Five one-click actions
A frosted pill on every thumbnail: save the image, copy the bitmap, copy its link, open full size — and download the video. Styled to match YouTube’s own overlay chips, revealed on hover.
hover a thumbnail → yoink it
Yoink grab thumbnails and videos from YouTube
A subtle, YouTube-native toolbar on every thumbnail. Save the full-res image in one click — or download the whole video at up to 4K with yt-dlp, with a live progress bar, finished X-ready so it posts straight to x.com. Open source, fully local, no account.
- Save, copy, or open the full-res thumbnail in one click
- Download the whole video — up to 4K, or audio-only
- Clips come out X-ready — H.264 / AAC, ready to post
- Live progress, cancel, and Show in folder
- Local and open source — no account, no cloud
install (unpacked)
# 1. download the latest release zip and unzip it
# github.com/guitaripod/yoink/releases
# 2. chrome://extensions → Developer mode → Load unpacked → pick the yoink/ folder
# optional — enable video downloads (everything else works without this):
brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg # or your package manager / winget
cd yoink/native-host && ./install.sh
# then fully restart your browserWhy Yoink
Download the whole video
The fifth button hands the video to a local yt-dlp: best video + best audio merged to an mp4, streamed back to the toolbar with a live progress bar you can cancel, then a Show in folder when it lands.
Pick your quality
1080p by default, up to 4K, or audio-only (m4a). “Ask where to save” pops a native folder chooser; otherwise it drops straight into your Downloads folder.
Clips X.com will actually take
x.com ingests H.264 in yuv420p with AAC and nothing else — hand it YouTube’s AV1 or Opus and the upload is accepted, then fails. Yoink asks yt-dlp for an H.264 rendition, then checks the finished file and stream-copies it when it already complies, or re-encodes once when it doesn’t. Drop it straight into the composer.
Yours, on your disk
Everything runs locally. No account, no servers, no analytics. The video helper is a tiny native-messaging bridge to yt-dlp on your own machine. GPL-3.0, source on GitHub.
Everywhere on YouTube
Home, search, subscriptions, channels, the watch-page sidebar, and Shorts — anywhere a video shows up. Works on Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi.
Optional, and guided
The four core actions need nothing extra. The video button walks you through a one-time helper setup with a live status page that adapts to whatever you already have installed.
See it work
FAQ
Is it on the Chrome Web Store?
Not yet — grab the latest release zip, unzip it, and Load unpacked from chrome://extensions. It works on Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi.
Do I need anything for the thumbnail actions?
No. Save image, copy image, copy image link, and open full size work the moment you install it. Only the optional video download uses a local helper.
Why does downloading video need a helper?
A browser can’t run a local program directly, so a tiny native-messaging bridge lets Yoink talk to yt-dlp on your machine. Nothing leaves your computer, and the extension guides you through the one-time setup.
What quality can I download?
Up to 4K — best video and audio merged to mp4 — down to 480p, or audio-only (m4a). 1080p is the default. Merging 1080p/4K needs ffmpeg installed alongside yt-dlp.
Why does my downloaded clip fail to upload to X?
Because YouTube serves AV1 video and Opus audio, and x.com only processes H.264 in yuv420p with AAC — it accepts the upload and then fails it. Yoink handles this for you: X-ready clips is on by default, so every download comes out as an mp4 X takes. Compliant files are stream-copied in seconds; anything else is re-encoded once, at up to 4K60.
Is it private?
Completely. Yoink is open source (GPL-3.0) and fully local: no account, no servers, no analytics. Thumbnails and videos go straight to your disk.
Does it work on Shorts?
Yes — anywhere YouTube shows a video, including Shorts, the watch-page sidebar, and channel pages.