In that location are billions of hours of video on YouTube. Literally. And that'southward inappreciably the most phenomenal statistic about the site, which has been the go-to destination for uploading and watching video since 2005. That said, sometimes, you lot actually want or need to have one of those videos on your own calculator or phone. But when the topic of downloading YouTube videos comes upwards, there's a side subject area that must be broached: Is it legal?

On the copyright front, equally long as you're downloading a video for your own personal offline use, you're probably okay. It's more blackness and white when you consider Google's terms of service for YouTube, which read: "You are not allowed to...access, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, alter, modify or otherwise utilise any 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 corresponding rights holders."

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

Evidently, stealing videos from YouTube is a large no-no. If you want to share a video, YouTube and most other video sites brand information technology piece of cake, from embedding to emailing to sharing via social networks. Y'all simply practice not need to download a video most of the time.

However, you lot take your reasons. If y'all must download a YouTube video—absolutely need to, just for yourself, and not for dissemination, and non to be a total douche-nozzle—hither's how.

Note: This story is updated frequently as the tools involved change regularly. Some of those changes are non ever pleasant, such equally software then full of "extras," it gets flagged as malware by antivirus tools. The same goes for the helper websites—a change in a site's ad network tin also create issues with malware.

To prevent this from becoming a laundry listing of programs and sites that can download YouTube videos, we came upwards with a few rules for inclusion. Services must:

Support 4K downloads even in the free version.
Work with top 3 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 audio (or offer companion software that does so).
Have an interface thatdoesn't suck.
Not collect your personal data beyond your email address.
Non incorporate malware. If there'south 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/bug equally of this writing, only caveat emptor. Large time. Especially if you're not actually emptor-ing.

YouTube Premium Downloads

Now available for subscribers of YouTube Premium—the paid version of YouTube that allows you to watch without ads—are video downloads. Kind of. In that location'southward 1 caveat with quality: All the video you download is limited to 1080p quality max, or lower. No 4K.

The biggest upshot is, this feature doesn't really download a video to save on your reckoner forever. It is more than akin to the download feature plant on mobile apps for Netflix and Hulu, which makes a streaming video available to spotter later on using your local storage and views it using the app's interface only. This is not a method that allows you to, say, watch a video using different software such as the VLC Media Thespian.

Yous admission the download past going to the YouTube hamburger bill of fare and selecting Downloads to view the list of what you've grabbed. The page says "Downloads remain bachelor as long as your device has an agile internet connection at least once every 30 days." This probably isn't exactly what you are looking for in a download. But the tools beneath deliver exactly that.

Desktop Software

Tertiary-political party software is where yous will become the best control over downloading online videos. Typically, you paste the URL for the YouTube video yous want into the program, and information technology downloads the highest quality version it can find. For videos in 1080p High Definition (HD) format, that'due south normally an MP4 file. For anything higher in quality—4K or 8K—the file format is typically MKV.

In the by, YouTube videos were Flash-based, so your download was an FLV file, simply those tend to be harder to play back. MP4 (curt for MPEG-4 Part 14 multimedia format) plays everywhere

Note that the MKV file, besides called a Matroska, is a container—the file could incorporate video utilizing any number of codecs within. The fool-proof style to play them all is to employ the VLC Media Player for Windows, which plays everything. (Read more almost it beneath.) As for the downloaders, here are the all-time options.

VLC Media Player

Free; Windows, macOS, Linux

We mention VLC Media Role player above considering it'due south a fantastic tool for Windows, Mac, and Linux users that plays back but near any media e'er created. It also has the power to download YouTube videos, albeit in a convoluted way. (If you lot run into any bug, try a full re-install of VLC and clear your cache to make information technology work.)

Copy a URL from a YouTube video, then open up VLC. From the Media menu, select Open Network Stream (Ctrl+N) and paste in the URL. Click Play. When the video is playing, go to Tools > Codec Information. There is a box at the bottom called "Source"—copy the URL you find in that box.

