A Complete Guide to Download YouTube Videos, MP3s, and Playlists

Although YouTube was designed as a video streaming service, many people prefer to keep YouTube videos and music on their portable devices or hard disks. Unfortunately, like some other sites, YouTube doesn’t provide a direct option to download its content. That’s where you need a good and reliable video downloader. There are a few good ones on the market now. Let’s check one of them and learn to download YouTube single videos, youtube mp3 converter, and even YouTube playlists for free and just in a couple of clicks.

How to Download YouTube Video on PC

To download a single YouTube video we took video downloader by Freemake. It’s a free, beautifully-designed and easy-to-use tool.

The 1st thing you need to do is to download the software from the official site. It’s compatible only with Windows-based PCs (except Win XP and Win Server). Then install the software on your PC. Please be attentive during the installation process. You might be offered to install 3d party software. Check all the offers and decline those you don’t need.

As soon as you are done with the installation process, run the software. Then go to YouTube and choose a video you want to save for offline viewing. Copy its URL address and insert it into Freemake Video Downloader using “Paste URL” button.

Freemake Video Downloader

A new window will appear. Choose a video format you want to save your video to, a destination folder, then “Only download” option, and click “Download”. If you don’t know what video format to select, check this comparison table to learn most popular formats pros and cons.

YouTube Video

In a few seconds, the video will appear in a specified folder.

In case you need to save YouTube clip in a particular format, not given by YouTube, you should select “Download and convert” option and choose among AVI, MP4, MKV, and other formats. We recommend converting video to MP4 since this format is accepted by the majority of modern smartphones, tablets, TV sets, and so on.

Whether you want to download videos always in one and the same format and quality, enable “One-click” download mode in the top right corner of the software. Choose the necessary settings and a destination folder. Next time when you add a link, Freemake Video Downloader will automatically save your video with pre-selected settings.

How to Download YouTube in MP3 onto PC

Sometimes you might not need to save the whole video, but only its audio part. Again, you can use Freemake Video Downloader for this scope. Follow all the same installation steps from the previous paragraph, but this time when a format window appears, choose “Download and convert” setting. Select “to MP3” from a drop-down menu. Please, not that MP3 conversion option is available for Freemake Premium users.

to mp3

Depending on your connection speed, you’ll soon get YouTube video in MP3 that you can listen to on any portable device without the Internet.

How to Download YouTube Playlist onto PC

Let’s say you like 50 videos. Downloading them one by one will be too time-consuming. What you can do here is to create a playlist within your YouTube account and download it in three clicks. In fact, you can do the same thing with any other playlist. Just keep in mind that Freemake doesn’t download sets of related videos. To distinguish a set of videos from a playlist, pay attention to the URL. A playlist address should contain the word “playlist” in it. Please note your playlist should not exceed 500 videos.

Now, when you created or choose a playlist you want to save onto your hard drive, let’s proceed with the process itself.

The first steps are again the same: download and install Freemake Video Downloader onto your PC. Then copy your playlist URL and insert it into the software. Choose if you want to get complete videos or only sound in MP3. For video, select quality and format. Then press the “Download” button to get the videos or MP3s on your PC.

YouTube Playlist

As you can see, you should not be a tech genius to perform these simple actions. Download your favorite YouTube movies and songs and have them always with you on a smartphone or tablet.

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