There's nothing worse than losing Wi-Fi or data coverage when you're halfway through your favorite video on YouTube. While YouTube does allow you to save some videos for offline watching, with a little effort, you can download them in HD as well. All you need is the VLC media player installed on your system. And the procedure is as easy as using VLC.

Devices and Mac OS X version VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any 64bit Intel-based Mac. Previous devices are supported by older releases. VLC for Mac OS X VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. VLC player supports most operating systems (Mac OS X, MS Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc.), read almost every media format (MPEG, MPG, AVI, MP3, MKV, DVD, etc.), provides excellent audio and video quality, it doesn't take much space and allows users to convert files too. VLC is my video player of choice on both my Windows and Mac computers. It’s small, it’s light on resources, and it plays just about every video format you care to mention. It also has a few neat tricks up its sleeve. One I just learned was how to normalize volume in VLC for Windows.

Disclaimer: According to Google’s Terms of Service for YouTube, “You shall not download any Content unless you see a ‘download’ or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content.” So, it is illegal to download YouTube videos. This how-to is for informational purpose only. It is recommended to subscribe to YouTube Premium for downloading videos.

Steps to download YouTube videos using VLC media player

1. Install the VLC app on your Mac OS. Click here to download the app.
2. Open VLC and then select File, Open Network.
3. Paste the URL (link address) of the YouTube video you want to download.
4. Once the video starts playing, click 'Window' and then 'Media Information'.
5. Find the 'Location' bar and copy that URL.
6. Open your browser and paste that URL.
7. Right-click the video and select 'Save Video As'.
8. Select the desired location and save the video.

Note that some of the menu might change with each release of the VLC media player. However, procedure remains the same. This how-to is verified to be working with the v3.0.x of the VLC media player.

Do you find this how-to helpful? Let us know by dropping a comment below.

Devices and Mac OS X version

VLC media player requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. It runs on any Mac with a 64-bit Intel processor or an Apple Silicon chip. Previous devices are supported by older releases.
Note that the first generation of Intel-based Macs equipped with Core Solo or Core Duo processors is no longer supported. Please use version 2.0.10 linked below.

If you need help in finding the correct package matching your Mac's processor architecture, please see this official support document by Apple.

Web browser plugin for Mac OS X

Support for NPAPI plugins was removed from all modern web browsers, so VLC's plugin is no longer maintained. The last version is 3.0.4 and can be found here. It will not receive any further updates.

Older versions of Mac OS X and VLC media player

We provide older releases for users who wish to deploy our software on legacy releases of Mac OS X. You can find recommendations for the respective operating system version below. Note that support ended for all releases listed below and hence they won't receive any further updates.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Use VLC 2.2.8. Get it here.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Use VLC 2.0.10. Get it for PowerPC or 32bit Intel.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later is required

Use VLC 0.9.10. Get it for PowerPC or Intel.

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther

Fake bitcoin transaction generator download. QuickTime 6.5.2 or later is required

Use VLC 0.8.6i. Get it for PowerPC.

Download Vlc Player For Mac

Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar

Download Vlc Media Player For Mac

Use VLC 0.8.4a. Get it for PowerPC.

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Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah and 10.1 Puma

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Use VLC 0.7.0. Get it for PowerPC.