Free YouTube downloaders will let you save videos from the world's biggest video hosting site, ready to watch offline later whenever you want.
Youtube downloader 6 8 Related: youtube downloader, free download youtube downloader, free youtube downloader, youtube video downloader Filter. Our free YouTube video downloader lets you download YouTube videos in MP4, FLV, 3GP, and many more formats at the best quality and high download speed. How To Download A Video From YouTube For Free It's legal to share and embed YouTube videos on the Internet, however using an.
These free tools will enable you to download and save videos from YouTube – and often other video sharing sites too – in a format of your choice. You can usually choose to save the whole clip or just the audio, which is a great choice for music videos and video podcasts. It's easy; it doesn't require owning one of the best laptops, either.
YouTube downloaders can also come in handy in other circumstances. If you have a slow internet connection, you'll find that streaming videos can be a pain. With the right downloader, however, you can set the videos you are interested in to download overnight so they are ready and waiting for you to enjoy in the morning, stutter-free and buffer-free.
Free YouTube downloaders are always changing, but we upgrade this guide frequently so you can be sure that you're always getting up to date advice. If you're specifically interested in saving music from YouTube, you might want to check out our guide to the best YouTube to MP3 software as well.
- How to download YouTube videos for free
Before you use a free YouTube downloader, bear in mind that using third-party apps to download videos is against YouTube's terms of service, which say you can only stream videos directly from its servers. Downloading videos is also a potential copyright infringement unless you own the video yourself, have permission from the copyright holder, or it's in the public domain.
1. 4K Video Downloader
Fast, free and flexible – the most versatile YouTube downloader
4K Video Downloader is the best free tool around for quick, fuss-free YouTube downloads. It's simple to use, highly customizable, ad-free, and doesn't include any bundled extra software.
To grab a video (or a whole playlist, provided it's not longer than 24 videos), simply copy its URL from your web browser, click 'Paste URL' and select an output format, quality and location.
There's a great choice of formats – both video and audio – including MP4 and MP3. You can download captions for individual videos, and there's support for 3D and 360-degree videos too.
Delving into the properties lets you tweak options like multi-stream downloads (increasing the number of streams will speed up downloads, but increases the risk YouTube blocking your IP address) and set up a proxy connection.
Buying a key will let you download longer playlists and playlists with captions, and at £7.95 (about US$10, AU$15) for a lifetime license for three PCs, it's a bargain, but the free edition has everything else you could wish for.
2. WinX YouTube Downloader
Clear, powerful and well designed – a very close runner-up
Running a very close second, WinX YouTube Downloader can download videos from all the most popular sites, including Facebook, Vimeo and DailyMotion. It's very easy to use. Just paste in a URL, select an output format and quality setting, and it will be added to the current batch.
Once you've added all the videos you want to download, simply click the 'Download' button and they'll all be processed at once, and saved to the destination folder of your choice.
WinX YouTube Downloader can download 4K video when available, and only loses out to 4K Video Downloader because it's unable to download 3D and 360-degree videos. If this isn't a problem for you, this free YouTube downloader comes highly recommended.
3. Any Video Converter Free
Download and convert videos, and add special effects
On the face of it, Any Video Converter Free is one of the best YouTube downloaders out there. The only drawback is that the free version of this brilliant program limits you to downloading a single video at a time, but if you're looking for a free solution, this is something you may decide you're happy to put up with.
There are lots of video formats to choose from, and there's even a basic video editor built into this YouTube downloader. This can be used to crop a video you download, add simple effects such as colour adjustment, and add overlay text.
The whole process is quick and easy. Any Video Converter's interface may not be to everyone's liking, but that's really nitpicking; this is a fantastic free YouTube downloader all other respects. Watch out for the bundled ByteFence and Yahoo software during installation, and you're good to go.
4. Free YouTube Download
There are no prizes for guessing what Free YouTube Download does. This is a very simple, tightly focused free YouTube downloader that does away with distractions to get the job done well. Paste in a URL from YouTube and you can download the video in just a couple of clicks – or no clicks at all if you enable the Auto Download option.
You can download several videos at once if you need to, and you can convert to several different formats on the fly. Just which formats are available to you will depend on the quality of the original video, but AVI, MP4, iPhone/iPod and MKV should be available in most cases. It's also possible to convert to audio-only MP3 if you don’t need the footage as well.
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There's only one real drawback, but it's a biggie – you can only use Free YouTube Download to grab clips that are less than three minutes long. That rules out most music videos for a start, and is a real shame.
5. aTube Catcher
Download, convert and merge videos as they're playing
Although the name suggests that this is just a YouTube downloader, aTube Catcher can actually save videos from most of the big video hosting sites.
