How to download videos from YouTube

freemake-video-downloader-logoIn this post, I will show you how you can easily download videos from YouTube and convert them to local video files on your hard drive, making you able to play them when you are offline. Let it be said right away. A lot of the videos on YouTube is copyright protected and are not for you to download, but there is also a lot of videos you can download for free and watch later when you are offline or bring the with you were ever you go. You are very welcome to download all the videos from My YouTube channel to test this little program.

The YouTube Download Tool

The tool I will tell you about in this post is Freemake Video Downloader. It is as the name says Freeware and it is a very small tool (13 MB) you can easily download from their website. It is available in more than 15 different languages and is very easy to install. If you don’t want RealPlayer installed as well uncheck it doing the installation guide. It is not a requirement in order to install this software.

Download Freemake Video Downloader

How it works

First, you need to find the URL for the YouTube video you want to download. Find the video you want and look for the “Share this video” and copy the URL code to your clipboard (CTRL+C).

ShareThisVideo

Go to Freemake Video Downloader and click on the “Paste URL” button.
Freemake_Video_Downloader

Choose the quality you want of your download to be saved in. You can choose just to download the video or you can choose to convert it to another format in the process as well.

Choose quality

That’s it, now you can download your favorite videos from YouTube and many other video services too by the way. It doesn’t get much more simple than that. To sum it all up check out this little promotion movie from FreeMakeTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9pbxd4FCrg&feature=share&list=PL6025385C0AB8A5F2&index=4

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this little guide and found it useful. You are very welcome to drop me a comment below.

Related posts

39 Thoughts to “How to download videos from YouTube”

  1. Karen Woodham

    Now that is a handy app, there are many times when I would like to download a instructional video to watch later when I’m on the go.

    So I’m cettianly going to check this one out.

    1. Hi Karen
      It is fore sure I great little app that I have used a lot myself.

  2. Peter Neslon

    I think this step by step guide will help you a lot, it’s regarding how to download website flash video to computer for free. It supports YouTube, Mega, Myspace, Facebook, NBC, BBC, Yahoo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Veoh, etc. video websites.
    http://www.reviewstown.com/how-to-download-convert-website-flash-video.html
    Hope it helps. Feel free to email me if you need further help.

    1. Hi Peter, thanks for the tip.

  3. wow, I like this software. I never use this software, but have the other software that have a similar function. It make it easy to download video from YouTube and it free… 🙂

    1. Yeah Juan.
      Always nice with a new free tool right? 😀

  4. Shital Bhalani

    Hi Thomas,

    Great tips i always like to know new tech news from your blog.. i was using Internet Download Manager (IDM) to download videos from youtube but i was unable to chose video formate in it then i tried Youtube Download and its really great.

    1. Thank you Shital
      Freemake Video Downloader is very easy to use I think and you have lots of different formats to choose from to for your final video.

  5. Pau

    Looks like a cool app. I have looked around a lot for something like this Recently I had been using one called TubeBox, where I didn’t quite know how to change quality but it allowed you to download many videos from the same youtube channel all very quickly.

    1. Hi Pay
      I have never tried out TubeBox, but it does sound smart that you can make it download an entire YouTube channel

  6. Junaid

    wow HI there
    great post i am downloading this free youtube downloader thanks thomas for great post.

  7. Amol Wagh

    Phewww… This is far much better than IDM that I am using right now.

    IDM has many bugs when it comes to select size and quality. And I do want control over what quality I want to download, otherwise there is no point.

    Thanks for recommending FreeMake!

    1. Hi Amol
      I am glad that this post was useful for you. I love when I found new smart tools on the Internet myself. Nothing like a new free tools to make thinks easier 🙂

  8. hi thomos
    You have written a very short tutorial but it has solved many problems . I use internet download manager and my license is about to over , thanks for suggesting such a free YouTube downloader .

    It is my first to your blog and I do hope you will say me , Welcome

    1. Hi Haroon
      Glad that you found this post helpful. Hope to see you back on my blog soon for more tips, tricks and reviews 🙂

  9. wow HI there
    great post i am downloading this free youtube downloader thanks thomas for great post.

  10. Well Youtube is the biggest platform to view informative video. I use this technique to download some video tutorials and save them in my storage device. Thank you so much for this post.

  11. Ly

    This was an interesting post. I have been uploading videos to YouTube for year but only recently uploaded ones that include information about my travel blog, such at the URL, Twitter and Facebook account, and so on. I wasn’t sure that people were downloading them, but had heard it was becoming a popular thing to do. Just in case I have started using my videos as a business card. Can’t say for sure it is working, but I am getting way more typed in traffic than ever before.

  12. jeff

    You can also use RealPlayer. It’s a free video player download that also includes a built in converter and some editing features. http://www.real.com/resources/download-online-videos/

  13. Since I used download manager I had a problem with validation key. Now I got the easy way. Thanks Thomas

  14. funny

    Wow, thanks for great article. This is the easiest way to download video. 😀

  15. Nice and very informative post

    Well this tool is amazing. Downloading youtube videos is always a problem as they do not provide an in built download button . There are many tools in the market which help us to download videos but most of them are complex.

    If they are not tough,then they are not free.This youtube download tool is very easy to use and moreover it is free. The best part I liked about it is that it can convert to any format we want at the same time while downloading.

    Thank you for sharing.

  16. I’m a big fan of Freemake Downloader! I love audio so I use it to strip audio from my fave videos and convert it to MP3 so I can listen to it on my player.

  17. you can use , savefrom.net too

  18. John Smith

    Lovely tool you shared with us freemake is really awesome!

  19. Cool blog you have here. Thank you for sharing this cool post about download tool. I would love to go back here in your website and read some new blogs.

  20. Drake

    This tool is very useful for me. My blog deals with many videos and my users request downloads. This just made my work 10x easier.

  21. I have tried this tool and yeah it works like charm…

  22. SAGAR

    Great tips i always like to know new tech news from your blog.. i was using Internet Download Manager (IDM) to download videos from youtube, keep doing the awesome job!

  23. wow, I like this software. I use IDM for downloading youtube video. Your tool is awesome we can choose file format and make it easy to download video from YouTube and it free…

  24. Freemake Video Downloader is quite helpful but it sometimes hangs not response specially on slow internet connection, I love to use IDM for Downloading YouTube videos on PC and TubeMate for Downloading YouTube Videos on Android.

  25. Hey Thomas…
    Again on your Blog. You are such an fantastic Writer.
    I am Addicted to Youtube and I am Keen youtube viewer. Sometimes I want to Download some videos that i like but I could not found a way to download them. Some websites are claims that they let us download youtube videos but I used and None work for me.
    Thanks for making me known with this software. Now, It is an easy task for me to download youtube videos.

  26. since i used IDM internet download manager that was not give me a lot of format of video.This is absolutely help me to download video from you tube.

  27. No offense but the software is very laggy , it’s better to use online services for downloading youtube videos.

    1. This post is also from 2013, there might be better alternatives today, but this software is still working.

  28. Rahul Chuso

    Can U Provide Me
    Download Link
    Thanks 😀

  29. Thanks for the article admin. This Tutorial works like a charm.

  30. firstlagu

    thanks sir, now i can download hd video from youtube

Leave a Reply to Abell Cancel reply