How to Download YouTube Videos

YouTubers upload hundreds of hours of footage every minute. What if you want to download it? In some circles, that’s considered a big no-no, but you have your reasons, right? Here’s how.

There are billions of hours of video on YouTube. Literally. And that’s hardly the most astounding statistic about the site, which has been the go-to destination for uploading and watching video since 2005. 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, there’s a side subject that must be broached: Is it legal?

On the copyright front, as long as you’re downloading a video for your own personal offline use, you’re probably okay. It’s more black and white when you consider Google’s terms of service for YouTube, which read: “You are not allowed to…access, reproduce, download, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, alter, modify or otherwise use any part of the Service or any Content except: (a) as expressly authorized by the Service; or (b) with prior written permission from YouTube and, if applicable, the respective rights holders.”

Multi-lingual 4K Video Downloader (4KVD) is frequently updated and features clear download links on the program’s website; no ad traps here. The software does what it advertises in a simple interface. It grabs videos up to 8K in quality and downloads to plenty of formats. Simply copy a YouTube URL and click the Paste Link button to get started. 4KVD will even grab subtitles, entire playlists, and all the videos in a channel to which you subscribe. The sites supported are limited to the big names like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and a few others, but that covers most of what you need. It does display a large banner advertisement to keep the lights on and you’re limited to 30 downloads a day on the free version.

I had to make a switch from MP4 to MKV format to get my test video to download in 4K. 4KVD snagged the 3-minute, 229.7MB file for the movie trailer in about 1 minute and 20 seconds. 4KVD defaults back to 1080p HD, so I made the same switch when downloading an Ultra High Definition (8K) playlist.