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

However, information technology appears that VLC is only going to relieve your file as 1080p and non whatsoever college, even if the original YouTube stream was bachelor in 1440p or 2160p (aka 4K). It also won't catechumen video to other formats. To get those options, you 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's website; no ad traps here. The software does what information technology 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 push button to get started. 4KVD will fifty-fifty grab subtitles, unabridged playlists, and all the videos in a channel to which you subscribe. The sites supported are limited to the big names like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and a few others, but that covers most of what y'all need. It does display a large banner advertisement to proceed the lights on and you're limited to xxx downloads a day on the free 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 movie trailer in about 1 infinitesimal and xx seconds. 4KVD defaults back to 1080p HD, so I made the aforementioned switch when downloading an Ultra High Definition (8K) playlist.

If y'all enable the Smart Way 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 Role player was flawless.

The program itself has an choice to extract audio to MP3 format, and then you don't even demand the 4K YouTube to MP3 companion software.

VideoProc Converter

$59.ninety for one twelvemonth, $78.90 lifetime, $119.90 family (2-v PCs); Windows, macOS

The powerful VideoProc from Digiarty comes in an editor edition and this converter, which likewise provides editing and furnishings. The downloading aspect is great, a version similar to Digiarty'southward WinX YouTube Downloader, which you lot can still find only is not promoted past the company these days. This makes sense, as VideoProc Converter handles a lot of downloading, supposedly supporting 4K from over 1,000 websites. With hardware dispatch, information technology promises some speed. Thankfully, it oftentimes offers cost discounts.

To use it, you open up the software, let it detect your hardware to see what y'all take to help with acceleration (if anything). Click the Downloader push button, click Add video to place as many URLs as you want to batch, then Download Now. Or y'all tin can become a whole YouTube playlist or live stream. It grabbed our 697MB test 4K video to WEBM format in nigh ii minutes and 15 seconds, which isn't bad. All-time of all, the trial version of VideoProc Converter, which limits conversions to 5 minutes, doesn't announced to limit downloads.

FlixGrab

1-year license $44.99 plus revenue enhancement (or $9.99 for Gratuitous YouTube Download); Windows

Similar some others, FlixGrab has several different programs available, many with overlapping features. For example, it has FlixGrabMS (a version you go from the Microsoft Shop to run on Windows 10/11)—but it wouldn't allow me grab video from YouTube. The direct download of the FlixGrab program from the flixgrabapp.com site did piece of work with YouTube and several other sites,. Plus it offers a Gratis YouTube Download that is specific to YouTube, yet uses the same easy-to-use interface. The downside, equally with others, is the high subscription toll, but it'southward the merely mode to get loftier-quality downloads. The YouTube-only version is essentially cheaper at $9.99 per year, however. Neither comes with a trial catamenia.

5KPlayer

Free; Windows and macOS

The costless 5KPlayer is a lot more than than a downloader, but it's got a heck of an integrated downloader. Promising no viruses, ads, or plug-in requirements is a good start. It is, sadly, one of the few tested that asks for a registration of your name and email—y'all have to do that to get the total download function beyond 300+ sites. Notwithstanding, y'all can still nab 4K vids from YouTube without registering.

When downloading, the plan does endeavour to hide some things. Paste in the URL for a YouTube video and the analysis engine runs and shows just a few download options. Click the gear icon, then the Show All button, and curl to run into more—like a 4K 3,840-by-2,160 file in WebM format. The 227MB WebM test download took an agonizing vi.5 minutes. Grabbing playlists was possible, but yous must adjust download settings one video at a time. The confusing interface makes it difficult to go dorsum to the other videos in the playlist.

5K Histrion also features DLNA server playback and so videos you grab tin be watched on any devices that support DLNA, plus information technology supports AirPlay for quick playback to Apple tree devices. Choice a video in the library for quick conversion to MP4, MP3, or even ACC (the sound format preferred past iOS). The role player didn't like playing back the overly large 4K file, though, and experienced buffering problems (VLC didn't have any trouble with the same file).

Ultimately, there's a lot to like about 5K Player, from the price to the features, peculiarly if you look at them equally extras on a downloader. Simply the bad interface, slow download speeds, and playback issues may have you looking elsewhere.

Helper Websites

Practice you desire to avoid installing software? Video download helper sites are supposed to do the download work for yous. All of them do one bones affair: Y'all give them a YouTube URL (or some other video site, if supported), they parse it, requite you a selection of what size download you want, 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. Information technology tin can take a lot longer, depending on the size and quality of the video you lot want, but y'all can't beat the convenience.

