Watching YouTube video offline through unofficial channels takes money from Google and video creators. There ‘s a reason YouTube runs ads : people make a surviving this way.
Reading: How to Download YouTube Videos
obviously, stealing videos from YouTube is a bad no-no. If you want to share a video, YouTube and most other video recording sites make it easy, from embedding to emailing to sharing via social networks. You plainly do not need to download a video most of the time. however, you have your reasons. If you must download a YouTube video—absolutely need to, barely for yourself, and not for dissemination, and not to be a total douche-nozzle—here ‘s how. note : This story is updated frequently as the tools involved change regularly. Some of those changes are not constantly pleasant, such as software so full of “ extras ” it gets flagged as malware by antivirus tools. The like goes for the benefactor websites—a exchange in a site ‘s ad network can besides create issues with malware. To prevent this from becoming a laundry list of programs and sites that can download YouTube videos, we came up with a few rules for inclusion. Services must :
- Support 4K downloads even in the free version .
- bring with top three video sites : YouTube, Facebook, and Flickroom .
- Download entire playlists or channels in a batch ( on YouTube ), at least with a paid translation .
- Output to MP3 for audio ( or offer companion software that does indeed ) .
- Have an interface that doesn’t suck .
- Not collect your personal data beyond your e-mail address .
- Not contain malware. If there ‘s even a whiff of it in the air, even a PUP, it ‘s out .
The programs, services, and sites in this fib are all absolve of spam/virus/problems as of this write, but caveat buyer. big time. particularly if you ‘re not very emptor-ing .
Contents
YouTube Premium Downloads
A sword new ( as of September 2021 ) feature is now available for subscribers of YouTube Premium. This is the gainful version of YouTube that allows you to watch without ads. It now offers television downloads. Kind of .
There are some major caveats .
- This is considered an experimental feature. Google only plans to make it available officially until November 16, 2021 ( that ‘s an extension from the original deadline of October 19 ). Who knows if YouTube will make it permanent .
- All the video recording you download is limited to 1080p quality soap, or lower. No 4K .
- You can only try one experimental feature at a fourth dimension ( so you ca n’t have this feature active along with the modern test of “ picture-in-a-picture on io. ” )
- On your first download—initiated by clicking the Download associate under a video recording you see in Chrome, Edge, or Opera on the desktop—the military service will try to get you to download the YouTube desktop app, which is free and optional .
The biggest caution however is that this feature doesn’t really download a video to save on your computer everlastingly. It is more akin to the download feature of speech found on mobile apps for Netflix and Hulu, which makes a streaming video available to watch by and by, using your local anesthetic storage. This is not a method that allows you to, say, watch a video recording using a different player like the VLC Media Player .
You entree the download by going to the YouTube hamburger menu and selecting Downloads to get the tilt of what you ‘ve grabbed with the browser. The foliate says “ Downloads remain available arsenic long as your device has an active internet connection at least once every 30 days. ” This probably is n’t precisely what you are looking for in a download. But the tools below give birth precisely that .
Desktop Software
Third-party software is where you will get the best control over downloading on-line videos. typically, you paste the URL for the YouTube television you want into the course of study, and it downloads the highest quality interpretation it can find. For video in 1080p high Definition ( HD ) format, that ‘s normally an MP4 file. For anything higher in quality—4K or 8K—the file format is typically MKV. In the past, YouTube videos were Flash-based, so your download was an FLV file, but those tend to be harder to play back. MP4, short-circuit for MPEG-4 Part 14 multimedia format, plays everywhere bill that the MKV charge, besides called a Matroska, is a container—the file could contain television utilizing any count of codecs inside. The fool-proof way to play them all is to use the VLC Media Player for Windows, which plays everything. ( Read more about it below. ) As for the downloaders, here are the best options .
VLC Media Player
free ; Windows, macOS, Linux We mention VLC Media Player above because it ‘s a fantastic instrument for Windows users that plays back merely about any media ever created. It turns out, it besides has the ability to download YouTube videos, albeit in a twist way. ( If you run into any problems with it, you may need to do a full re-install of VLC and clear your cache to make it work. ) Copy a url from a YouTube video recording, then open up VLC. From the Media menu, choice Open Network Stream ( Ctrl+N ) and paste in the URL. Click Play. When the video recording is playing, go to Tools > Codec Information. There is a box at the penetrate called “ Source ” —copy the URL you find in that box .
Go back to your browser and paste the URL—it ‘s a irregular web address and will expire eventually—in the address bar and start playing the video. When you ‘re viewing the television in the browser, you ‘ll see an option to download the file to keep locally .
however, it appears that VLC is entirely going to save your file as 1080p and not any higher, even if the original YouTube stream was available in 1440p or 2160p ( aka 4K ). It besides wo n’t convert video recording to other formats. To get those options, you need the background software below .
