How to download YouTube videos on Mac without relying on webpages

How to download YouTube videos on Mac without relying on webpages

Download YouTube videos to our Mac it is an ever-changing task. The reason is clear: since YouTube reserves this feature for its premium subscription, one of the methods we explain is an unofficial method that ends up forcibly disabled by Google. Every web page that allows you to do this, from any device, ends up closing sooner or later.

This is why often when we look for ways to download these videos we find links to web pages that no longer exist. But in this article we will show you how to do it using an app It has survived the years, is maintained by a community of users and developers, and has long been reliable.

JDownloader as an eternal app to download YouTube videos

You will remember the app from the golden age it had with the Megaupload times: JDownloader. This download manager specializes in bulk file download services, but its source code also includes the ability to download the videos or even the preview audios and images of YouTube videos. You can download JDownloader for macOS for free here.

Once the app is installed, open it. You will see that the window is simple: main area in which active downloads will be listed and a toolbar from which to control these downloads. You don’t have to use them – just search for a video on YouTube that you want to download and copy its web address.

JDownloader will react on its own when it detects this address copied to the clipboard, displays the link in its main area. If you click on the ‘+’ symbol that we have to the left of its name, everything we can download from that link will be displayed (audio, video, description and picture of Overview). In the video option, you can even choose the quality you want the download to be.

Click on the video file to select it and click the Play symbol in the toolbar to start the download. Video will be downloaded in the macOS Downloads folderAlthough you can change this directory from the app settings in case you want the video on another site. Remember, if you save it to iCloud Drive, you can play it from the rest of your devices.

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The advantage of using JDownloader is that you stop relying on web pages which provide the download link of the original video. Normally these pages are full of intrusive advertisements which even install you adware on the computer, and they usually do not have too much longevity since YouTube itself is in charge of shutting them down through its legal team.