Browser integration: Downie offers top-notch integration with popular browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Chromium and Opera. Downie integrates so well that you can download your favorite YouTube videos in a single click. Key features: The program has a professional-looking interface. It is perfect for downloading videos from YouTube and other sites such as Facebook, Vevo, Dailymotion, and Vimeo. Safari extensions enhance and customize the browsing experience on your Mac. Safari extensions add functionality to Safari, so you can explore the web the way you want. Extensions can show helpful information about a webpage, display news headlines, help you use your favorite services, change the appearance of webpages, and much more.
When I reviewed the video player IINA (see “Prepare for Apple Dropping Old Media Formats with the IINA Video Player,” 6 May 2019), quite a few TidBITS readers took it as an opportunity to vent their frustrations about downloading videos from YouTube. Recent changes in Firefox have broken extensions like DownThemAll, which used to be a handy way to download videos.
There are several reasons you might want to download videos from YouTube. Like most cloud-based things, YouTube videos are ephemeral—they vanish all the time for all kinds of reasons. The uploader might pull a video down, YouTube may remove a video in response to a copyright complaint (sometimes legitimate, sometimes not), and a video might disappear if it runs afoul of YouTube’s ever-changing and seemingly haphazard standards for acceptable content.
But preservation isn’t the only reason people download YouTube videos. For example, they may want to download short clips to use in their videos (honoring the doctrine of fair use, of course). A friend of mine accidentally deleted the “sizzle clip” he slaps on the front of every video in iMovie, and he solved the problem by downloading one of his own videos from YouTube and extracting that clip. Or, you may want to be able to play some YouTube videos in a situation where there’s no Internet access.
Whatever the reason, you don’t have to rely on Firefox to download videos from YouTube. There are several solutions on the Mac, and I review a few of them here.
Note that downloading YouTube videos with a utility other than YouTube’s apps (which require a YouTube Premium subscription) nominally violates YouTube’s terms of service:
You shall not download any Content unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content. You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. YouTube and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content.
That said, I’ve never heard of YouTube punishing a user for downloading videos, although using copyrighted material in videos you upload to YouTube could get you in trouble.
The Command-Line Grand Poobah: youtube-dl
Arguably, the greatest of the YouTube downloaders is the public-domain youtube-dl, a command-line utility that powers many apps like the aforementioned IINA. It’s not the friendliest option, but it’s free and powerful.
The project offers instructions for installing youtube-dl. You can use the curl command or rely on Homebrew, a command-line package manager that I strongly recommend—refer to Homebrew’s home page for a one-line command to install it from Terminal. Then, in Terminal, you can enter brew install youtube-dl to install the download utility.
Once you install youtube-dl, type man youtube-dl in Terminal to see its extensive list of options. But all you really need to do to use it is to type youtube-dl URL in Terminal, where URL is the link to the desired YouTube video. That downloads the video in your current directory. Type cd ~/Downloads before running youtube-dl to download the video to your Downloads folder.
You can play the video after you download it with QuickTime or with a third-party player like IINA or VLC.
The developers of youtube-dl issue updates frequently, which is why I recommend installing it with Homebrew. The first time I tried to download a video for this article, I received an error because I hadn’t updated youtube-dl first. Homebrew makes updating easy with the brew update youtube-dl command, which updates both youtube-dl and Homebrew itself, along with all the packages youtube-dl needs to function.
A Free Graphical App: ClipGrab
ClipGrab is a simple, free utility for macOS that can download individual YouTube videos and even convert them to other formats, including MP3 if you’re only interested in the audio.
It’s easy to use: copy a YouTube URL and open ClipGrab. It will automatically extract the URL from the clipboard. Use the Format drop-down menu to choose a format (Original is usually fine if you want video), and click Grab This Clip to download the video. The default download location is your Desktop, but you can change it in the Settings tab.
ClipGrab offers a search tab where you can search for and download videos, but I find it easier to use YouTube’s search engine to find videos and then paste the URL into ClipGrab.
A Setapp Option: Downie
A subscription to Setapp includes several utilities that can download YouTube videos: the torrent client Folx, media players Movist Pro and Elmedia Player, and an app purpose-built for downloading YouTube videos: Downie. (If you’re not a Setapp subscriber, Downie costs $19.99.)
Downie, unlike ClipGrab, is tailor-made for the Mac. You can drag and drop YouTube URLs to Downie’s window or its Dock icon. Downie also comes bundled with a Safari extension, which you enable in Safari > Preferences > Extensions. Once you enable the extension, you can click the Downie icon in Safari’s toolbar to download a video.
In addition to Downie’s simplicity, I like that it downloads subtitles with the video (YouTube automatically generates subtitles for videos). Downie saves subtitles alongside the video as an SRT file. Unfortunately, QuickTime Player doesn’t understand those files, so you need to use a more capable video player like IINA to view them. As long as the SRT file is in the same directory as the video, it works automatically when you play the video in IINA.
