How to Record YouTube Live Stream [Use Archive or Recorder]

Anyone who wonders how to record live streaming video on YouTube must have a look at this post…

Has COVID-19 canceled something of your 2020 plan? Maybe holiday travel, an outside adventure or a live music event… Anyway, you have to admit that, due to the unexpected remote work or learning which may drive you into nuts, you are better at online streaming stuff for your virtual communication, teaching, studying, as well as leisure-time entertainment.

On YouTube, the most popular video hosting platform worldwide with live streaming section, many live streaming events happened or will take place during the coronavirus pandemic. Big-name musicians and music festivals are holding live performance one after another (e.g Elton John’s The iHeart Living Room Convert), video game broadcasting surges the popularity amid the virus lockdown, and some sports and conference tournaments are moved on YouTube, too.

Then how to record YouTube live stream on your PC, Mac or mobile? If you happen to be one of those who are willing to record anything on YouTube Live to hard drive for saving or watching in the future, you have two or three ways to go as listed below.

Way 1: Use YouTube’s Archive Feature

Suitable for: streamer only and the living convent must be less than 12 hours.

Generally, living streaming sites offer the related archive function to act as default YouTube recorder, keeping the streaming content recorded for sharing with public or as a privacy asset. YouTube just lines up and includes this capability, too. When you are starting up a live show on YouTube in resolution like 1440p or even 4K, regardless of the type, the service will automatically archive it in the background, process the recorded video and then show it in the YouTube Studio after a short of time. So you can check maybe several hours after the ending of the live streaming, set it open to others or as a secret file, or delete it as you like.

However there are two things you should take a note:
– One is that the archive feature is only workable for living performance within 12 hours, so once you’re going a longer fight, the archive file will miss something.
– The other one is that YouTube live archive is only available for a certain period of time. In other words, when it goes expired, you will have no opportunity to access it anymore.

In spite of this, both YouTube official post and we suggest you do a local achieve as a backup if you really need it.

Way 2: Use YouTube Live Stream Recorder Software

Suitable for: both streamer and audience

For streamers who initiate living event with more than 12 hours duration or audiences who are unsure on whether the streamers would upload/open the (archive) video file, it’s a wiser choice to do real-time local capture with YouTube live stream recorder. In this way, once the live stream is finished, you can enjoy a high quality 1:1 screencast immediately.

There are piles of YouTube screen recording software for both computer and mobile and below are some top picks you can rely on:
● YouTube Screen Recorder for Mobile: Android/iOS’s built-in recorder, AZ Screen Recorder
● YouTube Screen Recorder for Computer: OBS Studio, RecMaster

Note: If you are going to record a continuous long-time YouTube streaming, just complete this mission on computer with generous storage space rather than the mobile.

Compared to open source OBS, RecMaster delivers much easier workflow for beginners. In addition, in order to meet different capture requirements, RecMaster is preloaded with various options on recording modes (video, webcam and audio capture included), video/audio formats, video quality, frame rates, audio source & volume, and several down-to-earth tools like schedule recording, annotation, editor and one-click sharing. Therefore, you can work out a YouTube live streaming capture at whatever size, quality and length as you prefer.

Steps on How RecMaster Records YouTube Live Stream on PC/Mac:

01. Free download and set it up on your Windows or Mac based machine, either desktop or laptop.

02. Open RecMaster up and choose a recording mode that suits you most: Full Screen, Custome Area, Webcam, Audio Only etc.
03. Do settings before the capture and you can record full-screen 1080p or 4K live video at up to 60fps quality. If you wanna do a time-fixed capture on any live show, click Task Schedule to define the start and end time. Don’t forget to enable it.

04. When the live streaming is on, click REC button or use Alt + 1 hotkeys to start the capture. If you’ve enabled schedule recording, the screencasting will start automatically.
05. When the live streaming is over, click the red circle button or use Alt + 2 to stop it. Also for scheduled recording, you don’t have to do anything, just wait for it to go to an end by itself. RecMaster can also act as YouTube MP3 recorder to keep the audio only.

Way 3: Use YouTube Video Downloader

Suitable for: both streamer and audience

There’s another way to move existing YouTube live stream archive to your local hard disk and that’s exactly taking advantage of online video or YouTube downloading software like youtube-dl (a command-line program), Keepvid YouTube Video Downloader (an online service) and 4K Video Downloader (a free desktop app). Of course, the premise is the streamer you are following makes the archive available for you to watch afterwards.

In Conclusion

After finishing this guide on how to record YouTube live stream video, you must have your own idea on which method is more appropriate for your situation. By using it, it will become a piece of cake to record and save any YouTube live stream at will – live gaming, live concert, live TV, live sports and such. Besides YouTube live, you can also leverage the same tools here to record twitch stream, Facebook Live, Periscope and more online sources. The only note from editor is that since both copyright laws and live streaming apps prohibit any copying, downloading or distribution behavior of the copyrighted content, we don’t advocate you recording online streaming videos for any unfair or illegal usage.

Topics you may also interest in:
5 Best Free YouTube Recorders