YouTube is a great place to discover amazing video content. Unfortunately, YouTube is plagued with various problems. It has ads until you want to pay for a premium version. It relies on Internet connectivity. Slow Internet can give a frustrating experience. No Internet can be equally painful.
Way out? Downloading the YouTube videos to a your phones local storage so that you can enjoy them offline without buffering or lag. So, if you are looking for best YouTube video downloaders, here is our pick of the 3 best applications that can be used on either Android or iOS.
1. Videoder [Platform: Android]
Hands down, Videoder is the most powerful YouTube video downloader available. Unfortunately, it cannot be installed on iOS because the developers don’t have a version for iPhones and iPads.
Another problem with the app is that you cannot even download it from Google Play Store. The developers cannot put it on Play Store because of Google’s policy restrictions that do not allow downloading from YouTube.
The only way to install the app is to grab the apk file and install it manually by giving permission for installation from unknown sources.
The key features of the app include:
- Downloads YouTube playlist.
- Downloads YouTube videos.
- Comes with a built-in browser with ad-blocking facility.
- Gives 10X faster download.
- Has the ability to download 4K videos.
- It can extract audio from YouTube videos and save them as audio files in various formats.
- Allows up to 4 video tracks to be downloaded simultaneously.
- YouTube is not the only site it supports. You can download videos from 24 more sites. You can actually add more sites to the list.
- The app is free to use but it comes with ads. You can get rid of ads by purchasing a premium version. You need to purchase a premium plugin from Google Play Store. Once you install the plugin (after purchasing it), the app becomes ad-free.
- You can actually sign into YouTube through the videoder app to get all the YouTube features directly into the app.
- The app also comes with a built-in night mode option that many users prefer.
2. TubeMate [Platform: Android]
Yet another highly sophisticated app designed for downloading YouTube videos is TubeMate. Just like Videoder, this app is also not available on Google Play Store. You need to grab the apk file from the developer site and install it manually on your Android device.
Once installed, the app will run on your device with YouTube selected by default. You can juggle between many other sites life Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, DailyMotion, Vimeo, MetaCafe, Naver TV, Mango TV and more.
The key features of the app are:
- Allows downloading videos in various formats and quality.
- Allows downloading of audio files from videos in various formats and quality.
- Ultra fast download speeds.
- Integrated player to play the downloaded audio and video files.
- Allows users to create playlists.
- Allows to play the already existing videos and audio files in the phone’s gallery.
- Users can sign into YouTube or any other supported site directly from inside the app.
- The app even comes with screen mirroring options!
3. Video Saver PRO + Cloud Drive [Platform: iOS]
This one is an option available only for iOS users. This app comes with the feature of downloading and uploading files from and to cloud drive.
This app is a very advanced media file organizer app that offers a very neat and clean interface to its users. The app is free to use but does come with in-app purchase options which can unlock the most advanced and powerful features of the app.
In case you are thinking about YouTube video download, the app can provide you with that option. Here is what you need to do:
- Grab the video URL from YouTube and head over to the app.
- On the homescreen, select the Direct URL option and the app will allow you to download the video.
The key features of the app are:
- Support for Google Drive and Dropbox.
- Zip compression support.
- Wi-Fi transfer available.
- Support for playlist and media player.
- Allows downloads and uploads simultaneously.
- The app supports both AirDrop and Share.
- Comes with built-in video player.
- Allows uploading and posting video.
- Provides direct link download support.
We could not find any other YouTube video downloader application for either of the two platforms. The apps that once used to work have now removed support for downloading YouTube videos because of legal policies put forward by Google.
Also, when you use the aforementioned apps to download YouTube videos, make sure that you are using the videos for your personal use. Using those videos for any commercial gains or redistributing them without proper authorization can lead to severe copyright violations that can eventually lead to lawsuits.