Downie can also download an entire YouTube playlist at once. Just drag the playlist URL into Downie and click Playlist to see all the available videos to download. You can then click Add Selected to download the playlist videos.
Download an Entire Channel with 4K Video Downloader
Downie can download an entire playlist, but there’s only one Mac app that I know of that can download an entire YouTube channel: 4K Video Downloader. You can try the app for free (it costs $15 to unlock the entire app). To use it, copy the channel’s URL, open 4K Video Downloader, and click Paste Link to load every video in the channel.
Even better, when 4K Downloader is running, you can subscribe to a channel to download every new video published on the channel automatically.
Note that if a channel has a lot of videos, it can take a long time to download them all and it may use considerable system resources to do so. Nonetheless, I’ve successfully downloaded entire channels containing hundreds of videos with 4K Video Downloader, making it my favorite utility of the bunch.
4K Video Download can also download subtitles, and it can convert YouTube videos to MP3 audio files. Of course, it downloads individual videos as well.
There you have it: four utilities that you can use to download YouTube videos in macOS. Do you have another favorite? Let us know in the comments.
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple in January of 2003. It is the native internet browser of all Apple PCs, mac books and iOS gadgets. Safari 7 is the latest version of this browser and was released to the public last June of 2013. Big improvements are noted with Safari 7 such as low memory use, revamped top site and sidebar interface, shared link feature, etc. Along with the improved and much stable Safari browser, video streaming has also gained wide popularity. Today, users can view the unlimited number of videos by simply connecting to the internet. From full-length movies, latest TV shows, funny clips, educational videos to all others, these things can be easily watched online. However, streaming clips online requires you to connect to the internet all the time.
To save your bandwidth and buffer waiting time, it is always best to download video content to your hard drive. With online videos saved on your PC, you can watch clips over and over again without the internet or get them for portable playback. But for Mac users as well as non-technical users, how to download video in safari is a big struggle. Now the following guide will give you detailed information.
Two Methods to Download Video from Safari
Method 1: Download Video Using Safari
The video downloading capability of the Safari browser is more of a hidden gem rather than an obvious feature. If you don’t want to install additional programs, browser plugins or extensions on your Apple PC all you need is a Safari browser and some skills. See these steps below.
- Make sure that you have the most recent version of Safari installed on your Mac.
- Click the “Window” tab and hit “Activity”.
- Head on to the website where you want to grab videos.
- Go back to the “Activity” tab and select the largest file from the list.
- Double click it and the download will commerce automatically
The safari browser is capable of downloading if you want to save some space on your hard drive. Aside from being totally free, using it is extremely easy – in a few scrolls, you can get the job done quickly. However, this function is not available anymore for Safari 8.0 or later.
Method 2: Video Grabber
Another free safari video downloader that is proven to be effective is Video Grabber. Being a web-based application, Video Grabber needs not to be installed and there are no fees, memberships or even sign-ups required. Aside from letting you save a good amount of space on your hard drive, it also comes 100% free. This program allows you to download videos from popular streaming sites such as YouTube, Blip, 5min, Break, Dailymotion, Vimeo and more. Using it is essentially easy, see the steps below:
1
Copy the URL of the video page with desired clip and visit Video Grabber’s website. On the blank search bar, simply paste the link you’ve just copied. Click the “Download” button to start downloading the video.
2
Note that there will be a notification pop-up and you should click “Download Launcher” when prompted. Once downloaded and installed, the video will be downloaded automatically. And you don’t need to download it again when you want to download videos next time.
3
Wait until fetching process completes. Just choose your preferred formats and resolutions, you can directly click the “Download” button beside the format to save it on your PC. Depending on the file size, this might take seconds to several minutes.
Download Youtube Videos Mac Free
Compare to the native safari video downloader, Video Grabber is known to efficiently download videos from almost all websites and not just YouTube. Moreover, you can grab videos in three simple steps, no more guessing which file to download as well as video saving errors. Additionally, it works with all web browsers and not just safari alone. You can use it with Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Explorer and many more. Lastly, Video Grabber is also provides users with more practical tools, such as Online Converter, Screen Recorder and Search engine. With them, you don’t have to download other media apps. You may use the simplified version of Video Grabber directly from below, it works in the same way and you could follow the instructions.
Mac Software Program to download video
If you want a more stable desktop application with no notification pop-ups or even video fetching process, check out Free Video Downloader for mac. This software can download video from safari works with the latest OS X Mavericks very smoothly. It does not show any incompatible errors. Video Downloader for Mac supports different formats such as MP4, WMV, MOV, 3GP, WebM and all others while there is an option to choose from various video resolutions. You may get a quick start from the below download link.
Download Youtube Videos Mac Safari Extension Firefox
One great feature of the tool is that you can grab those videos running from HTTP, RTMP, MMS, FTP, RTSP, and HTTPS protocols without losing quality. Additionally, it comes with a file converter for modifying formats depending on your desires. As an alternative to video downloader for safari, this program can download and convert multiple files all at once letting you save great amount of time as well as effort. Other features include PC screen recorder, live video streaming capturer, video editor and more.