YouTube is an excellent learning tool for people of all ages. To make it profitable for the platform and content creators, videos often contain ads, suggested content, and comments from other users that may or may not be appropriate for sensitive users. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a tool that could strip that all away when you share a video? There is! And it’s legal.
Introducing VideoLink
VideoLink is a free service that “cleans” the extraneous clutter from a video to provide a distraction-free viewing experience. They do have paid tiers available for advanced sharing and saving an unlimited number of links, but for most purposes, the free version is enough.
If you want the sanitized links to last for longer than an hour, you will need to create a free account to save them.
Using VideoLink
To use VideoLink, paste a YouTube link into the entry field on their home page and click “generate link.”
After a moment, the page will redirect and you will see your YouTube video embedded in a VideoLink page. But you still have options to configure.
Below the video, there is an edit tab where you can change the title or description, make it a private video, hide buttons, or add it to a VideoList (like a YouTube playlist). When you are done editing, save and preview.
If you have not already, saving a link prompts you to create an account. When I tried this from the converted video screen, I kept getting a weird message about needing to allow third-party cookies in order to log in. I had to go back to the home page to successfully create an account. You may want to create yours before pasting your first link in.
To view your saved links and lists, click on your name in the upper right corner and select the option. This is also where your account settings live.
How Would You Use This Tool?
Does this tool have a use case for you? If so, let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear how you are using it.