I want to download this video from YouTube. Download sites don't work.

July 8, 2019 5:33 PM

How do I get this video downloaded to my computer? None of my usual "download this video from YouTube" sites are working.
posted by tzikeh to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html
posted by yoyo_nyc at 5:45 PM on July 8, 2019

Are you on a Mac?

You can install homebrew (a package manger) and youtube-dl like this.


Then in a terminal window type:

cd desktop [hit enter]

youtube-dl -f 135+140 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT216BstSbc

It will download the video to your desktop (I used the -f command to give you the best quality in a format that can be played natively on a default mac)
posted by bluecore at 5:55 PM on July 8, 2019

I tried my usual site, OnlineVideoConverter, to convert it to an .mp4 and it worked (on a Mac using Safari).
posted by ejs at 5:55 PM on July 8, 2019

The Video DownloadHelper Firefox extension seems to work.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:30 PM on July 8, 2019

VLC is a good way to download YouTube (and other) videos.
posted by rmmcclay at 6:34 PM on July 8, 2019

Yes I'm on a Mac - thank you for the Mac suggestions! Also thank you very much for the VLC suggestion - I have it but didn't know it functioned as a downloader.
posted by tzikeh at 8:03 PM on July 8, 2019

A note of warning: Most of these things break every once in a while when YouTube (or other sites) change some little thing either to stop people from downloading them, or just because they change how they do their thing. This is why the usual websites stop working until they get around to fixing them. If VLC works, all is good, but it will fail someday and you'll have to wait for an updated VLC for it to work again. Same happens with youtube-dl, but if you install it right it has an --update flag which allows it to self update to the latest version. They're usually right on top of getting things fixed fast.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:42 AM on July 9, 2019