Download button: save video and audio directly

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#4,074 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
javascript
Domain
frontend, web-dev

Research direction

Start by examining how the extension adds controls to YouTube video pages, especially around the like/subscribe area and Shorts. Compare the available external-service approaches, including cobalt.tools and Pytube, and determine how quality and codec choices would be represented. Done means a working download button supporting video, audio-only, the listed qualities and codecs, and Shorts.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Feature request Generated

Feature Request: Download Button for Videos and Audio

Description

Add a download button to YouTube video pages that lets users download videos (MP4) or audio (MP3) in various qualities directly from the page.

Why

This is the single most common feature across ALL YouTube userscripts. Dozens of scripts exist just for this:

  • YouTube Downloader (GreasyFork, 1.28M installs — most popular YT script ever)
  • YouTube Direct Downloader (GreasyFork, 447K installs)
  • YouTube Tools All-in-one (GreasyFork, 192K installs)
  • YouTube Ultimate Downloader (GreasyFork)
  • And dozens more...

ImprovedTube has NO download functionality at all.

Preferred behavior
  • Download button next to the like/subscribe area
  • Quality selection: 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, audio only
  • Codec selection: h264, vp9, av1
  • Shorts support
  • Download via external service (cobalt.tools, Pytube, or similar)
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
4.6k
Forks
996
Avg merge
2d 15h
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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