Downloading a playlist without filling your disk
A fifty-video playlist at 1080p is around thirty gigabytes. That's worth knowing before you press the button rather than after your disk fills.
- Budget roughly 600 MB per 15-minute video at 1080p
- 720p roughly halves that with little visible loss on a laptop
- For talking-head content, audio-only is a tenth of the size
The arithmetic
A fifteen-minute video runs about 600 MB at 1080p, 290 MB at 720p, and 43 MB as audio. Multiply by the number of entries you actually intend to watch, not by the length of the playlist.
Select before you start
Most playlists contain things you already have or don't want. Deselecting them before the batch begins is far faster than cancelling halfway and starting over, because the archive is built from what's selected.
When audio is the right answer
Lecture series, interviews, podcasts and conference talks lose almost nothing without the picture. Switching the batch to the Audio tab turns thirty gigabytes into three.
What happens to unavailable entries
Private, deleted and region-blocked videos are skipped and flagged rather than failing the whole batch. The rest of the archive is unaffected.