First, however, a word of warning: sneaky adware abounds during the installation. When you're offered the first app, make sure to hit Cancel, and for the second one click Decline – then you'll be free to enjoy aTube Catcher without any unwanted surprises.
Downloaded videos can be converted automatically to a number of popular formats, so you can tailor them for their intended use, or whatever device you intend to watch them on. If you're looking to download a large number of videos, you can download them all at once, maxing out your bandwidth – something not available in all free YouTube downloaders.
This free YouTube downloader offers plenty of added extras too, such as the ability to record any on-screen video, video merging, and disc burning.
- Check out our guide to the best video editors
YouTube is designed to only allow users to watch and view videos on their website. Many users want to download or save their favorite YouTube videos to their computer so they can watch them without being connected to the Internet or on other devices.
Below are the steps required for downloading and watching YouTube videos on your computer for free.
NoteThis page only provides instructions for downloading or saving a YouTube video to your computer. Instructions for saving a video as audio is on our saving only the audio of a YouTube video to an MP3 file page.
TipUnless you plan on transferring the video to your smartphone or tablet after it is downloaded, see our how to download a YouTube video on a smartphone or tablet steps for these devices.
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Use a website to save YouTube video to your computer
Today, many websites allow you to enter the URL of the video you want to save to your computer and get a link to download the video file. Below are the steps for downloading a YouTube video with one such website, KeepVid.pro.
NoteThe functionality of downloading a YouTube video on the KeepVid.pro website does not work correctly in the Internet Explorerweb browser. If you still use Internet Explorer, you will need to use a different browser, such as Firefox or Chrome.
- First, go to the YouTube page containing the video you want to download. When you've found the page, press Ctrl+L on your keyboard to highlight the text in the address bar, and then Ctrl+C to copy the Internet address. If you are on an Apple computer, substitute Ctrl with the Command key (⌘).
- Go to the website https://keepvid.pro.
- The page shows a text box where you can enter the URL of a YouTube video. Click inside the text box to place your text cursor there, then paste the address that you copied in step 1 by pressing Ctrl+V (or ⌘+V on a Mac).
- A preview thumbnail image of your video is displayed 5 to 10 seconds after pasting the YouTube video URL in step 3. Click the blue Best Download button next to the video preview.
- Depending on the Internet browser and its settings, you may see a prompt asking what you want to do with the video file. Select the Save option to save the file to your computer. The video file may also begin downloading immediately with no prompt.
If the video opens directly in your browser, right-click the video and choose Save Video As.
- The file name defaults to either the name of the video or 'videoplayback,' and the file extension is either mp4 or webm, depending on the best quality video available for your URL.
The 'best download' button may not show you the actual file format you will download. For instance, the button may say 'MP4' even if the best available format is WEBM.
- If desired, change the file name to something related to your specific video. You don't need to enter the file extension (such as .webm). The extension is added to the file automatically.
- Click Save to save your video. By default, it is saved to your downloads folder.
Download HD YouTube video with Youtube-dl
If you want to download a YouTube video in HD (high definition), your options are limited. Most websites, such as the one listed above, do not allow you to download HD video for free.
However, the free program Youtube-dl can download any available YouTube video format to your computer, including the HD version.
Youtube-dl can be downloaded for free at https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html. Click the Windows exe link to download the program.
The youtube-dl.exe executable file can be run directly from your command prompt (Start menu → Windows System → Command Prompt). For example, to download the best quality of a YouTube video, run youtube-dl.exe URL, where URL is the URL of the video on YouTube.
In the example pictured above, the video downloaded by Youtube-dl was the HD version, with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The file was saved in the MKV format, which is supported by many media players, such as VLC.
By comparison, the same video downloaded from the KeepVid website was the SD (standard definition) version, with a resolution of 640x360 pixels. Even though the website listed this as the 'best download,' the HD version was available, but the website does not offer you the ability to download it.
For a complete guide to using Youtube-dl, see our article How to download YouTube videos and audio with YouTube-dl.
What about a private video?
You cannot download private videos because the YouTube download service would not have the necessary rights to access the video.
I still can't download a video
If after following the above steps, you do not get a preview like our example, make sure that the link you are using works by opening the page in a new window. Once verified as working, try the above steps again. If the steps continue not to work, try refreshing this page by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard and following the above steps again.
YouTube bookmarklet, browser add-ons, and extensions
If you plan on downloading several videos, you can also use the Computer Hope YouTube bookmarklet. See our bookmarklet page for more information about bookmarklets. There are also browser add-ons for Firefox and extensions for Google Chrome to download videos from video sites.
Additional information
- See the YouTube definition for further information and related links.