how to download a youtube video on a mac

A Youtube Video On A 1080P High Definition
A Youtube Video On A Download It In
A Youtube Video On A Download Entire Playlists

MP4, short for MPEG-4 Part 14 multimedia format, plays everywhere Note that the MKV file, also called a Matroska, is a containerthe file could contain video utilizing any number of codecs inside.

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A Youtube Video On A Download It In

What if you want to download it In some circles, thats considered a big no-no, but you have your reasons, right Heres how.

That said, sometimes, you 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, theres a side subject that must be broached: Is it legal On the copyright front, as long as youre downloading a video for your own personal offline use, youre probably okay.

Watching YouTube videos offline through unofficial channels takes money from Google and video creators.

Theres a reason YouTube runs ads: people make a living this way.

If you want to share a video, YouTube and most other video sites make it easy, from embedding to emailing to sharing via social networks.

If you must download a YouTube videoabsolutely need to, just for yourself, and not for dissemination, and not to be a total douche-nozzleheres how.

Note: This story is updated frequently as the tools involved change regularly.

Some of those changes are not always pleasant, such as software so full of extras it gets flagged as malware by antivirus tools.

The same goes for the helper websitesa change in a sites ad network can also create issues with malware.

To prevent this from becoming a laundry list of programs and sites that can download YouTube videos, we came up with a few rules for inclusion.

Services must: Support 4K downloads even in the free version.

Work with top three video sites: YouTube, Facebook, and Vimeo.

A Youtube Video On A Download Entire Playlists

Download entire playlists or channels in a batch (on YouTube), at least with a paid version.

Output to MP3 for audio (or offer companion software that does so).

If theres even a whiff of it in the air, even a PUP, its out.

The programs, services, and sites in this story are all free of spamvirusproblems as of this writing, but caveat emptor.

Desktop Software Third-party software is where you will get the best control over downloading online videos.

Typically, you paste the URL for the YouTube video you want into the program, and it downloads the highest quality version it can find.

A Youtube Video On A 1080P High Definition

For videos in 1080p High Definition (HD) format, thats usually an MP4 file.

For anything higher in quality4K and even 8K videosthe file format is typically MKV.

In the past, YouTube videos were Flash-based, so your download was an FLV file, but those tend to be harder to play back.

How To Download A Youtube Video On A Mac