How To Save YouTube Videos

YouTube is the world’s biggest video sharing site, and includes an enormous variety of videos on every conceivable subject. This guide shows you how to save YouTube videos on your computer using an easy and free method.

Apart from the funny viral videos YouTube is famous for, you can also find official music videos and fan-made music videos, clips from TV shows, how to guides on many subjects, and watch videos from NASA or full-length speeches from politicians. On YouTube EDU you can even find see entire lecture series from the world’s best universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Cambridge. Whatever your interests, YouTube probably has videos that will match.

There are many reasons why you might want to save a YouTube video. First of all you will have a permanent copy on your computer that you will still be able to watch if the video is no longer accessible on YouTube at some time in the future. Once the video is on your computer you can do more things with it, such as transferring it to an iPod or other media player for watching when you’re away from the computer. In some cases you might also want to use video editing software to use clips from a video in your own work, perhaps it you want to post a “video response” on YouTube

Although there are many different ways to download and save YouTube videos, many of them are complicated, and maybe even need you to buy software. This guide will show you an easy step-by-step way to save YouTube videos that is completely free, using a program called YouTube Downloader.

YouTube Downloader is a popular free program that lets you save YouTube videos, and also convert them into different formats to suit your needs. It works on Windows computers, so if you have an Apple Mac or use Linux, you’ll need to find an alternative method, such as the one outlined in How to Get YouTube Videos on an iPod

A good place to get YouTube Downloader is from CNET, a reputable website where software is reviewed by knowledgeable editors, rated by users, and checked for safety before being made available to the public.

At the time of writing, this was the link to use YouTube Downloader 2.5.4 on CNET.

If that link does not work for you, use Google or another search engine to find the page you need.

Once you have found the link, go through these steps:

1. Click on “Download now”
2. When you get a pop up dialogue box, choose “Save File” and if asked choose where you would like to save the file
3. Once the file has finished downloading, find it and double-click on it
4. An installation “Wizard” will start that will take you through a few steps
5. You will be asked if you want to install a Yahoo toolbar, and a YouTube Downloader toolbar. It is probably best to uncheck these boxes as you don’t really need those toolbars, and they take up precious space in your browser.
6. The other Wizard steps are straightforward, go ahead and install the program in a location of your choice. The default choices are fine for most people.

Now you are all set to download YouTube videos using your newly acquired software.

First you need to find the web address for the YouTube video you want. Most of the time this means you simply go to YouTube and look around til you find a video, and then decide you’d like to save it. Sometimes though, you may already have a link to the YouTube video, perhaps in an email message someone sent you, or a link on another website.

Once you have found the video you want, follow these steps:

1. Highlight the address of the video, right click and select copy
2. Start the “YouTube Downloader” program. (You could use the desktop shortcut, or use Windows Start menu.)
3. Most likely YouTuibe Downloader will have automatically copied the right address into the box marked “Enter video URL”. If not paste the link there.
4. Make sure the “Download video from YouTube” option is selected
5. Click the “Download Options” button, and select “YouTube Download Quality”
6. You will be shown a list that included “Normal”, “HQ”, “HD” and “Best Quality”. YouTube videos can be available in different qualities and file sizes. If you are going to eventually watch on a small screen device or want to save time, choose “Normal”. If you are going to watch on a large screen, and don’t mind waiting for a large file to download, pick one of the higher levels. After trying this a few times, you’ll soon know which level you prefer, and you can leave that as your normal setting.
7. Now click “Ok”
8. At this point if the video is protected and not available for download, you will get an error message. If everything is fine, you will be asked where you want to save the video, and it will start downloading.

While the video is downloading, you can go ahead and start downloading other videos by following the same steps (1)-(8) above.

YouTube stores its videos in a number of different formats. Depending on what you want to do with any given video, you might need to change the format of the file you downloaded into another, more useful, format.

Most of the time you will not need to do this, so first you might just want to try out the video you downloaded and see if you can already use it in the way that you want.

Here is a quick guide to the formats you are most likely to meet and to need…

MP4

This is the format you’ll want most often. It can be viewed using most software on Macs and PCs, and importantly also works on iPods, iPhones and other media players.

MPG or MPEG

Some software, especially older video editing software, might not recognise MP4 files. In this case you may want to use a file of type MPEG or MPG.

H.264

This is similar to MP4 and is usually actually put inside MP4 files. It is used by iPhones, some iPods, and Sony PSP game consoles among other devices, but may not be recognised by older desktop software.

FLV

Also known as Flash, this is the format that YouTube once used for all its videos. However you can’t easily do much with a Flash video other than watch it on your computer using special Flash players, and you should probably only use this if no other format is available or works for you.

If you decide that you do need to change the format of the file you downloaded, you can do this by using the same YouTube Downloader software by following these steps:

1. Choose the “Convert video (previously downloaded) from file” option
2. The “Enter video URL” box changes into a “Select video file” box
3. The last file you downloaded will likely appear already entered in this box
4. If you changed the filename, or want to pick a different file, click the button marked “…” on the right of the box and choose the file you need.
5. In the “Convert to” drop-down list, choose the format you think you will need. You can always come back and try another format later if your first choice doesn’t work, so don’t worry if not sure which format to go for.
6. Click “Ok”
7. You will be offered some choices about picture quality and sound volume. Leave them on their default values and click “Ok” on the pop-up.
8. Now just wait for the conversion to finish. You will get a message when it’s done. At the end of this process you should have a file you can use.

The conversion can take some time, but while you are waiting you can download more videos, convert more videos, or just do other things on your computer.

Finally, if you want to put your saved video onto an iPod or iPhone and need help on how to do that, check out the last part of the guide on How to Get YouTube Videos on an iPod.