YouTube offers thousands of videos for your viewing pleasure. You can stream any content of any topic you like at the moment. But, to binge-watch on YouTube, you need to have a reliable Internet connection.
Now, if there comes a time when you foresee a situation where you don’t have an Internet connection, but you want to watch YouTube, you can download and save some videos on your computer. Technically, it is not an ideal thing to do as Google restricts the reproduction and ripping of Youtube videos.
But, if you are doing it only for your personal use, there are ways you can do it. One way to rip or download YouTube videos for free is through the VLC Media Player. This method also applies if you want to save videos from Vimeo and other video streaming and hosting websites.
How to Download YouTube & Vimeo Videos Free Through VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is available for computers running macOS (including M1 Macs), Windows 10, and Linux. It is a free multimedia player developed by ViedoLAN that plays various file formats including almost all video formats you can think of. If you don’t have a VLC Media Player installed on your computer right now, you need to download it first.
- On your browser, go to https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html.
- Click Download VLC. You can select your operating system through the drop-down menu.
- Select the download location where to save the VLC Media Player file.
- After downloading, follow the on-screen instructions on how to set up and install the media player.
Now that you have the VLC Media Player installed on your device, you can run the app to start downloading and ripping your YouTube videos.
Save YouTube/Vimeo Videos on Mac, Windows 10 PC & Linux Computer using VLC
Please note that this guide uses VLC version 3.0 and up. Some settings and options are different if you are using a previous version of the app.
- Launch YouTube.com or Vimeo.com on your computer browser.
- Select the video that you want to download.
- Copy the URL.
- Open the VLC Media Player.
- Click File and Select Open Network.
- Go to the Network tab.
- Paste the YouTube or Vimeo URL on the field provided.
- Click the Open button.
- As the video is playing, open the Window tab from the menu bar.
- Click the Media Information option.
- Look for the Location section at the bottom of the settings.
- Copy the full URL.
- Launch any browser and paste the URL on the address bar.
- The video will start playing.
- Right-click on the video and select Save Video As. You can also click the Download button if available.
- Choose the file location and hit Save.
Third-Party Software to Download YouTube Videos
There are also other paid options for you to download YouTube videos if the free service that VLC is offering doesn’t cut it for you. Some of these media players and video downloaders have fast download times in fewer clicks. You can also extract audio to MP3 and can save videos from other video streaming sites like Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter.
Examples of third-party video downloader softwares are 5KPlayer, WinX YouTube Downloader, Keepvid.ch, 4K Video Downloader, YouTubeByClick, and VidPaw Free Online Video Converter.
Which software do you prefer to use when saving your YouTube videos? For us, VLC does the trick. You can share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.
