this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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does anyone know a good workaround for watching age-restricted videos from youtube without being forced to having a google account? i've tried

  • a few browser extensions (very old ones) who promised to solve it. didn't work.
  • downloading them through classic youtube downloading services. didn't work.
  • switching to nsfwyoutube.com/url . didn't work does anyone know of a working solution right now? thanks a lot in advance!!
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[–] Zoma@sh.itjust.works 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I found some of those download youtube sites do work lol. This one works for me i just tested it https://ytdown.to/en2/

[–] Brutticus@midwest.social 1 points 10 hours ago

Bless you sir

[–] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

Verified. I was able to use this to download an age restricted video just now.

[–] onlooker@lemmy.ml 8 points 23 hours ago

Bad news, I'm afraid. Tried opening a few restricted videos with PipePipe, FreeTube, tried downloading with yt-dlp, nothing works. YouTube is being locked down.

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago

there used to be a userscript that bypasses it, but sadly it stopped working a few years ago. haven't found a solution since...

[–] mukt@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't think so. The members only trend is annoying also.

[–] DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 34 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Age-gated vids are login-walled full stop, and I won't be surprised if the rest of the site gets login-walled at some point too, in addition to the implementation of DRM so you can't download YT vids anymore, nor use alt clients.

[–] cardamon@leminal.space 13 points 1 day ago

that's so bad...:(

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Grayjay does allow you to use an account only for age gate/content gate authentication, so I wonder if there are any burner or public google accounts that could be repurposed for that (junk because multiple people use them)

[–] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hmmm.. similar to how Aurora store lets you use one of their google accounts to download from play store. Sounds like a good idea for alt clients (though idk if that involves expensive proxying to avoid passing around tokens so maybe not feasible).

[–] rmerc@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've found no way to do this, tried everything. The question for me has changed to "how do I create a dummy google account for instances when I do seem to need to log in" and I've pretty much given up on this too. They require a phone number; I haven't been able to get them to accept any kind of temporary number service/app I've found online, I could try harder to acquire some kind of more private burner phone or sim card but I feel like they'd just try to verify me once I no longer have access to the number and I'd get frozen out.

[–] SteakSneak@retrolemmy.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Did you try paid SMS services or just the free ones? I tried some listed on fmhy but didn't try actually paying for a number

[–] rmerc@lemmy.ml 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I never tried a paid one - might be the next step?

[–] SteakSneak@retrolemmy.com 1 points 8 hours ago

Yeah I guess so. I don't have a phone that can run graphene or any other privacy OS so I'm running a sort of "hardened" stock android os 🤣 I just want a random google account to download a couple of apps that require play services in order to function

[–] IndigoGollum@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] cardamon@leminal.space 10 points 1 day ago

it doesn't. i've tried multiple alternative frontends

[–] LytiaNP@lemmy.today 11 points 1 day ago

Nope, it's not possible to watch age restricted videos without a verified Google account token