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You’ve all been there. You watch an incredible video on YouTube and your first instinct is to replay it.
And after you’ve rewatched it a gazillion times, you realize it’s much better to download and keep it on your PC or Mac for future use!
I’ve come to a realization that many people have no clue that you can in fact download YouTube videos and watch them later without an internet connection.
In this article, I’m going to show you the various options you have on how to download YouTube videos to your computer.
We’ll cover 2 methods on how to download YouTube videos to your computer. I’m going to breakdown these 2 methods further as you’ll see.
Direct Download Method
You can download YouTube videos to your computer directly.
With the direct method, you don’t need to install a third party software to download videos.
We shall tackle that with the indirect method of downloading YouTube videos later on in this article.
Anyway below are the best ways to download YouTube videos to your computer using the direct download method.
Using savefrom.net
This is one of my favorite methods to download YouTube videos. It’s simple, fast, legit and there’s no need to pay for licenses.
This is how it works:
- After you’ve selected your favorite video, just change your URL by prefixing or adding ss to youtube.com
- So the URL becomes something like ssyoutube.com/watch?v=xxxxx and then hit the enter button on your keyboard.
- Now this will take you to a website called savefrom.net showing various formats of the same video you want to download to your computer.
- Depending on your requirement and the speed of your internet, you can select the best video quality and click download and that’s it. Easy!
Extra tip: You can install the savefrom.net helper extension on your browser to download from youtube.com in 1 click.
Using yout.com
I like to call this the recording method.
This method is much like the first one. It involves recording the YouTube video you want to download.
This recording process is in fact the very act of downloading. I also realized that the video quality is not affected by this process!
Here’s how it works:
- Click on your favorite YouTube video.
- Goto the video URL and erase ‘ube’ from youtube.
- Take for instance if your YouTube video url you want to download is something like https://youtube.com/video/xxxx, erase the letters ‘ube’ from youtube.
- The url will then become https://yout.com/video/xxxx.
- This will shift you over to a site called yout.com
- You’ll see a red button ‘record’ just underneath the video you want to download plus the formats and resolutions.
- Click it and your video will download.
Using keepvid.com
This is going to be the last direct download method for downloading YouTube videos to your computer.
This is likely the fastest way to grab just about any video from the web.
You can use it to download videos from YouTube, DailyMotion, Megavideo, Metacafe, and Vimeo.
This is how it works.
Find your desired YouTube video and copy it’s URL.
Open another tab on your browser and type in keepvid.com
While on keepvid.com, you’ll see a URL field that you’ll have to paste your copied YouTube video URL.
You’ll then see various video formats and resolutions including those for audio.
Once you’ve decided on a preferred file type, click on the download button and your video will be downloaded to your computer to a folder of your choice.
Indirect Download Method
You can download YouTube videos to your computer using indirect methods as well.
I’m calling it an indirect method simply because you have to install a third party application to your computer to be able to download your YouTube video.
Note that some applications require purchase of license in order to download.
However, the softwares I’m gonna talk about down below should do just fine minus you having to worry about paying for a license.
Let’s dig in.
Using ClipGrab
ClipGrab is one of my favorite software for download YouTube videos to my computer.
It is a 100% free and easy to use YouTube downloader and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
You can use it to not only download YouTube videos but also videos from sites like Vimeo.
This is how it works:
- First things first, install ClipGrab then launch it.
- Next, copy the URL link or web address of the YouTube video you want to download.
- Paste the copied YouTube video link into ClipGrab’s URL input field and ClipGrab will gather all the necessary information about the video.
- Now choose your preferred download format and quality from the ‘Format’ select box and do the same for the video quality from the ‘Quality select box.
- All you have to do now is click on the ‘Grab this clip’ button and your video will start downloading immediately!
Using Ummy
Ummy video downloader will help you download YouTube videos to your computer easily and faster.
Any fps rates are available in HD, MP4, MP3, MKV, 720p, etc.
Once you have it installed Ummy on your PC or Mac, it embeds itself inside YouTube.
You’ll see a red download arrow facing down on the top right corner of the YouTube video interface.
This means that you can easily initiate a video download with a click of a button when you click on the red arrow.
This saves time because you don’t need to copy and paste the video URL into Ummy all the time.
However, you can still find and select the link to the YouTube video you want to download, and Ummy Video Downloader automatically copies it to the clipboard.
After you’ve selected the fps rate for your video, you simply press the download button and you’re good to go!
However, like any great product out there, Ummy video downloader has a premium version where you need to purchase a license in order to download many videos simultaneously like video playlists.
But you can still use the software for free. No commitments are required.
And lastly…
Using jdownloader
Now this is a very intriguing and fascinating software. You can use it to download an entire YouTube channel.
But that will be a topic for another day. However, the same concept still applies for downloading YouTube videos to your computer.
This is how it works:
- Install jdownloader to your PC or Mac and launch it.
- Next, visit the YouTube video you want to download, highlight and copy its URL.
- Paste the copied URL inside jdownloader’s ‘Linkgrabber’ tab. Here, you’ll also find downloadable formats for your YouTube video.
- Right click on your desired format and click on ‘continue with selected link’ and your video will start downloading immediately!
- After the download is complete, check your downloads folder and locate your file.
Important Notice: Please keep in mind that some YouTube videos utilize copyrighted materials so be sure to use the methods I’ve provided above at your own risk!
I do not condone or promote piracy or copyright infringement and neither should you! Please be smart so you don’t ruin it for the rest of us.
Hopefully, you’re just using the downloaded videos for your own private use and not stealing other people’s videos for your own monetary gains.
This article was written to help people who may have lost their own copy of their uploaded YouTube videos or needed to watch a video without internet connection.
I hope you will use these instructions on how to download YouTube videos to your computer for good use.
If you choose any method above in this article and follow though the steps correctly, you should have your favorite YouTube videos downloaded, saved and playing on your PC or Mac without any internet connection.
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