Disclaimer : We do not promote, support, or take any responsibility for illegal downloading or distribution of copyrighted content. Users are solely responsible for ensuring their actions comply with all applicable laws and regulations. For more information, visit YouTube to review the official rules and policies.
There are plenty of reasons why you might want to download clips from YouTube: Maybe you’re heading off on a trip without guaranteed access to wifi, or maybe there’s a small snippet of a video you want to be able to easily share with other people. Perhaps you’ve seen a new trailer online and think it deserves a recut.
Whatever the reason, you’ve got more options than you might think for getting clips saved to your computer or phone. There’s YouTube Premium of course, though the cheapest $8-per-month tier only removes ads and doesn’t give you downloads. Downloads will set you back $14 every month, and even then doesn’t give you any actual video files (everything is cached in the YouTube app).
If you want to go down the third-party route, plenty of apps will take on the job for you, and more besides. Here we want to highlight one app in particular though, and that’s 4K Video Downloader Plus. It does everything that its name might suggest, with the minimum of fuss, and it covers platforms such as Vimeo and TikTok as well as YouTube.
Despite the app’s name, download capabilities cover resolutions from 720p to 8K. It works with a built-in browser on the desktop on Windows or macOS, and you’re able to download playlists and channels with a single click as well as individual videos. The program also comes with a Smart Mode that lets you set your download preferences once and apply them across multiple video clips, and there’s support for video subtitles and audio-only downloads included.
There is an Android version of 4K Video Downloader Plus available if you’re prepared to do some sideloading, but there’s no native app for iPhones or iPads. As for pricing, you can download up to 15 videos per day for free without paying. After that, you need to sign up for a paid tier: Pricing starts at $15 per year and goes up from there, depending on the features you need. Head to https://4kdownload.com/vd/ to get the tool.
Get started with 4K Video Downloader Plus
Once you’ve got 4K Video Downloader Plus up and running on Windows or macOS, there are two main ways to point it towards the videos you need saving: You can either click Paste Link and then copy over a YouTube URL from your browser, or you can click the YouTube icon on the opening screen to use the built-in browser to search.
If you choose that latter option, the familiar YouTube web interface appears: You’re probably going to want to sign in to your YouTube account before you start browsing, so you’ve got access to all your recommendations and playlists (and especially so if you pay for YouTube Premium, as you won’t see any ads).
4K Video Downloader Plus features a simple, clean interface. (Gizmodo)When you find a video you want to keep, saving it is as simple as clicking the big green Download button that’s overlaid on top. A new bar at the top of the screen will appear, showing the progress of the transfer, and when it’s completed you’ll find your newly downloaded video in the default videos folder on your system.
Your download options will change if you’ve landed on a video within a playlist or directly from a channel page: In those scenarios you get a pop-up window asking if you want to download just the individual video you’re watching, or the entire playlist or channel. Options to subscribe to the channel or playlist appear as well, which relates to the app rather than your YouTube account.
Queueing up downloads in 4K Video Downloader Plus. (Gizmodo)If you opt to subscribe to a particular playlist or channel, then 4K Video Downloader Plus keeps tabs on it in the future: Any new videos added to that playlist or that channel will be downloaded automatically as long as 4K Video Downloader Plus is running and connected to the web. It’s a useful way of making sure any new content you want to see is always available as a download.
To use the paste link feature, first get the URL of a YouTube video, playlist, or channel copied to the clipboard in Windows or macOS. Then, head into the 4K Video Downloader Plus interface, click Paste Link, and the download should get underway. Again, if you paste in a link for a playlist or a channel, you’ll be asked if you want to download all the videos available, and sign up for future video downloads.
Configuring settings in 4K Video Downloader Plus
Part of the appeal of 4K Video Downloader Plus is that it’s so simple and straightforward to use—the idea is you can get started straight away, without having to sign into any accounts or work your way through any settings screens. However, if you do dig a little deeper into the app, there are numerous ways to customize and configure it.
Up at the top of the interface you’ll see a few quick settings for your downloads: This is Smart Mode, and it means the same settings will be applied every time you click the Download button inside 4K Video Downloader Plus. Select any of the drop-down menus and you’re able to make changes to the quality of the downloaded video, the format it’s saved in, and the folder where it gets put.
You can customize download settings for each video. (Gizmodo)Click the Download Video drop-down menu, and it’s here that you can switch to downloading audio instead of video, as well as find settings for downloading subtitle files and additional audio tracks (if they’ve been included with the clip you’re downloading). If you switch to audio, you’ll get different options for the file quality settings.
You can do without Smart Mode, if you prefer: Just click the green lightbulb toggle switch to turn it off. With Smart Mode disabled, you get prompted to choose the video quality and other settings every time you trigger a download—it slows down the process a little bit, but you might prefer working this way if you want to make sure you get the video downloaded in the way you want.
You’ve got numerous program settings to play around with. (Gizmodo)There are more options to play around with in 4K Video Downloader Plus too. If you click the gear icon up in the top right corner, you can set how many downloads are allowed simultaneously, tell the app to skip duplicate videos if it finds them, and embed the subtitles in your saved videos (very handy for those clips recorded in a foreign language, where the captions are essential).
You can also have the program warn you if you are quitting the app while downloads are still ongoing, and give it permission to stop your computer going to sleep while there are still downloads in a queue—which means you can set it off on a bunch of videos and go and do something else without worrying about them not being finished.
Disclaimer : We do not promote, support, or take any responsibility for illegal downloading or distribution of copyrighted content. Users are solely responsible for ensuring their actions comply with all applicable laws and regulations. For more information, visit YouTube to review the official rules and policies.
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