YouTube contains many useful features that are frequently overlooked. One of those features is using your YouTube channel to store videos even if you don’t make them public. Another overlooked aspect of YouTube is that it can serve as a file conversion tool for some video formats.

When you upload videos to YouTube you don’t have to make them public. Since YouTube doesn’t limit how many files you can upload, you can use your YouTube channel to simply store your video files for free. When you need the files, you can download them at anytime.

Occasionally, you may have a video file that you need converted to MP4. In that case, upload it to your YouTube channel. Once it has been uploaded and processed, you should be able to download it as an MP4. I recently did this with an AVI file.

Check out the screenshots below to see how to download your files from YouTube. (This only works with videos that you own and are in your YouTube account).

Click image for full size.

Click image for full size.

I’ll be sharing many more tips and tricks like this one in my upcoming workshop at the Ed Tech Teacher Google Jamboree in Medfield, Massachusetts. Please join us, it is going to be fun!