How to download high quality videos onto iOS devices using Shortcuts
So you want to make GIFs or a fun little video edit for your fandom. The problem is, you don't have access to a standard desktop computer—just an iOS device that is not jailbroken (i.e., you're limited to apps in the Apple App store). You can always just screen record. But if you want something that gives you a clean file at its highest resolution, there's a pre-made shortcut for the Shortcuts app will allow you to download video files from hundreds of different websites at their highest available quality with a few clicks.
Operating systems: iOS (iPhones, iPads)
Required apps/tools: Shortcuts SW-DLT shortcut; A-Shell Mini (recommended) or A-Shell
Optional apps: VLC Media Player and Video Converter and Compressor.
Input: video links (compatible with links from hundreds of websites)
NOTE: If you have a desktop computer or an Android device, there are ready-made apps that will do this for you which you can download freely—for example, 4kVideoDownloader.
If you're unfamiliar, Shortcuts is an pre-installed Apple app that lets users make "shortcuts" that execute a series of operations across one or more apps on their device with the click of a button. You just need to add a community-made shortcut that does all the downloading for you to your Shortcuts app, and give it the free terminal app that it needs in order to do its thing.
NOTE: Shortcuts are, by nature, open source. This shortcut in particular is a "wrapper" for yt-dlp and gallery-dl which are also open source and hosted on GitHub.
You can download this terminal app for free in the app store. Don't worry—you don't have to type a single thing into it. All you need to do is download it.
NOTE: The full version, just called A-Shell will also work, but it's over 1 gb in size while A-Shell is a few hundred MB, so save yourself the bloat.
Shortcuts SW-DLT shortcut app.
The SW-DLT shortcut can be shared to your Shortcut app via this link on RoutineHub.
Select "Get Shortcut" to open the shortcut in your Shortcuts app. Then tap "Set Up Shortcut"
The following panel will open:
All you need to be mindful of here is the "isMini" line. If you downloaded A-Shell Mini, this line should read "True".
If everything looks how it should, select "Add Shortcut" and it'll be added to your shortcut library in the Shortcuts app.
2. Copy the video link you want
I'm going to copy a youtube video as an example, but you can download links from hundreds of sites. When you've copied your link, open your Shortcuts app, go to the "Shortcuts" view and select "SW-DLT".
A prompt like this should open (it'll automatically grab your link from your clipboard).
NOTE: Throughout this process, Shortcuts is going to ask you for a lot of different permissions. If you just click "Always Allow" for each one, going forward you shouldn't get those prompts a bunch).
Select "Download Video" and two more panels will open. The first asks you to select your desired video quality/resolution and next asks you to select frame rate (choose 30FPS if it's a TV Show or a Movie).
After selecting your FPS, the shortcut will automatically open A-Shell Mini and begin running a script that downloads your file.
NOTE: The first time you ever use SW-DLT, A-Shell-Mini won't download the video—it's instead going to set up everything it needs to get videos downloaded from here on out then it's going to send you back to the Shortcuts app. Just go back through the process of clicking the SW-DLT shortcut and choosing the quality and FPS again. You won't have to do it twice anymore after the first time.
When your file is finished downloading, a share sheet will open.
Select the drop down arrow at the top of the screen to select how you'd like to save your file.
DO NOT click "Save Video".
Hit "Save to Files" instead.
Selecting "Save Video" will result in your device trying to save the file to the Photos App, which can't load or save some video files because of their codec. A video's codec is different from it's container (file extension type). In other words, the MP4 file format of this trailer I downloaded isn't the issue. The way it was transcoded results in its codec being incompatible with the Photos app.
If I just want to play the video locally as is, I can download VLC Media Player and play the video there. But if I want to use it do edits on my phone... it'd be a hell of a lot better if it was in my Photos app, since a lot of apps only access media from there, right? So I need to re-transcode it.
3. Transcode the video so it can be moved to the Photos app.
Transcoding a video allows you to change its codec and its extension. I've come up with two free ways to do this on iOS so far.
This is what I recommend you use. It's an online tool that converts videos up to 4GB in size to different video and audio codecs and file formats and can give them back to you at their original quality in just a few clicks. I was able to upload my 4K video in this tool on iOS and have it transcoded to the (default) H.264 codec, playing on my device still in 4K in a few minutes.
Hit "Open File" and select the video from your Files app. After it loads, you can choose your video and audio output options. However, I left everything at default and it worked.
If you open "settings", you can see the video codec that Video-Converter plans to use. If those codecs are H.264 and AAC for video and audio respectively (which should be the defaults), you'll get a file that plays back on your iOS device. Click "Convert" and it'll begin making the new video for you and will give you a download when it's done. You can save that new download to your Files app, and then share it to the Photos app by finding it in your Files app, holding down on it to open options, and selecting Share > Save video.
Video Converter and Compressor
I would only use this if you need something offline. It's slower, it has annoying ads, and it bugs you about a paid version you don't need. It will work though and it's the only one I found in the app store that doesn't paywall what you need or limit you to some kind of free trial. Select "Video Converter">Files/iCloud and select your video. The following panel will open:
This is again—a lot of options. But if you toggle "Advanced" you should again see the H.264 and AAC video and audio codecs are the defaults, and those will play in Photos. Select "Convert" and it'll serve you an ad, but once its done, your video will begin downloading.
NOTE: While there is a 4K (2160p) resolution option, I had to stick with 1080p because the app crashed every time I tried to set the resolution that high. ymmv.
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