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Best 10 Free YouTube Downloaders in 2023

Cody Chrunos
Free YouTube Downloader

YouTube premium only allows you to save some videos offline for a limited time, which is 48 hours. To save any YouTube video forever,  you can use the free YouTube downloader app. Here, we collected the best free YouTube downloaders in one place for your choosing. We have included online downloaders and dedicated apps for Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, etc.

You can download any YouTube videos including private ones to any format you prefer. We will continue updating this post when things change, so whenever you read this all apps will be working fine for you.

ByClick Downloader formerly known as YouTubeByClick

5.0 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading playlists and easy and quick downloading experience.

Features：

Cons:

ByClick YouTube Downloader previously known as YouTubeByClick is famous for downloading any YouTube videos including quickly with the auto detect feature. You can download all videos in a playlist or channel in one go.

Once installed, it will automatically detect the YouTube page you opened and offer you an option to download it in one click. You can always turn off this feature in Settings. You can also paste the URL of any video, playlist, or channel to ByClick and all the videos in the list will be downloaded to your computer. You can also search YouTube video by its name to download it without leaving the app.

If the video is set to private, you don’t have to give your YouTube login info to ByClick as it can get authenticated from your web browser.

Besides YouTube, you can use it to download videos from Facebook, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and many other video streaming sites. In addition, you can convert files to MP3, MP4, FLV, AVI, WMV,3GP, WAV, and WEBM formats.

In the main interface, you can select the high-resolution video quality as high as 8K YouTube video with sound to download. You can download video or audio-only. When you choose audio, It can add ID3 tags for each audio track and make ringtones out of it.

It can queue unlimited videos for schedule download and download videos at high speed. Though it takes more computer resources if you choose high speed.

The only downside of ByClick is the lack of macOS support. At the moment, ByClick Downloader is only available for Windows.

Ddownr.com

4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading 4K YouTube videos with audio online.

Features：

Cons:

If you just want to download one video or two, a free online YouTube Downloader tool is the most convenient. Most online YouTube Downloaders only allow you to download YouTube in 720P. That’s why we recommend Ddownr.com. It enables you to download YouTube videos of the highest quality (up to 8K) available with audio.

Since it is a web service, all your smart devices have a web browser that can use this tool to download high-quality videos. If you prefer, you can also extract audio from YouTube videos. It supports MP3 and M4A for audio downloading.

All you need to is paste the URL of the YouTube video that you want to download and choose your desired video quality. If you choose 1080P or higher quality, the tool will take some time to combine the video and audio. When done, you can click the Download button to save the video to your device.

Be aware, If you choose quality above 2K, videos will be saved in Webm instead of MP4. You may need third-party apps to play WebM videos. For example, you can use VLC Player to play WebM videos on iOS devices.

Loader.to

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading 8k YouTube videos to MP4 online.

Features：

Cons:

Loader.to is another online YouTube Downloader that we recommend. It supports downloading music videos YouTube videos in high quality available. You can just paste the YouTube URL and select format to start downloading the video. If you paste a playlist URL, you can also specify which video to start or end.

For video, you will have MP4 or Webm depending on the quality of the original video. For audio, you can select many output formats including MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, OGG, etc.

Like all the other online downloaders, it cannot be used to download private YouTube videos and you cannot resume downloading when it fails somehow in the middle.

4k Video Downloader

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for fast downloading YouTube videos in  batches.

Features：

Cons:

4K Video Downloader is another free YouTube downloader allowing you to download videos in the format of your choosing. You can also remove audio from a video or download audio only of a YouTube video with it. It supports fast downloading files in batches.

Like other dedicated YouTube Downloader apps, 4K Downloader supports various audio and video formats. You can also download private YouTube videos, Watch Later, and liked videos if YouTube login info is given.

Besides the basic features, 4kDownload allows you to follow a channel and then new videos from that channel will be downloaded automatically. You can also use it to download annotations and subtitles along with YouTube videos.

The free version has some limitations when downloading YouTube playlists and channel videos. There are some advertisements in the free version. You can upgrade to the paid version to remove ads and lift the limitations.

For the premium plan, you can pay one-time fee of 15USD to get a personal license for 3 computers or 75USD to get a business license for 5 computers.

Allavsoft

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading videos and music from multiple sources besides YouTube.

Features：

Cons:

Available in Windows and macOS, Allavsoft is a multi-source media downloader that supports downloading YouTube videos in high resolution. The interface is a little bit lame, but we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Allavsoft is actually very powerful regarding downloading media.

