How to Download YouTube Videos in 2021
YouTube is the biggest online video platform there is.
It’s accessed by 30 million visitors watching millions of videos. The bandwidth YouTube serves up is so big it’s even hard to imagine.
What does YouTube say about downloading videos?
Downloading videos without permission, selling them is considered a violation of their terms of service. However, violating the terms of a website doesn’t make it a criminal act.
But only that you can be banned from the platform. However, as of now, there’s nothing going on that penalizes users for downloading these videos.
Google makes it clear that you are free to watch youtube videos from their platform. But not download them. However, there are plenty of apps and tools that let you do this thing, considering how popular downloading a YouTube video is.
Steps to Download YouTube videos
Download YouTube videos with a video downloading tool
Video downloading tool or video converter tool for downloading YouTube videos
The best one in the list is easily 4K converter.
4k download works really well across Mac, Windows, and Linux platforms. What’s more is that you can download videos in different formats 720p, 1080p, and others.
You can save the videos with subtitles in 50 plus languages.
What should be the features of a video converter tool?
There are several things to look for in a video converter tool.
Namely,
Video quality- The file that you get as output be it 720p, 1080p, or anything else for that matter should be of high quality and get the play in reasonable quality.
Subtitles- YouTube is a multicultural phenomenon. Lots of users from different geo locales are uploading videos to the platform and we want that the subtitles be available for each of these languages. 4k Download makes that possible.
Batch downloads- Several times on YouTube a series of videos is listed that you may want to download at one go.
Multiple file type- A good video downloader must provide the flexibility of choosing the file download type. You may want to save the file as mp3, mp4, .avi or other formats.
Speed- Yes download speed can also be a variable of the tool you are using since its first downloaded to their cloud servers.
Speed varies depending on the tool. You should have a great tool to make this possible.
How to download videos step-by-step?
Here’s the step by step process that guides you on how to download videos.
First copy the url of the YouTube video from the address bar.
It will something of this format:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyz
Next go to the youtube downloader or converter and add the video url right there.
For instance, Y2Mate is one of the most popular tools to achieve this. Here’s what you get when you go to the site.
On the homepage enter the URL and click on start. It’s also available as a Chrome addon.
Once you add the URL and press start, this is what you get:
The video in different formats
Free Direct way to download videos
Other than publicly available streaming tools there are also options to download the video directly.
Here’s how to do this:
Go to the video
Open YouTube in your browser and go to the video to download.
Next ss in the url. Add the ss immediately after www. And before youtube.com.
For instance, here’s how it looks. www.ssyoutube.com
Press the enter button on the keyboard. You get redirected to a free download site.
Click on the download button to download the video.
Download YouTube videos with addons
There are several add-ons available for both Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers.
Just do a Google search for these addons and download the extension and run them on your browser to get started.
One of the best tools you can use is the 4k download that offers plenty of file formats, is less clumsy, and offers a great visual experience when downloading videos.
The free options work, but you might encounter slow download speeds and a lack of flexibility in the file types available.