How To Download Video From Youtube To Pc

There are billions of hours of video on YouTube. Literally. And that's hardly the most phenomenal statistic virtually the site, which has been the go-to destination for uploading and watching video since 2005. That said, sometimes, you lot really want or need to have one of those videos on your own computer or phone. But when the topic of downloading YouTube videos comes up, there'due south a side subject that must be broached: Is it legal?

On the copyright forepart, as long as you lot're downloading a video for your own personal offline use, you lot're probably okay. Information technology's more blackness and white when yous consider Google's terms of service for YouTube, which read: "Yous are not allowed to...admission, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, brandish, sell, license, change, modify or otherwise use whatever part of the Service or any Content except: (a) as expressly authorized by the Service; or (b) with prior written permission from YouTube and, if applicable, the respective rights holders."

Watching YouTube videos offline through unofficial channels takes money from Google and video creators. There'south a reason YouTube runs ads: People make a living this way.

Obviously, stealing videos from YouTube is a big no-no. If you want to share a video, YouTube and most other video sites make it piece of cake, from embedding to emailing to sharing via social networks. Y'all only do non need to download a video most of the time.

Notwithstanding, you have your reasons. If you must download a YouTube video—absolutely need to, just for yourself, and not for dissemination, and not to be a total douche-nozzle—here's how.

Annotation: This story is updated oftentimes equally the tools involved alter regularly. Some of those changes are not always pleasant, such as software so full of "extras," information technology gets flagged equally malware by antivirus tools. The same goes for the helper websites—a change in a site'south advertizing network can also create issues with malware.

To preclude this from condign a laundry list of programs and sites that tin download YouTube videos, we came upwardly with a few rules for inclusion. Services must:

Support 4K downloads even in the free version.
Work with tiptop three video sites:YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo.
Download entire playlists or channels in a batch (on YouTube), at to the lowest degree with a paid version.
Output to MP3 for sound (or offer companion software that does so).
Have an interface thatdoesn't suck.
Non collect your personal information across your email address.
Not incorporate malware. If at that place's even a whiff of it in the air, even a PUP, it's out.

The programs, services, and sites in this story are all free of spam/virus/problems equally of this writing, but caveat emptor. Big time. Especially if you're not really emptor-ing.

YouTube Premium Downloads

Now available for subscribers of YouTube Premium—the paid version of YouTube that allows you lot to watch without ads—are video downloads. Kind of. There's one caveat with quality: All the video you download is express to 1080p quality max, or lower. No 4K.

The biggest event is, this feature doesn't really download a video to save on your figurer forever. It is more akin to the download feature institute on mobile apps for Netflix and Hulu, which makes a streaming video available to lookout after using your local storage and views information technology using the app's interface just. This is non a method that allows yous to, say, watch a video using different software such as the VLC Media Player.

Y'all admission the download by going to the YouTube hamburger card and selecting Downloads to view the list of what yous've grabbed. The page says "Downloads remain bachelor as long as your device has an active internet connectedness at least one time every 30 days." This probably isn't exactly what y'all are looking for in a download. But the tools beneath deliver exactly that.

Desktop Software

3rd-party software is where y'all will get the best control over downloading online videos. Typically, yous paste the URL for the YouTube video you want into the plan, and it downloads the highest quality version it can find. For videos in 1080p High Definition (Hard disk drive) format, that'due south usually an MP4 file. For anything higher in quality—4K or 8K—the file format is typically MKV.

In the past, YouTube videos were Wink-based, so your download was an FLV file, but those tend to be harder to play dorsum. MP4 (short for MPEG-4 Office 14 multimedia format) plays everywhere

Note that the MKV file, also chosen a Matroska, is a container—the file could incorporate video utilizing whatsoever number 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 beneath.) As for the downloaders, here are the all-time options.

VLC Media Thespian

Free; Windows, macOS, Linux

We mention VLC Media Histrion in a higher place because it'south a fantastic tool for Windows, Mac, and Linux users that plays dorsum but virtually any media ever created. It too has the ability to download YouTube videos, albeit in a convoluted way. (If you lot run into any problems, attempt a total re-install of VLC and clear your enshroud to brand information technology piece of work.)

Copy a URL from a YouTube video, and then open up VLC. From the Media bill of fare, select Open up Network Stream (Ctrl+Northward) and paste in the URL. Click Play. When the video is playing, become to Tools > Codec Information. There is a box at the bottom chosen "Source"—copy the URL you detect in that box.

Go dorsum to your browser and paste the URL—it's a temporary web address and volition expire eventually—in the address bar and start playing the video. When you're viewing the video in the browser, click the 3-dot menu at the lower right for the download option to keep information technology locally.

Yet, it appears that VLC is only going to salvage your file every bit 1080p and not any college, even if the original YouTube stream was available in 1440p or 2160p (aka 4K). It also won't convert video to other formats. To become those options, you lot need the desktop software below.

