Too Many Saved Videos? How to Keep Them All on One Shelf
By Ahmed Mahmood
How many videos have you saved to watch later? A link in a chat, a bookmark you forgot, a tab you never closed, a file somewhere in a folder.
Most of us save far more than we watch, and then we lose track of where everything is.
A few habits help, whatever tools you use.
Keep one place. Decide where every video goes, whether it is a link or a file, instead of spreading them across bookmarks, chats and folders.
Group by purpose, not by site. A collection called Cooking or Learn Spanish is easier to open than a pile sorted by where each video came from.
Remember where you stopped. Half-watched videos are the ones that get forgotten, so use anything that shows what you started and lets you carry on.
Be able to search. Titles, channels and names should be one search away.
That is what we are building with Your Watch Shelf, a video library app for Mac and Windows from Amastran NET. It is launching soon.
You paste a link and get a card with the title, channel and picture. YouTube, Vimeo and TikTok links play inside the app, in each site's own player. Links from other sites, such as Netflix or Instagram, are saved and open in your web browser. You can also add your own video files or a whole folder.
Put videos in collections, even collections inside collections, and the Home page shows what you started, with a Continue button. One search box finds titles, file names, channels and collection names.
Your library stays on your computer. If you want it on more than one computer, there is an optional sync through your own Google Drive, and it stays off until you connect it.
It does not download videos from online sites. Online videos are saved as links and play in each site's own player, and Your Watch Shelf is not made by, or connected to, any of those sites.
It is launching soon for Mac and Windows, with a free 14-day trial. You can read what it does, and see the pictures, on the Your Watch Shelf page.
A shelf only works if it is easy to use. Start with one place and one habit. 🎬