The screenshot is an old version of MacOS. Either install yt-dlp (at the command line) or, and this is better by far, get the Downie app. I've been downloading videos all morning.
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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If on Android, use Seal, a FOSS app that uses yt-dlp and allows you to download the video in a shit ton of format and stuff. Apparently can even embed subtitles and metadata into the files, although I never do that.
yt-dlp
yt-dlp
Cobalt.tools
Pro tip to teach people to fish instead of giving them a fish:
Whenever you're looking for a new software tool to do something, especially something "sketchy" like this, add something like "GPL" or "open source" to the end of your search string. It might not be quite enough to raise the official site of the best tool all the way to the first search result, but it cuts way, way down on the scam sites.
Or perhaps even better yet, go straight to checking AlternativeTo.net.
Or add "reddit" and check what people recommend Though you would have to use Google or perhaps Startpage
This worked a few years ago, but half of reddit is just bots and guerilla marketers now :(
Hence why reading comprehension is important. You need to assume that people are out to screw you on the internet, so look for their motivations. Someone pushing a paid service could be getting a kickback, whereas someone pushing a FOSS service probably just wants it to get attention so it sticks around.
Yes, but eww.
May as well walk into an AA meeting and tell people they can just keep drinking
?
Reddit is bad and we shouldn't use it.
But it's not bad in anywhere near the same way as alcohol is bad for alcoholics. It's a terrible analogy.
How dare you.
yt-dlp
Grayjay works too, and they have a desktop client now (at least for Linux, and probably windows).
Youtube seems to be blocking that for me
I was surprised at how well it works but anything command line is not for normies
You can use the OpenWith extensions to add it as a right click option.
I have this setup for my non-technical family members, so they just right click on the page choose open with -> ytdlp and it saves it to their downloads folder.
You can set up different options for example video or audio only.
Nah I'm sorry. There is a point where it's unreasonable to expect someone to learn something, but that isn't it.
Using yt-dlp is extremely straightforward.
Being ignorant and proud of it is a horrid personality trait. The average person knows how to drive a car, how to call others using their phone and how to use an ATM.
Typing 7 characters and copy-pasting a link is well within their abilities.
simply downloading a video? sure, but literally anything else is insanely complicated for an average person.
If they want the music from a video they would have to look through all of https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp and probably still wouldn't find what they're looking for
The average person learns how to drive a car, which is akin to operating it. The average person does not know how to muck about in the engine of their car, and should not, because if they do the wrong thing they could break it. For that matter, I wouldn't even recommend someone OPERATES the car without training.
The terminal is considered for advanced users for the same reason. Learning to copy/paste into the terminal without understanding how to use it could mean I say "oh yeah the fix for that issue is doing rm -rf / --no-preserve-root.
I agree with the sentiment but you are going way too hard on it. Chill.
Anyone who’s done “/gamemode creative” is smart enough to figure out “yt-dlp ”. Seriously people need to stop acting like typing the most basic commands that you can find tutorials about is some kinda level 9 magic
I think you've defined the problem rather well there..
It's not that Normies couldn't use it, it's that Normies won't use it.
Thats why I run it in docker with a web ui (On my server behind a reverse proxy, so I could get HTTPS working)
Shut up, im not a nerd
Metube?
Exactly
If you are on an android phone you should check the F-Droid pages for Seal. No commandline, a nice GUI, works great.
+1 for Seal, Newpipe and Tubular both work fine too
Normies don't deserve joy.
There's GUIs for it though. Obviously not for everyone, but I made my own.
That it can download virtually from any site is pretty useful, assuming you know what to give it.
Do you type that in the windows finder bar?
Its a package, so it gets delivered in the mail
If you’re technically inclined, you can selfhost metube for your friends/family
Is that just a yt-dlp front end? Was hoping it would also do the streaming which is what I currently have been thinking of setting up. Probably yt-dlp to download all latest videos and then stream that over UPNP so any device with VLC can watch over the LAN.
That's what I do! Just save everything to my media server, better that way.
This is a really nice front end, thanks.for the recommendation.
Parabolic is super easy to use and allows you to download either a single video or entire playlist/channel. Also if you download playlists, it makes separate folders for them and embeds all the metadata you may need.
Open-source (GPL-licensed), available for Windows and Linux.
Jdownloader 2 is the most straightforward.
It's an unholy Java monster
VLC still works right?
I haven't had to do this in awhile so I can't recommend the best downloader for this job... But I will say that this is the sort of thing where you absolutely need to have a good adblocker
yt-dlp. Works right from the command line, no sketchy sites, on linux you can probably install it from your package manager
Well damn, guess I'm still windows-brained, never thought that there'd be a package for that!
Actually one of the steps is always offering downlaoder EXE to get the fucking video...
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