the browser’s cache, so technically, they’re still downloaded on your computer.
Hopefully, it’ll become a permanently accessible feature as people genuinely want this – there’s no better proof than the numerous third-party platforms and apps made specifically to enable them to download videos from YouTube.
Then, the platform will decide if the experiment failed or succeeded, and we’ll get to know whether it’ll be rolled out to every market or not. YouTube says the Download option and the files fetched through it will remain available until October 19, 2021, which is when the testing ends. Well, there are multiple catches, but something is better than nothing, and it’s understandable that experimental features cannot be made available everywhere right away. The catch is that you need to be a Premium subscriber, you need to be based in France or India – and to play the downloaded video, you will still need to use a web browser with the URL “ /feed/downloads”. YouTube is testing a new feature that allows users to download videos from the platform for offline viewing, but it’s not as straightforward as most would have liked.