4K Video Downloader
release or $ 15 for life license on 3 computers ; Windows, macOS, Ubuntu Linux, Android
Multi-lingual 4K Video Downloader (4KVD) is frequently updated and features clear download links on the program ‘s web site ; no ad trap here. The software does what it advertises in a simpleton interface : grab videos up to 8K in timbre and downloads to plenty of formats. Just copy a YouTube URL and click the Paste Link button to get started. 4KVD will even grab subtitles, entire playlists, and all the video recording in a channel to which you subscribe. The sites supported are limited to the big names like YouTube, Flickroom, Facebook, and a few others, but that covers most of what you need. It does display a large banner ad to keep the lights on and you ‘re limited to 30 downloads a day on the unblock adaptation. In tests, I had to make a trade from MP4 to MKV format to get my test television to download in 4K. 4KVD snagged the 3-minute, 229.7MB file for the movie trailer in about 1 moment and 20 seconds. 4KVD defaults back to 1080p HD, so I made the like switch when downloading an Ultra High Definition ( 8K ) playlist. If you enable the Smart Mode and its pre-sets, 4KVD can perform one-click downloads to your favored format. If you want to download more than 25 videos at a time or subscribe to YouTube channels to instantaneously download the latest, that requires the pay version. playback of the resulting MKV files via VLC Media Player was flawless. The program itself has an choice to extract audio to MP3 format, so you do n’t tied need the 4K YouTube to MP3 company software .
WinX YouTube Downloader
free ; Windows and macOS ( MacX YouTube Downloader )
Digiarty ‘s multi-lingual WinX claims to allow downloads from 300+ sites with user-generated content—including pornographic sites. possibly the biggest selling point of all is the claim that “ There is no malware, adware, spyware or virus. 100 % clean and jerk. ” It has a clean interface, but there are ads for WinX ‘s premium servicing during install. Copy a YouTube URL ( even for a playlist ) and launch the WinX software. The “ analyzer ” checks all the options. This instrument tried to default to the 1,920-by-1,080 interpretation in MP4 ; I picked the 4K translation ( 3,840-by-2,160 pixels ) in WebM format, a subset of the MKV format—you can rename a .WEBM file to a .MKV and it ‘ll work ticket. In settings, there are options to default to WebM at the highest resolution. You can set up a number of videos to back up before you even click the download button. The 4K 226.9MB file took 2 minutes and 19 seconds to download. There are no options for downloading closed captions. That ‘s another strike. But WinX makes up for it by supporting thus many download sites and being free .
5KPlayer
absolve ; Windows and macOS
The release 5KPlayer is a lot more than a downloader, but it ‘s got a heck of an integrate downloader. Promising no viruses, ads, or circuit board requirements is a dear start. It is, sadly, one of the few I tested that asks for a registration of your mention and email—you have to do that to get the broad download function across 300+ sites. however, you can hush nab 4K vids from YouTube without registering. When download, the plan does try to hide some things. paste in the URL for a YouTube video and the psychoanalysis locomotive runs and shows only a few download options. Click the gear icon, then the Show All button and coil to see more—like a 4K 3,840-by-2,160 charge in WebM format. The 227MB WebM test download took an agonize 6.5 minutes. Grabbing playlists was possible, but you must adjust download settings one video at a time. The confuse interface makes it hard to go back to the other video in the playlist. 5K Player besides features DLNA server playback so video recording you grab can be watched on any devices that support DLNA, and it supports AirPlay for flying playback to supported devices. Pick a video recording in the library for immediate conversion to MP4, MP3, or even ACC ( the audio format preferred by io devices ). The player did n’t like playing back the excessively big 4K file, though, and experienced buffering issues ( VLC did n’t have any problem with the same file ). But ultimately, there ‘s a bunch to like about 5K Player, from the monetary value to the features, specially if you look at them as extras on a downloader. But interface and playback issues may have you looking elsewhere .
FoneGeek Video Downloader
free trial with five downloads ; then $ 9.95 per calendar month, $ 15.95 per year, or $ 25.95 life use ; Windows, macOS
FoneGeek Video Downloader might have appeared higher on this list if it were n’t for the miss of free options. You merely get to download five videos loose before you have to pay. obviously, the only reasonable price is the life use for around $ 26. For that, you get one of the cleanest interfaces I ‘ve ever seen on a downloader and a quick one. It downloaded our test 4K video recording as an MP4 in 1 minute and 16 seconds. You can besides choose to download subtitles and even a thumbnail persona, or whether to get the audio-only as a WebM or M4A file. Shame about that price, but it does come with a 30-day money-back guarantee .
