Whereas fundamental YouTube solely provides downloads for a number of movies in chosen places, there are methods to obtain any YouTube video you need at any time.
Additionally: Follow ZDNET on YouTube!
We’ll cowl how one can obtain your favourite movies utilizing three approaches:
- Paying for YouTube Premium
- Utilizing a free Mac, Home windows, or Linux software
- Utilizing an obscure and complicated (but very highly effective) Linux command line instrument
Your free possibility (and my most popular method) to obtain YouTube movies: ClipGrab
I’ve to present ZDNET’s managing editor props for introducing me to this program a number of years in the past. I have been utilizing it ever since.
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ClipGrab is a free program accessible for Mac, Home windows, and Linux customers. The developer says it is open supply, however the supply code is barely accessible for Linux. In any case, ClipGrab rocks. This is how you can obtain and use it.
1. Go to ClipGrab.org
Level your browser to ClipGrab.org and click on the Present All Obtain Choices hyperlink. You may see obtain hyperlinks for Mac, Home windows, and Linux there. I will present you the Mac model on this article, however the interface is nearly similar on all three.
2. Copy the YouTube video hyperlink
Copy the video hyperlink of the YouTube video(s) you want to obtain. You are able to do this up in your browser’s URL bar or by clicking the Share button below the video itself.
3. Launch ClipGrab
Just remember to’re on the Downloads tab after which select the Launch ClipGrab possibility.
4. Copy and Paste
Copy and paste the URL of the video you wish to obtain into ClickGrab.
5. Click on Seize this clip!
As soon as you’ve got copied and pasted the specified video hyperlink into the ClickGrab browser, choose Seize this clip!
Put one hyperlink of a video at a time into the highest Downloads tab browser on ClickGrab. When you’re able to obtain, choose Seize this clip! Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET
6. Select the video format
On ClickGrab, you may as well tweak choices.
For instance, you possibly can select the format you need the video to be in when it is saved in your laptop. I usually go together with Authentic, however I will specify one thing else if that does not work.
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You can even choose obtain decision. Relying on the video’s unique decision, you possibly can select to obtain the total decision video or scale back the decision to avoid wasting area.
7. Customise
Lastly, tapping the Settings tab helps you to customise the place ClipGrab deposits your newly downloaded movies.
One other free possibility (with some added-cost advantages)
ClipGrab stays my alternative for straightforward, no-muss, no-fuss YouTube downloading. However if you would like a YouTube downloader that may be upgraded into a complete power-user suite for video format conversion and administration, look no additional than the WinX/MacX pair of purposes.
Produced by Digiarty Software program — higher identified by its DVD ripper software program model, WinXDVD — WinX Video Converter (for Home windows) and MacX Video Converter (for Mac) are freemium video conversion energy instruments. What makes them significantly fascinating for this text is that the trial model (for Windows, or for Mac) features a YouTube downloader that is free to make use of indefinitely.
As a check, I downloaded a seven-minute video of one among my YouTube movies. Now, to be clear, I’ve a quick web connection, however this instrument was ridiculously fast. MacX Video Converter downloaded your complete video in 7.96 seconds. That is only a wow.
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Do notice that the trial model says it helps as much as 5 minutes of conversion totally free. That is not the downloading half. The paid-for model of those instruments convert any video to MP4, HEVC, H.264, MOV, MKV, AVI, MP3, iPhone, and Android from a variety of specialty codecs. That is the place the five-minute restrict exists within the trial. However should you obtain the trial, you possibly can obtain from YouTube (and likewise from all of those websites, see picture under), totally free. The one value is placing up with a number of upsell dialogs whilst you achieve this.
When you do select to improve to the paid-for variations, you will get a power-user model that compresses movies, permits you to trim movies, and permits you to add and edit subtitles. These paid-for merchandise vary from $19.95 to $149.95, relying on the choices and variety of customers you select.
Your paid possibility: YouTube Premium
I am an enormous fan of YouTube Premium as a result of it saves my wife and me from enduring most ads, however it’s a luxurious expense. People can subscribe to YouTube Premium for $13.99 a month (that is up $2 from what it was a number of months in the past). YouTube additionally provides a household plan for as much as six customers for $22.99 a month. Lastly, college students can subscribe to YouTube Premium for $7.99 a month (up a buck from what it was a number of months in the past).
My favourite function is a whole lack of Google-provided adverts. There aren’t any banners, no pre-roll, and no interstitial adverts. Nonetheless, if a YouTube channel needs to embed an advert in a video, YouTube Premium is not going to filter these YouTuber-embedded adverts.
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YouTube Premium supplies background play and picture-in-picture, YouTube Music, and entry to YouTube Originals.
