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Wayback Machine video downloader

Paste a YouTube link — even one that now says Video unavailable — or any web.archive.org link. If the Internet Archive saved the video while it was up, you get it back as an MP4.

Drag & drop a file hereor click to browse from your device

Can you download videos from the Wayback Machine?

Sometimes — and it comes down to one thing: whether the Archive saved the video itself, or only the page around it. The Wayback Machine mostly stores web pages, but for YouTube it also stored the video stream for a great many videos. That is what makes recovery possible.

When you paste a YouTube link here, the Archive is asked directly for that video’s saved copy. The answer takes seconds: either the file, or a clear “not archived”.

What to expect

  • Quality is usually 360p

    That is the version the Archive saved, and generally the only one there is. Nothing can restore the original resolution from it.

  • Popular videos are the likeliest to be there

    Videos with a lot of views, and ones people deliberately archived, were saved most often. A small video deleted years ago often never was.

  • Only what was public

    A video that was private before it was deleted was never archived — the Archive can only save what anyone could see.

  • YouTube works best

    For most other video sites the Archive kept the page but not the video in it. A web.archive.org link straight to a file — an .mp4 or .mp3 address it captured — does work.

Recovering a deleted YouTube video, step by step

  1. Find the video’s link

    It looks like youtube.com/watch?v= followed by 11 characters. Look in your browser history, in messages or posts where it was shared, or in a playlist that had it — the playlist menu’s “Show unavailable videos” lists deleted entries, each still linked to its ID.

  2. Paste it above

    Any form works: youtube.com/watch, youtu.be or Shorts. A web.archive.org link pasted as-is works too.

  3. Download the MP4

    If the Archive has a copy, it is ready in seconds. If it does not, you are told straight away — retrying will not change the answer.

Wayback Machine videos — Frequently asked questions

Yes, when the Archive saved the video file and not just the page around it. It did that for a large number of YouTube videos. Paste the link above and you will know within seconds.

Copies come from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, a non-profit library that handles removal requests for what it holds. A recovered video is still its creator’s work. For a video that is still online, use the video downloader for any website.