Most YouTube videos are available worldwide, but not all of them. Here’s how to bypass YouTube’s regional filter and get past a ‘The uploader has not made this video available in your country’ error message.
YouTube is a global video giant that’s helped companies and individual YouTubers and creators to reach fans all over the world. That doesn’t mean every single video is available in every single country however, and all of us have probably come across the occasional irritating ‘The uploader has not made this video available in your country’ error message.
That’s frustrating when all you want to do is watch a film trailer or music video, and don’t want complex licensing nonsense to get in between you and your video. Luckily, there are ways to bypass YouTube’s regional filter and watch videos that are blocked in your country. Here’s how.
Use a VPN
The most reliable way to get around the region filter is simply to use a VPN, which lets you browse the web as if you were based in a different country. You can try this with a free VPN, though we recommend a paid service like NordVPN – currently at the top of our best VPN ranking – as you tend to get faster connections, more server options, and much better data security. There’s also usually a free trial anyway.
Simply install your VPN of choice – many will now run on PC, Mac, Android, or iOS – making sure you choose one that lets you pick the location of the server you connect to. Head into the VPN app, and make sure to set the server to be within a country that you know has access to the video in question – normally the location of the video’s creator or uploader is a safe bet.
Then all you have to do is open your browser again, and head to the YouTube video you want to watch. YouTube should now think that you’re located within the other country and load the video. Depending on your choice of VPN the video might load slightly slower or in lower quality – again, part of why a paid service is normally worth the cost – but either way the video should play fine.
This is usually the quickest and easiest way to get past the region block on YouTube videos, especially if it’s a problem you run into repeatedly.
Use a proxy
If you don’t want to use a VPN, the next best thing is a proxy server. This has a similar effect to a VPN – allowing you to browse as if in a different country – but is less secure and doesn’t encrypt your traffic, which is why we normally recommend a VPN over a proxy. If you just want to watch music videos on YouTube, encryption might not be your biggest concern, but if you’re trying to access YouTube from a country with a repressive government that bans certain videos, a VPN is definitely the better option.
As with VPNs, there are free proxy servers around, but they’re often so limited that a paid service is worth it, especially if you can find one with a free trial. You’ll typically have to access the server through a web browser extension, and once again make sure to select a server located in a country you think will have access to the video in question. Then load up YouTube and start watching.
Download the video
If all else fails, you might be able to simply download the YouTube video and thus get around the region-blocking entirely. We have an entire article dedicated to how to download YouTube videos to your phone, PC, tablet, or anything else, so we won’t run through the specifics here.
Do bear in mind that while it isn’t illegal to download videos from YouTube, it is technically against Google’s terms of service, and is arguably immoral since you’re circumventing the adverts that help fund the site and its content.