YouTube Premium additionally contains the flexibility to obtain movies. This is the way you do it.
How you can obtain YouTube movies through YouTube Premium
As soon as you’ve got subscribed to YouTube Premium, you will have a Obtain button in your net browser or your telephone app to the suitable of the Share (arrow) icon on the backside of a video.
See the Obtain button marked by my arrows. Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET
Choose the video(s) you wish to obtain, and as soon as it comes up in the principle display screen show, click on the Obtain icon.
You could find your downloads within the Downloads space of YouTube. Discover that YouTube says that the downloads are retained so long as you have got an web connection at the very least as soon as each 30 days. That method, YouTube can verify you might be nonetheless a YouTube Premium person.
Saving as soon as downloaded
You are not given a simple strategy to flip that obtain right into a usable video file on a desktop machine, so if you wish to use that video for something apart from watching offline, you are considerably out of luck. The identical is true of iOS.
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Nonetheless, should you’re an Android person with an SD card slot in your telephone, you possibly can set the YouTube app settings (faucet your profile image, then Settings, then Downloads) to avoid wasting movies to your SD card.
So, that is how you can obtain movies into an solely barely usable kind for the low-low value of $13.99 monthly. That value went up by two bucks a month, a number of months in the past. As a result of, nicely, streaming costs are on the rise. Particular.
Linux command line choices
I might be remiss (or so I have been instructed within the feedback under, on Twitter, and in my e mail inbox) if I did not point out that Linux customers have a command line possibility (as a result of, in fact they do) to obtain YouTube movies. As with all-things Linux command line, there are some grey areas right here, reminiscent of whether or not the instrument even works or whether or not there’s a greater instrument.
The primary possibility on this command line hit parade is youtube-dl. You may get entry to it through its own site, on GitHub, or your favourite bundle supervisor.
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It needs to be famous that the GitHub repository was taken down for some time attributable to an allegation of DMCA violations, however GitHub later reinstated it. You may learn a really fascinating story about GitHub’s reasoning and response.
Some of us declare that youtube-dl is previous hat and hasn’t been up to date shortly. There’s one other open-source venture on GitHub, known as yt-dlp, that claims to be a fork of youtube-dl with extra options. I have not examined it, so use it at your personal threat.
Additionally: Linux is not just for developers and command line pros
Each youtube-dl and yt-dlp provide a really, very big selection of options should you want them. Personally, I’ll stick to ClipGrab, as a result of I haven’t got time to show YouTube downloading right into a second or third full-time job. But it surely’s as much as you.
Watch out
I commonly get notes through e mail and socials from readers who wish to use different instruments. The standard story is both they noticed an advert for the most effective downloader ever, or they’ve a pal/cousin/neighbor who “is aware of about computer systems” and really helpful a particular instrument.
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Downloading otherwise-protected movies is a kind of gray-area classes the place scammers prefer to play. I usually advocate you stick to the above suggestions as a result of we have tried them, used them, and have not skilled any adverse points. However should you do wish to comply with one other suggestion, maintain your Spidey Sense on excessive alert. When you land on a website with a ton of adverts and popups, if it looks like there are a number of makes an attempt to monetize the choices, otherwise you’re requested to surrender your bank card digits, keep away.
Simply… watch out.
What occurred to SaveFrom.internet?
A few of you is perhaps acquainted with SaveFrom.internet. This website allowed you to obtain from YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion (and some different websites), merely by pasting a URL into an internet web page on the location. It additionally had a browser extension that facilitated downloads. However, highlighting the subject in our subsequent part, SaveFrom.internet has shut down its operations within the US and UK, offering this message from the UK (and an equal within the US):
Nonetheless, one among our intrepid editors (not me) set his VPN to the Czech Republic and located that SaveFrom.internet is alive and nicely, hiding far-off from copyright legal guidelines:
Talking of copyright legal guidelines…
Some ethical, moral, and authorized issues
Now that you know the way to obtain YouTube movies, do you have to? First, do bear in mind that completely different jurisdictions have completely different legal guidelines. It could or is probably not authorized to obtain a given video, even when all you wish to do is watch it offline.
If you wish to obtain a video to include it into one thing you are producing, understand that some nations have the idea of Honest Use. In these jurisdictions, small clips of copyrighted media will be integrated into your productions. However you also needs to keep in mind that YouTube has algorithmic methods on the lookout for individuals reusing movies, and your channel would possibly get a strike in opposition to it for reusing media.
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When doubtful, it is at all times finest to ask.
So, there you go. Do you have got different strategies for engaging in the identical factor? Tell us within the feedback under.
You may comply with my day-to-day venture updates on social media. Make sure you comply with me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Fb at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
