Almost everyone who uses the Internet uses YouTube, whether it’s to watch instructional videos on how to repair a bicycle tire, their favorite podcast, or just to watch some funny cat videos. YouTube (owned by Google) is the second most visited website in the world. Internet users watch more than 5 billion videos on YouTube every day.
We stream billions of videos every day from the YouTube service. However, some people prefer to download a YouTube playlist so they can watch videos offline instead of streaming the video. There are several reasons why users can benefit from downloading a playlist.
Sometimes we have a fast connection in one place but a slow connection in others, and we would like to get our media while we can from the place where we have good broadband service. Sometimes, we have places where there is no Internet service at all.
Whatever the reason, many people are looking for a solution that allows them to download music and video playlists without having to install a new application.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to download YouTube playlists to watch later without an internet connection.
What are YouTube playlists?
A YouTube playlist is just a collection of inpidual videos linked together by whatever common factors the playlist compiler decides makes sense. A playlist can be made up of videos from the same artist, TV shows from the same series, a mix of tracks from the same genre, or something completely different. Anyone who has published media online can create a playlist and can organize it however they see fit. You can create a YouTube playlist based on any criteria you want!
In addition to users viewing YouTube playlists on YouTube, playlists are immensely popular on streaming services like Spotify. You can create your own or access other people’s playlists, providing a way to listen to music for hours without having to interact with the program or search for new music.
Many playlists are created by users, but some services deploy bots to automate playlist creation.
Download an entire YouTube playlist using Sites
Unless you already have certain software installed, your only option for downloading YouTube playlists without an app is to use multiple sites. Please note that many third-party free download sites install malware, adware, spyware, etc. on your device along with the playlist, so use them with caution.
YouTubemp4
One such website that is available to download YouTube playlists is YouTubeMP4. This site provides a simple user interface and is easy to navigate and interact with. To download a playlist, you just need to upload the YouTube playlist URL and follow the steps.
Y2Mate
Another site available to download YouTube playlists is Y2Mate. This site is still available for US users and is fast and easy to use. Again, all you need to do is load the YouTube video URL and click Discharge.
Download a complete YouTube playlist with apps already installed
Technically, downloading media from YouTube is against their Terms of Service (ToS) and perhaps against the law.
Since all types of media are published on the platform with all types of licenses, we will leave it up to you to ensure that you do not infringe copyright when downloading from YouTube.
1. ByClick Downloader
If you have a lot of YouTube playlists to download, you’re probably already familiar with ByClick Downloader. Although it may seem easier to download your YouTube playlists without installing any apps, ByClick Downloader detects your playlist and all you need to do is follow three steps.
If you already have the ByClick downloader installedYou can do this to easily download an entire YouTube playlist:
- Open Youtube and find your playlist. Copy the URL on top.
- Click Paste URL in PorClic.
- Deselect any content you don’t want to download or leave them all checked. Then click Discharge.
- Wait for the download to complete.
That’s all there is to downloading an entire YouTube playlist. Fortunately, there are third-party services like ByClick Downloader that allow you to download YouTube playlists quickly.
2. Download a playlist with VLC Media Player
Many people already have VLC media player installed as it is one of the best media players available. VLC is a cross-platform video utility toolbox that you can use on Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. VLC can play most media formats and even play DVDs, CDs, etc. It’s a versatile media player with many tricks up its sleeve!
One of VLC’s tricks is being able to download media from streaming sites to watch offline later. The downside to this is that you have to manually save each track, but VLC will still go through the entire playlist for you. Here’s how to download videos and other media from streaming sites like YouTube:
- Open the VLC media player, then select Media from the top menu.
- Now select Open network flow… in the dropdown menu.
- Copy playlist URL from YouTube, paste it into the Network protocol box and select Play.
- Then select Tools > Codec Information from the menu at the top.
- Then copy the data to the Location box at the bottom.
- Paste that location data into a browser tab and press Get into. The video should now play in your browser.
- Right click anywhere in the browser window and select Save as.
Through this process, VLC will download each video in the playlist to your computer. You will have to do steps 4-7 for each track, but that’s all you have to do. Depending on how many tracks the playlist contains, the download process may take a while.
Using VLC Media Player is by far the most reliable way to download an entire YouTube playlist, even if you can’t download the entire playlist at once. Many of us already have VLC.
If you don’t want to use VLC, there is another way to download a playlist without having to save each inpidual track, although it’s a bit cumbersome.
3. youtube-dl
If you’re comfortable using CLI programs to download YouTube videos and you already have Homebrew installed on your machine, there’s a super simple package you can use to download YouTube playlists directly to your computer. Just keep in mind that a little technological know-how will be necessary.
- Assuming you already have Homebrew installed, open your computer’s terminal.
- In the terminal, type: install beer youtube-dl. Homebrew may need to be updated first, which is fine. The package should only take a minute or two to install.
- Now you can start using youtube-dl right away! To download a single video, simply typeyoutube-dl (video URL), replacing the (video URL) with the actual URL. For example, if you were to download the song Baby Shark by Pink Fong, you would typeyoutube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w on your terminal.
- Downloading a playlist works almost exactly the same way, except you’ll copy and paste the URL into the video playlist instead of a specific video.
For more information about the youtube-dl package commands, you can check out the Git page here.
4. 4K Video Downloader
The 4K downloader is another great option that will download YouTube playlists safely and efficiently. Available for download on Mac, Windows and Ubuntu, users can participate in the free trial or pay for a premium service.
Conclusion
There are many ways to download an entire YouTube playlist. Although most methods will not download the entire list automatically, they do provide reliable ways to download the list yourself with minimal effort. Plus, you don’t need to download and install any new third-party software, which is always nice!
Do you have any tips or tricks for downloading YouTube playlists for offline listening? If so, tell us about them in the comments below!