Helper Websites
Do you want to avoid installing software ? Video download benefactor sites are supposed to do the download work for you. All of them do one basic thing : you give them a YouTube URL ( or another television site, if supported ), they parse it, give you a choice of what size download you want, and provide a associate to said download. They work on any platform, sometimes even on mobile devices. You do n’t have to install anything on your personal computer. It can take a lot longer, depending on the size and quality of the video you want, but you ca n’t beat the public toilet. The problem is, you ca n’t always trust them. There are hundreds of these types of sites out there—it seems anyone with a modicum of coding ability has set one up. such sites well go from utilitarian to leery, particularly if they get popular and the owner sells out to make cash off your visits. Since this fib was first published, all the benefactor sites we recommended have been removed for reasons like adding sexually denotative ads ; no longer working ; switching to pushing its download utility program entirely, and one for going out of business to avoid getting sued. For that rationality, we ‘re not recommending any benefactor site at the here and now. Try one if you find it, but if your browser, antivirus, or instincts throw up warnings, invalidate and move on .
Extensions
A browser extension can save you a step. however, you ‘re going to run into some issues with downloading video from YouTube, particularly if you ‘re using Chrome as your basal browser. The Chrome Web Store —where you get Chrome browser extensions—is controlled by YouTube ‘s owner Alphabet/Google. flush an reference apparently for this purpose is n’t going to allow YouTube direct downloads, because of Chrome Store restrictions. In general, with Chrome extensions, the download of any RTMP protocol video ( protect video recording ) or streaming video recording is n’t possible. You can use them on other sites with television, of course. Just not YouTube. Want to get around it ? Get an extension that does not come from the Google Web Store. Some of the programs and helper sites offer an extension component and will spell out how to do the install without the aid the Chrome Web Store normally provides. here are a few .
YouTube Video Downloader
loose ; Chrome, Opera, Edge, Vivaldi
YouTube Video Downloader from Addoncrop is on multiple browsers but with excellent side-load capabilities. It puts a button below whatever video you ‘re playing on YouTube, making it easy to grab as a video recording up to 4K or as an audio-only MP3 .
Video DownloadHelper
complimentary ; Firefox, Chrome, Edge Video DownloadHelper supports a huge number of sites—even those for adults. You ‘ll know a video is downloadable when the icon for the extension animates when you ‘re on the network page. Video DownloadHelper for Chrome has stopped working with YouTube—so it could get placement in the Chrome Web Store. You can get around that by using the Video DownloadHelper extension for Firefox or Edge .
Mobile
Remember that problem of using Chrome extensions from the Google Web Store ? You ‘re going to have an even bigger issue when you want to download from YouTube using an Android app from the Google Play Store, where Google has an even tighter grip ( and a paid YouTube Premium service that supports offline viewing ) .
( Instube )
That said, with Android, it is possible to install apps without going through Google. For exemplar, InsTube – Free Video and Music Downloader for Android can only be found at InsTube ‘s locate. Download the APK ( Android application package ) file to sideload on an Android device. Find it in your device ‘s downloads and snap to install. ( You may have to go into your security settings and enable “ strange sources. ” ) On iPhones and iPads, you ‘d think there would be no such limitation since Apple and Google are n’t precisely the best of pals ( or possibly they are ). however, on the io apps I have tried, not alone would n’t they download from YouTube, they ‘re typically not available for long. One of those apps said in its description, “ downloading from YouTube is prohibited due to its Terms of Service. ” Apple is ensuring that app makers play by the rules—even Google ‘s rules. Chances are, the minute you find an io app that can download YouTube videos, it will get “ fixed ” or banned. The entirely real option is to jailbreak your iPhone and manipulation sideloaded apps that download what you want. There are workarounds. One is to subscribe to YouTube Premium ; it lets you download video on your iPhone or iPad to watch late, much as Netflix and Hulu do. Another is using a free io file coach app like Documents by Readdle. Use the Safari browser to visit a YouTube video, and use the Share option to find Copy Link. then go back to Documents, and use the built-in browser in the app to surf to a video download benefactor locate. Paste the connection into the form ( hold your finger down on it until you get the “ Paste ” menu to pop up ). The site will give you the links to download, and you can save the file to Documents. Hold and drag the charge up, until you ‘re back on the main riddle, then drag it to the Photos folder. You ‘ll need to give Documents permission to access Photos the beginning meter. You can then access the television like you would any television taken on the earphone or tablet—in the Photos app. Another workaround : Go back to the desktop and try AnyTrans ( $ 39.99 for a one calculator for one year, Windows or macOS ), a background file coach for io devices that has an integrated downloader supporting 900 sites, including YouTube and Facebook. It ‘ll transfer the television to the iPhone for you over the USB cable. even if you do n’t pay for AnyTrans, the download option remains and is free everlastingly .
YouPost
Want a rightfully unique way to “ download ” a video ? Developer Anton Gera created the YouPost extension for the Google Chrome browser to turn a YouTube video into an “ article. ” It grabs all the subtitles, in whatever language you prefer, and places them into a browser page with choose screen grab from the video as illustration. If the video does n’t have subtitles, it ‘s not going to work. The better the subtitles, the better the article, of course ; auto-generated subtitles come in like run-on sentences by person who does n’t very speak the linguistic process .
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