Not only does Allavsoft allow you to download videos from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Udemy, pornhub, and many more sites, but also enable you to download music from Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz, etc. All media can be saved in the highest quality available.

When trying to download media that requires login info, Allavsoft will prompt you with a login form and it will be saved for future usage. Some people don’t want to share their login info to third-party software, this is inevitable for the current version.

Allavsoft has a media converter feature built-in. Before downloading, you can set your preferred output format and the program will convert it automatically. You can also play the downloaded media within Allavsoft.

The downside is the price. You can download Allavsoft for free, but you can only use it to download 5 full videos or music tracks. To upgrade, you need to pay 19.99 USD for a month plan, 29.99USD for a year plan, and 59.99 for a lifetime license.

WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading YouTube videos and quick editing.

Features：

Cons:

If you also need to edit the video you download, WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe would be a great choice. It is capable of downloading 4K, HD videos in batch from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and 1000+ sites on Windows and Mac computers. Powered by GPU acceleration tech, it guarantees fast video downloading speed.

When the video is downloaded, you can convert downloaded videos to the desired formats, compress video file size, and edit the video. It supports most of the major formats including MP4, 3GP, MKV, FLV, MOV, WMV, AVI, WEMB, etc.

The downside is no free version available. You can download the free trial version. The full version costs  $29.95 (Instead of $59.95) after 50% limited time discount.

YouTube-DL for advanced users only

4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading YouTube videos from command line.

Features：

Cons:

Unlike other GUI YouTube Downloader, YouTube-DL is a command-line based open source downloader that supports thousands of websites including YouTube, Facebook, Dailymotion, Instagram, etc.

Since its open-source, there are contributors across the world, so you can find it also supports your local media sites. To download 1080P or higher quality YouTube videos, you also need another free open source program, FFmpeg.

It is available in Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. You need a terminal app to use YouTube-DL on mobile devices.

The downside is not so easy to use. I will take Windows as an example to show you how to use it. You need to download the program and save it to the user folder, namely C:/User/[yourname]. No installation is needed.

To download video or music, you can open a command prompt and type

“youtube-dl.exe [YouTube video URL]”

You can input video URL, playlist URL, or even Channel URL. The program will download all the video and save them to the user folder. You can learn more parameters in the project page.

Addoncrop YouTube Video Downloader

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading YouTube videos from web browser.

Features：

Cons:

Addoncrop is a web browser add-on for downloading YouTube videos in high-quality video and audio for free. It is available on Chrome, Opera, or UC-browser. It supports Mp3, MP4, FLV, WebM, and 3GP as the output formats.

Besides downloading videos, this addon allows you to remove YouTube video ads, hide comments, capture video screenshots, etc.

As you may know that downloading videos from YouTube is against YouTube Users Guidelines, this addon is certainly not available in Chrome web store. You need to get it from its website. Another downside of this tool is that you go to the video page before you can download it. Namely, no batch download supported.

Free YouTube Download by DVDVideoSoft

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading short YouTube videos in batches.

Features：

Cons:

You know this is a dedicated YouTube video downloader by its name. Free YouTube Download, available for Windows and MacOS, allows you to download or convert several videos at once if you needed. Based on the quality of the original video, the supported output format varies.

Like other YouTube Downloaders,  you can download the video or rip audio from YouTube video in just a few clicks. You can also enable the Auto Download option to download videos without clicks. It supports batch downloading and auto shut down PC when finished.

The only downside is the 3-minute limit. You can only use Free YouTube Download to download YouTube clips that are less than three minutes long.

MediaHuman YouTube Downloader

4.5 out of 5.0 stars

Best for downloading music from YouTube.

Features：

Cons:

MediaHuman YouTube Downloader is a user-friendly and intuitive program that is meant to assist you in downloading video or audio from YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, and many other websites.

You can download several videos simultaneously with the highest quality available (8K). You can also set it to monitor a channel and new videos from that channel will be downloaded automatically.

When downloading music from YouTube, it can add the downloaded audio files to iTunes in a chosen playlist. You can free download MediaHuman YouTube Downloader on Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu.

Conclusion

All the YouTube downloader apps are tested in 2021 doing a good job regarding downloading YouTube videos. We tried to give you different types of choices when keeping the quality. Some offer unique features while others don’t.

All in all, we think ByClick Downloader is the best choice for downloading YouTube videos. It is fast, convenient, and supports private YouTube video downloading. Now, it’s your turn. Which of these downloader apps are you going to try first? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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