Watching YouTube videos online is fun and convenient; particularly when you prefer to just watch them once, or when you don’t have sufficient space on your memory card or hard drive. Be that as it may, there are times when you would like to watch a video more than once, share it with your friends and loved ones, or just keep it as a treasure due to its significance to you.
Furthermore, if you’re using limited internet data bundles, streaming YouTube videos may squander them ruthlessly and you’ll either find yourself with an unbearable bill or with no internet for some time. These are the moments when having the ability to save YouTube videos offline is beneficial. In the subsequent strings of text, I’ll share with you a couple of useful and smart tools for saving YouTube videos and even other online videos offline, so that you can watch and share them whenever you like.
There are two basic classes of devices you’re likely to use to watch your YouTube videos, these are portable and desktop devices. iPhones, iPads, Tablets, smartphones, and the like, will all fall under the portable devices. Desktop computers, and laptops (regardless of the fact that laptops are portable, they essentially function the same way desktop computers do) will naturally fall under the desktop devices. We’ll begin by looking at the various tools for saving YouTube videos offline in portable devices, and then desktop devices. Here we go.
Portable Devices
Most portable devices like iPhones and alternative android phones function very close to the way desktop computers do; therefore, most online tools that are meant for desktop computers will function quite well on them. However, there are apps that are meant specifically for these portable devices and they are the ones that are going to be the focus of this section.
YouTube’s Offline Feature
YouTube has a feature that enables you to watch videos offline. Since 2014, YouTube introduced an offline feature that enables both iOS and Android users to save videos offline in selected countries. However, these videos are available for offline viewing for only 48 hours. After the 48 hours, you’ll need to go back online and refresh the link to the video or it will no longer be available for offline viewing. It’s a simple feature with no complications whatsoever. All you have to do is locate the offline button while your YouTube video is streaming, tap on it, choose your preferred video settings like resolution, and that is it. Then within the next 48 hours, you just need to access your YouTube app, locate the video and play it, offline. The main drawback regarding this feature is that you must have a YouTube Red subscription (a YouTube specific subscription that gets rid of ads from YouTube videos).
Snap Tube
This is another significantly useful tool that enables you to download YouTube videos to Android such that they’ll be available offline. SnapTube comes with cool features like “Direct MP3 Downloads”, “Searching videos using keywords”, and “Selecting whatever format you prefer to watch your videos in. This app is another one that has gained international acclaim as far as the Android community is concerned. Despite the fact that it’s not available in the Google Play Store, it has over 40 million users worldwide. This gives you an idea about how useful a lot of people have found it to be. It is a free app; no charges, and it’s considerably simple to download and install. You can use it to download both YouTube videos, as well as any other online video that may interest you.
TubeMate
As one of the most recognized app for downloading YouTube videos on Android smartphones, TubeMate is simple to use and offers just enough features to get the job done. It is a third party app (although one you can trust and even fall in love with), so you won’t find it on the Google Play Store. With this app installed on your portable device, whenever you’re streaming your YouTube video, a green download button will appear on top of it. Just click the button, wait for it to analyze the video, choose your preferred video format, and wait for your video to download. The cool thing about this app is that the video will permanently be available on your memory card. You’ll be able to access and share the video whenever you like.
Desktop Devices
As indicated earlier, the focus in this section is on desktop computers and laptops. For those of you who may be vague about what desktop computers are, they are the computers that are naturally heavy and big such that moving them about willy-nilly is not a pleasant experience; so you want them at a good spot always. Simply put, it’s the computer you use and leave at home or the one you use at the library or cyber cafe.
There are various tools that will enable you to save YouTube videos offline but I will focus on 3 that I believe to be the best.
YouTube Downloader (YTD)
This is one of the best tools for downloading YouTube videos on desktop computers as well as other online videos. It supports videos from more than 90% of websites. It has a free version, which works just as well as it’s paid version (YouTube Downloader Pro). It is very simple to use. Just copy the URL (address link) of the page that has your video and past it in the app, and it’ll extract/ download the video for you. It also offers features like video conversion. So if a video is available online in a format that you don’t like, you can download it and immediately convert it to any format you like, all in one application. Once you get this application, it’ll be one of the must-have applications in your downloaders toolbox. It’s available for both Mac and PC (Personal Computer or simply Microsoft Windows Computer) users.
Internet Download Manager (IDM)
This is perhaps the most robust and versatile application you’ll ever have for downloading videos online. It works wonderfully with YouTube videos as well as other online videos. Once you install this application on your desktop computer, it integrates with 98% of your browsers. It works well with Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge. Once it’s integrated with your browser, it will always grab links of any streaming videos on a web page, and then offer you a download button, which will give you different video formats to download the video in, if various formats are available. This downloader also boosts the download speed of any download it takes over. It’s not just a video downloader; in fact, once IDM integrates with your browser, it takes over 99% of all your downloads. It will efficiently download anything that needs to be downloaded and sort them out into folders according to the nature of the download. For instance, all videos will be in a folder called videos, audios in a folder called music, eBooks and Documents in a folder called documents, etc.; and you have the option to alter these settings as you see fit. This powerful downloading app essentially comes in a paid version. Nonetheless, there’s a trial version that enables you to try out all these cool features for thirty days. It’s mainly available for PCs.
Documents 5 – Mac Users
An app strictly for Mac users, Documents 5 offers features similar to YouTube Downloader. Once installed, all you need to do is get the URL (address link) of the page that contains your video and copy it to the app and you’ll have your vide0 offline. You may mistake it for a mere PDF viewer considering its name, but it does more than that. It enables you to download videos rather well, as well as handle your eBooks.
These are the various (but not limited to) tools that you can use to get your YouTube videos offline for watching at your leisure. There are other tools online that will provide you with similar features. The above tools are the best overall. Try them out, as well as the others your friends will suggest, to figure out which one suits your style best. For now, with these, at least you have a good head start.
