How to Copy a YouTube Shorts Link (Phone and Desktop)

Every Shorts downloader starts the same way: with a link. It sounds trivial, but it is where most failed downloads actually begin — people copy the channel URL, a search results page, or a link that has been mangled by a messaging app. Here is how to get the right one on every platform, and what the different URL shapes mean.

On the YouTube mobile app

1. Open the Short you want.
2. Look at the column of buttons down the right-hand side. Tap the Share arrow.
3. In the sheet that appears, tap Copy link.

The link is now on your clipboard. If you tap a messaging app instead of Copy link, you will send the Short rather than copy it — a common slip when the icons are close together.

On a desktop browser

Two options, both fine:

• From the address bar. While the Short is playing, click the address bar and copy the whole URL. This is the fastest route.
• From the Share button. Click Share underneath the video, then Copy in the dialog.

The Share dialog has a Start at checkbox for regular videos. It does not matter for Shorts, but if it is ticked, the copied link carries a t= timestamp. That is harmless for downloading — the whole clip is fetched regardless.

From a channel's Shorts tab

If you are browsing a creator's Shorts tab rather than the feed, clicking a thumbnail opens the Short. From there the Share button works exactly as above. Copying the URL of the tab itself gives you youtube.com/@channel/shorts, which is a listing page, not a video — a downloader cannot do anything with it.

The URL formats you might end up with

All of these point at the same video and all of them are accepted by ShortsDL:

The part that matters is the video ID: eleven characters of letters, digits, hyphens and underscores, like dQw4w9WgXcQ. Everything else in the URL is decoration. If you have the ID on its own, you can paste just that.

Query strings such as ?feature=share, ?si=abc123 or &t=5 are ignored, so there is no need to clean the link up before pasting.

Links that will not work

• Channel or profile URLs — youtube.com/@creator. There is no single video to fetch.
• Playlist URLs — a list= parameter without a v= parameter.
• Search or feed URLs — youtube.com/results?....
• Private or unlisted videos you cannot open yourself. If the link does not play for you in a signed-out browser, no third-party tool can reach it either.
• Shortened links from other services — a bit.ly link, for example. Open it first, then copy the real YouTube URL it lands on.

Copying a link someone sent you

Links shared through messaging apps sometimes arrive wrapped in a preview card or with tracking parameters appended by the app. Two safe approaches:

• Long-press the link in the chat and choose Copy link address rather than copying the visible text.
• Or open it, let it land on YouTube, and copy from there.

If a pasted link is not recognised, opening it and re-copying from the address bar fixes it nearly every time.

Then what?

Paste it into the box on ShortsDL and press Download. The full download walkthrough covers what happens next, and if the link is right but the download still fails, this guide works through the causes.