4K Video Downloader

Free or $15 for lifetime 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'south website; no ad traps here. The software does what it advertises in a elementary interface. It grabs videos up to 8K in quality and downloads to plenty of formats. Simply re-create a YouTube URL and click the Paste Link button to get started. 4KVD will even grab subtitles, entire playlists, and all the videos in a channel to which you subscribe. The sites supported are express to the big names like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and a few others, but that covers virtually of what you need. It does display a large imprint advertizing to keep the lights on and yous're limited to 30 downloads a day on the complimentary version.

I had to make a switch from MP4 to MKV format to get my test video to download in 4K. 4KVD snagged the 3-minute, 229.7MB file for the motion picture trailer in well-nigh one minute and 20 seconds. 4KVD defaults back to 1080p Hd, and so I made the same switch when downloading an Ultra High Definition (8K) playlist.

If you lot enable the Smart Style and its presets, 4KVD can perform one-click downloads to your favorite format. If you want to download more than 25 videos at a time or subscribe to YouTube channels to instantly download the latest, that requires the paid version. Playback of the resulting MKV files via VLC Media Player was flawless.

The program itself has an option to excerpt audio to MP3 format, and then y'all don't fifty-fifty demand the 4K YouTube to MP3 companion software.

VideoProc Converter

$59.90 for one twelvemonth, $78.90 lifetime, $119.90 family (2-5 PCs); Windows, macOS

The powerful VideoProc from Digiarty comes in an editor edition and this converter, which also provides editing and furnishings. The downloading aspect is bully, a version similar to Digiarty's WinX YouTube Downloader, which yous can nevertheless find but is not promoted by the visitor these days. This makes sense, equally VideoProc Converter handles a lot of downloading, supposedly supporting 4K from over i,000 websites. With hardware acceleration, information technology promises some speed. Thankfully, information technology oft offers price discounts.

To use information technology, yous open up the software, let it detect your hardware to meet what you lot have to aid with acceleration (if anything). Click the Downloader button, click Add video to place equally many URLs as you desire to batch, and then Download At present. Or you can get a whole YouTube playlist or live stream. It grabbed our 697MB exam 4K video to WEBM format in nigh ii minutes and fifteen seconds, which isn't bad. Best of all, the trial version of VideoProc Converter, which limits conversions to 5 minutes, doesn't announced to limit downloads.

FlixGrab

ane-yr license $44.99 plus tax (or $9.99 for Free YouTube Download); Windows

Like some others, FlixGrab has several dissimilar programs available, many with overlapping features. For example, information technology has FlixGrabMS (a version y'all get from the Microsoft Store to run on Windows 10/xi)—but it wouldn't let me catch video from YouTube. The straight download of the FlixGrab plan from the flixgrabapp.com site did piece of work with YouTube and several other sites,. Plus information technology offers a Free YouTube Download that is specific to YouTube, yet uses the aforementioned easy-to-utilize interface. The downside, as with others, is the loftier subscription price, merely it's the merely way to become loftier-quality downloads. The YouTube-only version is essentially cheaper at $ix.99 per year, however. Neither comes with a trial period.

5KPlayer

Complimentary; Windows and macOS

The free 5KPlayer is a lot more than a downloader, but it'south got a heck of an integrated downloader. Promising no viruses, ads, or plug-in requirements is a adept start. Information technology is, sadly, one of the few tested that asks for a registration of your name and email—you have to exercise that to get the full download office across 300+ sites. However, you can still nab 4K vids from YouTube without registering.

When downloading, the programme does endeavor to hide some things. Paste in the URL for a YouTube video and the analysis engine runs and shows only a few download options. Click the gear icon, then the Prove All button, and scroll to see more—like a 4K 3,840-by-2,160 file in WebM format. The 227MB WebM examination download took an agonizing 6.v minutes. Grabbing playlists was possible, but you must adjust download settings 1 video at a time. The confusing interface makes information technology hard to go dorsum to the other videos in the playlist.

5K Player also features DLNA server playback and so videos you grab can exist watched on any devices that support DLNA, plus information technology supports AirPlay for quick playback to Apple devices. Selection a video in the library for quick conversion to MP4, MP3, or fifty-fifty ACC (the audio format preferred by iOS). The player didn't like playing back the overly big 4K file, though, and experienced buffering issues (VLC didn't have whatsoever problem with the same file).

Ultimately, there's a lot to similar about 5K Thespian, from the toll to the features, especially if y'all look at them as extras on a downloader. But the bad interface, slow download speeds, and playback issues may have you looking elsewhere.

Helper Websites

Do y'all want to avoid installing software? Video download helper sites are supposed to practise the download work for you. All of them do one basic thing: You lot give them a YouTube URL (or another video site, if supported), they parse it, give you a choice of what size download yous desire, and provide a link to said download. They work on any platform, sometimes even on mobile devices. You don't have to install anything on your PC. It tin can have a lot longer, depending on the size and quality of the video you lot desire, but you can't crush the convenience.

