How to download and convert YouTube videos?
1. oDownloader.com
The first YouTube converter that I would like to introduce is oDownloader.com.
This is an excellent online video downloader.
oDownloader can download videos for free from different socials sites, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
It supports downloading videos from YouTube in different formats (MP4, WEBM, 3GP, MP3) and quality (2K, 4K, 8K, 1080p, 720p, 360p, 240p).
There are 2 ways to download a YouTube video via oDownloader.
Go to odownloader.com and paste the url of a YouTube video;
Add the oDownloader extension to your browser, which is the most convenient and fastest way.
2. SaveFrom.net
SaveFrom.net is another free online YouTube video downloader.
Similar to oDownloader, SaveFrom.net also offers both the extension and the online service to download from YouTube on PC or Mac.
I have tried both its extension and online service, and in both cases it is possible to download online videos fairly quickly; this tool is also totally free and can be used without limits.
I had used SaveFrom.net for a period of time, but then I preferred to use odownloader.com because SaveFrom.net sometimes stops working for no reason.
I think the most likely cause is the fact that the server may stop working when there are many simultaneous visits to the site.
In addition, SaveFrom.net only supports downloading videos for a limited number of websites, i.e. around 20 websites: popular sites like Instagram and Twitter are not supported.
3. ClipConverter
You might be confused by the name ClipConverter and think it's a pure and simple video converter.
In fact, ClipConverter is also a useful YouTube video downloader.
What this tool does is detect the media file from the URL entered, then record the media file on its servers and convert the YouTube video to MP4, MKV, etc.
In addition to its online video downloader, you can also use its browser add-ons to download videos from YouTube.
Add-ons are available for Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari.
4. FonePaw Video Converter Ultimate
If you don't like using an online video downloader, there are also many desktop programs that will allow you to save videos from YouTube.
FonePaw Video Converter Ultimate is one of them.
I first discovered this program when I was looking for a video converter to turn some MOV files into MP4 and this program did what I needed.
Surprisingly, in the converter I also found an option for downloading online videos.
The best part of this program is that you can convert YouTube videos to MP3, M4V or any other format you like.
It also supports video editing, denoising and resizing.
All in all, this is a complete video converter that provides much more than just YouTube video downloads.
5. YouTube converter for Windows PC: here is VDownloader
VDownloader is a video download application that works exclusively with systems that have at least Windows 7 on board.
VDownloader is not compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista.
It can download videos from YouTube or any other video sharing site, such as Vimeo or TED.
Unlike online video downloaders, VDownloader is more sophisticated.
VDownloader isn't completely free, and the paid version ($ 29 to be paid once) can unlock some exclusive features.
How to convert YouTube videos to MP4 / MP3?
After downloading the videos from YouTube, you may want to convert the videos to other formats, for example in MP3 format (extract only the audio from YouTube videos).
If you only need to convert a video to commonly used formats, such as MP4, MP3, 3GP, you can also do it with some online downloaders such as oDownloader, which can save YouTube videos downloaded to MP4 or MP3.
But if you want to convert YouTube videos to formats that are less commonly used like MOV, OGG, AAC, FLAC, WMA, WAV, MKV, FLV, WMV you can use the FonePaw Video Converter Ultimate tool which I mentioned above.
The FonePaw program is a professional video converter that can convert YouTube videos to any video / audio format you need.
Supports most multimedia formats compatible with various devices, such as:
- iPhone
- iPad
- Apple TV
- PSP
- Android
- Windows
In addition, FonePaw can modify and improve the quality of the video.
I personally used it to crop, rotate, merge and adjust the video configurations (resolution, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation).
Conclusion
Warning: YouTube's terms of service explicitly prohibit unauthorized downloads.
It is important to download videos from YouTube only if we have permission from the copyright owner.