April 01, 2017
Warning: It's certainly against YouTube's terms and conditions, which say you can
only use its content for streaming, and you could argue that it's
unethical too – many artists depend on YouTube's ads for their income,
so any ad-free playback you do is depriving them of real cash money. You download youtube videos at your own legal risk.
YouTube
videos are designed to stream, not to sit on your hard disk/memory cards or
solid state drive. But sometimes there are very good reasons why you might want
to save videos for watching offline. You might live in the sticks, where
reliable broadband is as rare as reliable buses. You might commute through
areas where people still point at aeroplanes, never mind let mobile data masts
anywhere near them. Or you might be reliant on data connections so congested
and so slow.
Or you might
just want to save a clip for posterity because you suspect it’s about to be
deleted.
Whatever the
reason, there are plenty of ways to download YouTube videos for free on
Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. In this feature we’ll share our favorites and
explore what’s legal and what isn’t.
To the
tubes!
Download YouTube videos with TubeMate for Android
TubeMate is
one of the most popular YouTube downloader for Android, and with good reason:
it’s really easy to use and has the features you need without any hurdles. You
will like it a lot.
This app is
not available on the Google Play Store,
so first of all you'll need to allow your Android device to install and run
apps downloaded from other places. Be cautious when you turn on this setting,
as you'll want to make sure you only downloaded apps you know are safe and
reliable.
Step on how to Install TubeMate
#1: Open up
Settings
#2: Go to Security
#3: Scroll down and next to where it says 'Unknown
sources,
#4: Tap the toggle to turn this setting on.
#5: Now on
your Android device visit the TubeMate YouTube Downloader website and
select one of the verified sites to download it from.
TubeMate is not available in the
Google Play Store, so you'll have to grant permission for apps downloaded from
unknown sources, then get it from the developer's site
You might
see a warning message about downloading APK files, so click 'OK' to allow it.
Once TubeMate has downloaded, run the file and tap 'Install', then tap 'Open'.
TubeMate
looks like the normal YouTube app, with an extra frame around it. You can
browse YouTube as normal until you find what you want to download, or tap the
menu icon in the top right, select 'URL' and paste the address of a video from
your web browser.
When you
watch a YouTube video in TubeMate, a bright green download button will appear
above it. Tap it and you’ll see a progress bar, which tells you that the app is
“parsing video information”. In plain English that means it’s getting all the
bits and pieces it needs to download the clip.
The next
thing you’ll see is a list of formats. You’ll see video and audio formats and
different quality and resolution options for each. If you have a high-end
device then by all means download the highest possible quality versions, but
remember that the higher the resolution the bigger the file: if your phone or
tablet doesn’t have much free space, YouTube videos will soon fill it up.
Browse YouTube as normal within
TubeMate until you find the video you want, then tap the green button to
download it in a format and quality of your choice
Download YouTube videos to an iOS device or Mac
If you’re an
Apple addict the process of downloading YouTube clips is very slightly
different depending on which Apple OS you’re on. If you’re using iOS on an
iPhone, iPad or iPod touch then you’ll need our first method, and if you’re
using OS X or MacOS on a Mac you’ll need the second.
On iOS, the
trick is to install a clever little app called Documents5. It’s a file
manager, but it also happens to be able to download YouTube clips too. The
process is a little fiddly but still straightforward.
First of
all, find the clip you want to download in the YouTube app for iOS or in
Safari. Once you’ve found it, tap the Share icon and then Copy Link.
To download a YouTube video using
iOS, copy the link from the YouTube app, then use savefrom.net and Document5 to
save it to your device
Open
Documents5 and look for its web browser icon, which is the little compass at
the bottom right of the display. Tap on that and go to savefrom.net.
Paste the address of the YouTube clip in the big input box, choose the quality
options you prefer and the file will start to download.
When it’s
finished it’ll appear in Document5’s downloads section, from which you can drag
it over Photos > Camera Roll so it’s available from outside the Documents5
app.
On a Mac
there are stacks of options, but one of the most straightforward is MacX YouTube Downloader.
All you need to do is add the link and choose the quality options, and you can
download multiple clips at once.
Download YouTube videos to a Windows PC
There are
all kinds of PC apps with names like Super Best Windows YouTube Downloader Oh right,
you could try This One, but many of them are dodgier. Expect unwanted software
installation, misleading download links, terrifying terms and conditions.
If you’re
not fussed about downloading multiple clips simultaneously, we really like Any Video Converter Free. As with other apps you
simply have to provide it with the clip address, choose the quality you want
and let it do its stuff. If your ambitions are a little higher, the excellent aTube Catcher offers all kinds of tools for
pixel-perfect performance. It’s really quick too.
You’ll find
both these apps – and lots more – in our roundup of the best free YouTube video downloaders for Windows.
Or if you’d rather use a web-based tool, we really like ClipConverter.cc.
Any Video Converter Free is a superb
app for downloading YouTube videos on Windows. It lets you save multiple clips
at once, and optimize them for playback on any device
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