Known as the most popular and the biggest video sharing and social media website, YouTube has build an intimate connection among billions of content makers and ordinary netizens. One the one hand, it provides a great platform for content makers to express their knowledge, experience, life and opinions through video format. On the other hand, it is a vital tool for internet addicts to consume their spare time with complex contents.
However, YouTube doesn’t offer the download feature, which is inconvenient for those who want to save certain videos for other uses. Besides, ads often occurs in the begin or middle of the video, distracting people from the video. So, to help people enjoy YouTube videos without ads offline anytime anywhere, here will show 6 different ways on how to download YouTube videos on Mac.
Cisdem Video Converter
Free Download macOS 10.12 or later 
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
If you want to download videos from YouTube on Mac without installing extra tools, just use the paid version it provided, YouTube Premium. While it is convenient, something you should know before, the quality it offered is moderate, it can only download videos one by one, and the download speed is up to the internet you connected.
For a better experience, a professional YouTube video downloader for Mac is recommended. Cisdem Video Converter is a powerful all-in-one downloader that can not only download from YouTube, but also extract video from 1000+ websites. It grabs videos in 1080P, 4K, 8K resolution, allowing people to enjoy crystal like pictures. Also, it offers a batch-processing feature to save multiple videos at once and download the entire YouTube playlist without limitation.
Since it can also worked as a preeminent video converter, it can not only download YouTube to MP4 on Mac by default, but also batch convert the downloaded videos to other 600+ video and audio formats, and even support third-party presets, such as iPhone, Android, etc. Moreover, it offers a plethora of editing features to customize the downloaded videos into personal liking.
Download and install the newest version of Cisdem Video Converter on Mac.
Free Download macOS 10.12 or later
Run it, click 
tab to enter into the download interface.
Visit YouTube with your common-used browser, select any video and copy its link address.
Back to Cisdem, paste the URL into the bottom field for adding URL, click “+” or tap “enter” to parse out the video.
If you want to download multiple videos, click “File > Input URLs” on the top bar, which can help you add several URLs and analyze them at once in one click.
Click 
to save all added videos. Once finished, click 
and a local folder will pop up with the just downloaded videos.
If you want to convert YouTube MP4 to other digital formats, drag-n-drop the videos to the first interface for conversion, and then click the Format button to select any format you want from the list.
How to Download YouTube Video on Mac for FreeClipGrab is a free video downloader that can download YouTube videos Mac free. What makes it special is that it offers a built-in search engine to search for YouTube videos by title or name within the app. And it can also worked as a normal downloader to rely on the URL to obtain the contained video. Besides, it can detect the copied link from the clipboard and analyze it automatically, which is pretty easy to use.
But it has its disadvantages, for example, it can't download YouTube playlists, can only deal with videos one by one, and shows a slow speed when the target video is large. If you don't mind these issues, ClipGrab is a great option that can also convert video to MPEG4, WMV, OGG, and MP3 directly.
Using web-based extension is also an effective solution to download online videos from websites. Unlike troublesome entity software, extensions are normally lightweight, easy to use and don’t need the URL. Since there isn’t superior YouTube video downloader extension on Safari currently, the following will focus on sharing the useful downloader extensions on Chrome and Firefox.
In fact, there are more and more YouTube downloader Chrome extension are obsolete and not available any more. Through numerous testing, we ultimately find out that YouTube 4K Downloader Chrome Extension is a really useful and powerful tool.
As the name manifests, it supports downloading YouTube video up to 4K resolution. Accordingly, the higher the video resolution, the slower the download speed. It may even make a delay respond to the task especially when 4K is selected for large videos. Besides YouTube, it can also download videos from some popular streaming websites, including Facebook, Instagram, Bilibili and so on.
However, the installation speed is more complicated than other extensions. For more details, welcome to read the step-by-step guide below.
Surprisingly, YouTube 4K Downloader extension can also work on Firefox. But in this part, we will introduce another reliable YouTube video downloader Firefox addon, OFFMP4, which possesses an easier installation process and supports downloading videos from more websites, like Twitter, Dailymotion, Soundcloud, Vimeo and so on.
Plus, it ensures to download videos in high quality up to 1080P, 2K. However, the download speed not only becomes slow when choosing the highest quality, but also heavily depends on the connected internet. Under examination, it takes over 1 hour to download an 8-minute 1080P long video.
Besides, if you don't want to increase the capacity burden on your device, you are also allowed to use online services to download YouTube videos online and free on Mac. But, most online YouTube downloaders can only download videos up to 720P resolution, accompanied by various issues, such as entering to an unrelated or unhealthy page, downloading video without sound, etc.
On the contrary, 10downloader.com swallows all these issues, which also offers an additional auto-monitoring feature to make the process easier. It aims to download HD videos in one click without any problems. If you accept to download YouTube video without sound for video editing or other purposes, it even allows you to download 4K YouTube video on Mac easily. Admittedly though, it can't download videos in batches, nor can it fetch entire videos from a playlist.
In addition, you can also choose to record and save YouTube videos. This way can help you save any videos from any websites, even long videos. But you must monitor the process at the side every moment and make adjustment in time, because you have to make sure the playback is smooth.
If you don't mind it, it is recommended to use QuickTime Player to record YouTube video on Mac. It is not only the default player on Mac, which also offers an excellent work in recording.
At first, people can watch the downloaded video with the default player on Mac, QuickTime Player. When the encoding codecs are incompatible, you can switch to use other third-party media players for Mac, like Cisdem Video Player, VLC Media Player, 5KPlayer, etc.
Yes, VLC is an open source media player that offers various extra functions, including downloading YouTube videos. If you want to know more details, welcome to read this article: https://www.cisdem.com/resource/download-youtube-with-vlc.html, which illustrates the detailed steps and comprehensive solutions to handle the unexpected issues occurring in the downloading process.
| Frequently encountered issues | According solutions | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | YouTube doesn’t work |
*Update your browser *Clear your browsing data and cookies |
| 2 | Some videos cannot be reached due to geo-restrictions | Try a useful and reliable VPN tool |
| 3 | Receive “Video Download Failed” notification |
*If you are using YouTube Premium, check the download setting to make sure nothing is unfit. *For online downloaders or extensions, check whether they still support YouTube download, because YouTube often updates and improves its copyright system and security settings to make them disable. *If you are using the software, remember to update to the newest version of the application. If it still doesn’t work, you’d better try another effective downloader software. |
This article has introduced the most comprehensive ways to download YouTube videos on Mac. Each way has its own pros and cons. But if you want YouTube video download in batches or download YouTube playlist in one click, there is no doubt that only the professional video downloader can make it effortlessly without problems. Furthermore, it provides high-resolution quality for ultimate visual enjoyment and supports various output video or audio formats for people to choose based on personal preference.
Megan has an impressive deal of experience with Mac software and has the ability to explain tech stuff in a simplified, straightforward and easy to understand way.
