Most people will download YouTube in MP4 because it's an universal format and all YouTube videos are transcoded to MP4 or WebM after uploading. As the second most popular format after MP4, MKV makes it easy to combine audio, pictures, subtitles and audio tracks into one file. Whether you want to add soft subtitles/audio to your downloaded YouTube videos or for personal preference, read this article to learn how to download YouTube to MKV on a computer or mobile.
Cisdem Video Converter, the excellent multifunctional software, stands out from crowd with its stable performance, advanced features and 30X faster speed. Only with video links, it can batch download single videos (private ones and Shorts included), playlist, or the entire YouTube channel in one click.
The app can save 8K, 4K, 1080p, or 720p videos with original quality. Also, it can save YouTube videos to MKV, MP4, M4A, MOV, or any format due to the powerful download and conversion function.
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later 
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
Step 1. Download the software.
Download and install Cisdem YouTube Downloader Mac or Windows version to your computer.
Launch it, tap on 
to go to the interface for downloading online videos.
Step 2. Copy, paste, and parse the URL.
Visit YouTube website, open a video and copy the link address.
Paste the copied link into the blank field at the bottom of Cisdem. Hit on the right “+” or “Enter” key to parse out. As it supports batch processing, click the left "+" button to add more links for bulk processing.
Step 3. Choose the quality (optional)
It will set the highest resolution by default. If you want to change the quality, click the "Format" list to choose a suitable resolution.
Tip: You can also select Subtitle options to download. Then embed them into the MKV videos as either soft subtitles or hard subtitles.
Step 4. Download YouTube videos in batches
Simply click the lower “Start” button to save all videos to your computer. When finished, click 
icon to check them on your local folder.
Step 5. Convert YouTube to MKV
Switch to the conversion interface by clicking 
on the top, drag-n-drop the just downloaded videos to the program, click “Convert all tasks to” button or highlight Format button to open the format list, then click “Video” to select “MKV”, source video quality. Finally, change YouTube to MKV format.
You can use yt-dlp + ffmpeg command line tools to efficiently obtain original YouTube video/audio streams, and then re-encapsulate them. The former is for downloading YouTube videos while the latter for transcoding them to MKV. This method helps you retain the best quality and supports embedding multi-language subtitles into MKV.
Replace MP4 with the source file name and MKV with the desired output file name.
Extra Tip:
To also download subtitles, use the command yt-dlp --write-subs --sub-lang en “video link”. Replace en to any language you want. For automatically translated subtitles, insert --write-auto-subs instead. Then type ffmpeg -i downloaded_video.mp4 -i subtitle.en.vtt -c copy converted_video.mkv to convert YouTube to MKV with subtitles.
After testing all possible “online YouTube to MKV Downloaders” presented by the browser, youtube4kdownloader.com is the only available online service to directly download YouTube to MKV at current. It is easy to use, and can download YouTube video to MKV, MP4 and WebM format from 240p to 4K resolution.
4K Video Downloader for Android is a simple yet helpful application that can download videos from YouTube, Dailymotion, TikTok and more popular media websites. It can download YouTube videos, playlist and channel contents in multiple audios or video formats under different quality.
However, the free version doesn’t remove the ads and only allows people to make 5 downloads per day or 5 videos from a playlist or channel for free. For a better experience, you need to paid $5 for upgrading.
For iOS users, Documents by Readdle makes great contribution on video downloading. Although it is an outstanding file manager on iPhone, it is designed with a built-in app browser that can direct to any online page. In other words, it can download videos from any websites by searching for the according functional online services. The crucial point of it is to find an effective tool that can make YouTube as the MKV format easily.
Undergoing experiments, although MKV is not the list of YouTube supported formats, we got the positive conclusion that YouTube actually supports MKV files, so you can upload MKV to YouTube directly. However, due to the HD quality of he MKV video, MKV videos are much larger in size than other formats at the same length. Thus, it takes more time to upload an MKV video to YouTube.
So if you want to upload a long MKV video or an MKV movie to YouTube, you’d better convert MKV to a YouTube supported format that is smaller, so that you can make a quick transmission to save your time. Also, you can choose either one based on your needs. Below are the supported video formats by YouTube.
For converting MKV movie to YouTube, a professional MKV to YouTube converter is highly recommended, because it not only concludes all video formats you need but also can make bulk conversions in a super fast speed without data loss.
After reading this article, I believe that you must have grabbed the most appropriate method for yourself to download YouTube to MKV on your device for enjoyment. Considering to the copyright and privacy of the uploaders, please don’t disseminate or monetize the downloaded videos without permission.
Emily is a girl who loves to review various multimedia software. She enjoys exploring cutting edge technology and writing how-to guides. Hopefully her articles will help you solve your audio, video, DVD and Blu-ray issues.