The problem is, you lot tin can't always trust them. In that location are hundreds of these types of sites out at that place—it seems anyone with a modicum of coding ability has set one upward. Such sites hands go from useful to suspicious, especially if they go pop and the proprietor sells out to make cash off your visits.

Recommended by Our Editors

Since this story was starting time published, all the helper sites we recommended have been removed for reasons like adding sexually explicit ads, no longer working, switching to pushing its download utility only, and one for going out of concern to avoid getting sued.

For that reason, we're not recommending any helper sites at the moment. Effort i if you notice information technology, but if your browser, antivirus, or instincts throw up warnings, avoid and move on.

Extensions

A browser extension tin can save you a step. Withal, you're going to run into some issues with downloading video from YouTube, particularly if you're using Chrome as your chief browser.

The Chrome Web Shop—where you lot become Chrome browser extensions—is controlled by YouTube's owner Alphabet/Google. Even an extension ostensibly for this purpose isn't going to allow YouTube straight downloads, because of Chrome Store restrictions. In general, with Chrome extensions, the download of any RTMP protocol video (protected videos) or streaming video isn't possible. Yous can employ them on other sites with video, of course. Simply not YouTube.

Want to get around it? Get an extension that does not come from the Google Spider web Store. Some of the programs and helper sites offer an extension component and will spell out how to do the install without the help the Chrome Web Store usually provides. Here are a couple.

YouTube Video Downloader

Free; Chrome, Opera, Border, Vivaldi, UCBrowser

YouTube Video Downloader from Addoncrop is on multiple browsers simply with fantabulous side-load capabilities. It puts a push below whatever video yous're playing on YouTube, or even an embedded YouTube video, making information technology easy to grab. Supported video quality goes up to 8K. You can besides catechumen audio from the video to an MP3. It will even help you have video screenshots.

Video DownloadHelper

Free; Firefox, Chrome, Edge

Video DownloadHelper supports a huge number of sites—even those for adults. Y'all'll know a video is downloadable when the icon for the extension animates when you lot're on the web folio. Video DownloadHelper for Chrome has stopped working with YouTube; that way, it could get placement in the Chrome Web Shop. Get around that by using the Video DownloadHelper extension on Firefox or Border instead.

Mobile

Downloading from YouTube using an Android app from the Google Play Store is a claiming, given that Google has a tight grip on the site it owns, and offers the paid YouTube Premium service that supports offline viewing.

That said, with Android, itis possible to install apps without going through Google. For instance, InsTube – Costless Video and Music Downloader for Android tin can simply be plant at InsTube's site. Download the APK (Android awarding packet) file to sideload on an Android device. Find it in your device's downloads and click to install. (You lot may have to get into your security settings and enable "Unknown sources.")

On iPhones and iPads, you'd remember at that place would be no such brake since Apple and Google aren't exactly the all-time of pals (or maybe they are). Yet, on the iOS apps I have tried, non only wouldn't they download from YouTube, merely they're as well 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 past the rules—fifty-fifty Google's rules.

Chances are, the minute you find an iOS app that can download YouTube videos, information technology will get "fixed" or banned. The only existent option is to jailbreak your iPhone and utilise sideloaded apps that download what y'all want.

At that place are workarounds. One is to subscribe to YouTube Premium; it lets you download video on your iPhone or iPad to watch afterward, much as Netflix and Hulu do.

Another is using a free iOS file manager app similar Documents by Readdle. Use the Safari browser to visit a YouTube video, and apply the Share option to notice Copy Link. Then go back to Documents, and use the built-in browser in the app to surf to a video download helper site. Paste the link into the form (hold your finger downwardly on it until you get the "Paste" menu to pop up). The site will give you the links to download, and you tin salve the file to Documents. Hold and drag the file up, until y'all're back on the chief screen, then elevate it to the Photos folder. Y'all'll need to give Documents permission to access Photos the first fourth dimension. Yous can and so access the video like y'all would any video taken on the phone or tablet—in the Photos app.

Some other workaround: Get back to the desktop and endeavour AnyTrans ($39.99 for a single figurer for one year, Windows or macOS; $59.99 lifetime plan), a desktop file manager for iOS devices that has an integrated downloader supporting 900 sites, including YouTube and Facebook. Information technology'll transfer the videos to the iPhone for you lot over the USB cable. Even if you don't pay for AnyTrans, the download choice remains and is free forever.

YT Scribe

Want a truly unique way to "download" a video? YT Scribe lets you grab the transcription and then you lot can read them instead. It automobile-transcribes, punctuates, and paragraphs the text. The improve the subtitles, the better the "commodity," of grade. Best of all, information technology's totally free.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-download-youtube-videos

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