The YouTube application for Android has a “pre-load” function that downloads the latest videos viewed online to the device cache and allows them to be viewed offline or without the Internet afterwards.
This download is done automatically every time the user plays a video (when they are normally viewed online). That video, or even the latest recent videos, can be viewed later, even if the device doesn’t have a wifi or mobile data connection. As the application already stores or saves them in the cache, the only thing it does is take the information from this memory and not download it again from the internet.
Cached YouTube video, playing in airplane mode (no wifi / mobile data)
This pre-loading has its drawbacks. Navigation within the YouTube application always requires the Internet. This means that, to watch the preloaded videos offline, you have to be careful to leave the application on the screen of the video you want to see later. If it is a group of videos, you have to preload them in the desired sequence and leave the app in the last video of the group. To view them offline, the last video is played and then the back button is used to play the previous videos.
From what has been said before, it is evident that it is easy to lose access to preloaded videos if the Internet connection is completely lost. If you have an active mobile data plan this is no longer a problem because the user can temporarily use the mobile data to locate the preloaded video and then disconnect the connection to make sure it plays from the cache and the plan data is not used .
You cannot configure the number of videos that can be cached or the minutes of video that can be downloaded. This is a question that should be tested on every Android device. What it is possible to see is the amount of cache that the YouTube application occupies to store the videos, in Settings > Applications > YouTube > Cache memory .
Cache used to store preloaded videos. YouTube v10.
How to actually download YouTube videos
The Tubemate Android app ( tubemate.net ) downloads YouTube videos to your device’s internal or external storage, for offline viewing at any time and with any video player. The difference here is that the user no longer has to pre-load the video but simply send it to download.
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