Why did YouTube for desktop stop working?

May 15, 2022 5:41 PM

Up until last week, I used a Mac app to browse YouTube on my Macbook. But suddenly it's stopped working. Any idea why?

I'm embarassed to say I don't even recall where I downloaded this app because to my knowledge there isn't an official Mac OS YouTube desktop app. I must have downloaded it from somewhere last year, but in any case it was really handy.

I rebooted my Macbook last week and suddenly whenever I click the YT icon in my Applications folder, it just launches youtube.com in a Chrome tab instead an app.

I'm not sure what changed or how to troubleshoot...?

posted by critzer to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

As far as I know there's no official YouTube app for Macs. Whatever you downloaded was probably just a wrapper for the web interface. These tend to get shut down because they violate the terms of service. If its method of accessing YouTube got zapped then the app probably just defaults to loading up the web interface now.

There are some other 3rd party interfaces but many are shady. Unfortunately you're probably best off just using Chrome. But you may also be able to run the iOS version of the app in MacOS now.. not sure that's desirable but you could look into it!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:30 PM on May 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

As a replacement you could use a browser that’s set up to only work with one website, YouTube. There are a few different Site-Specific Browser apps and it’s been a long time since I used one, but here’s a roundup of several from last year on TidBITS.
posted by fabius at 5:18 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]