The problem is, you can't always trust them. There are hundreds of these types of sites out there—it seems anyone with a modicum of coding power has prepare one upwards. Such sites hands go from useful to suspicious, especially if they get pop and the proprietor sells out to make cash off your visits.

Recommended by Our Editors

Since this story was first published, all the helper sites we recommended take been removed for reasons like adding sexually explicit ads, no longer working, switching to pushing its download utility merely, and i for going out of business organisation to avoid getting sued.

For that reason, we're not recommending any helper sites at the moment. Try i if you find it, simply if your browser, antivirus, or instincts throw up warnings, avoid and move on.

Extensions

A browser extension can save y'all a step. However, you're going to come across some bug with downloading video from YouTube, especially if you're using Chrome as your main browser.

The Chrome Web Shop—where you get Chrome browser extensions—is controlled by YouTube's owner Alphabet/Google. Even an extension ostensibly for this purpose isn't going to allow YouTube direct downloads, considering of Chrome Shop restrictions. In general, with Chrome extensions, the download of any RTMP protocol video (protected videos) or streaming video isn't possible. You tin can utilize them on other sites with video, of grade. Just not YouTube.

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

YouTube Video Downloader

Free; Chrome, Opera, Edge, Vivaldi, UCBrowser

YouTube Video Downloader from Addoncrop is on multiple browsers merely with first-class side-load capabilities. It puts a push below whatever video you're playing on YouTube, or even an embedded YouTube video, making information technology piece of cake to grab. Supported video quality goes up to 8K. Y'all can too convert audio from the video to an MP3. It volition even help yous take video screenshots.

Video DownloadHelper

Free; Firefox, Chrome, Edge

Video DownloadHelper supports a huge number of sites—fifty-fifty those for adults. You'll know a video is downloadable when the icon for the extension animates when you're on the web page. Video DownloadHelper for Chrome has stopped working with YouTube; that mode, information technology could get placement in the Chrome Web Store. Go effectually that by using the Video DownloadHelper extension on Firefox or Edge 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 example, InsTube – Costless Video and Music Downloader for Android can only be found at InsTube'south 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.")

(Instube)

On iPhones and iPads, you'd think there would exist no such restriction since Apple and Google aren't exactly the best of pals (or maybe they are). Withal, on the iOS apps I have tried, non only wouldn't they download from YouTube, but they're besides typically non available for long. One of those apps said in its clarification, "Downloading from YouTube is prohibited due to its Terms of Service." Apple tree is ensuring that app makers play by the rules—fifty-fifty Google'south rules.

Chances are, the minute you discover an iOS app that can download YouTube videos, information technology will get "stock-still" or banned. The merely existent option is to jailbreak your iPhone and use sideloaded apps that download what you lot want.

There are workarounds. One is to subscribe to YouTube Premium; it lets y'all download video on your iPhone or iPad to watch later on, much as Netflix and Hulu practice.

Another is using a free iOS file director app like Documents by Readdle. Use the Safari browser to visit a YouTube video, and use the Share choice to find 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 (concur your finger downward on it until you go the "Paste" menu to pop upward). The site will give you the links to download, and you tin salvage the file to Documents. Concord and elevate the file upwardly, until y'all're dorsum on the chief screen, then drag information technology to the Photos folder. You'll demand to give Documents permission to access Photos the start time. Yous can then access the video like you would any video taken on the phone or tablet—in the Photos app.

Another workaround: Go back to the desktop and try AnyTrans ($39.99 for a single reckoner for one year, Windows or macOS), a desktop file manager for iOS devices that has an integrated downloader supporting 900 sites, including YouTube and Facebook. It'll transfer the videos to the iPhone for yous over the USB cablevision. Even if yous don't pay for AnyTrans, the download option remains and is free forever.

YT Scribe

Desire a truly unique fashion to "download" a video? YT Scribe lets yous grab the transcription so yous can read them instead. It auto-transcribes, punctuates, and paragraphs the text. The better the subtitles, the amend the "article," of course. All-time of all, it'southward totally costless.

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Best Way to Download Videos From Youyube