I use Downie regularly to download audio, videos and even pdf’s at times. Having used numerous browser extensions in Firefox in the past, I have to say Downie is par excellence!
Downie current supports 759 sources, and offers a “User-Guided Extraction” for other sources. It also includes a “Login Browser” for sites that require a login to view their audio or video content
I’ve had many email exchanges with Charlie Monroe (developer) and not only does he respond promptly to ‘problem reports’ but is open to suggestions for additional/improved features. Like others have mentioned he regularly updates the app in response to the ever-changing ways sources dish out their media as well as from the ‘direct’ feedback he gets from his children
And, BTW, he has a helpful companion app called Permute for converting audio, video, and image files to other formats. For example, when videos are just talking heads (without any other visual presentations, I’ll download the .aac version, then convert that to .mp3 to add to my iTunes library.
Downie also, optionally, downloads transcripts (.srt). I find that extremely useful when searching my ‘information database’ for information of interest contained within audio & visual files.
4K Video Downloader stopped working for me in YouTube quite a while ago, and it was an app I paid for. Yet all of a sudden, I got an error message that the content was not able to be downloaded. Every link I gave it. Previous to this, it worked extremely well and I had no complaints. But it is totally unusable to me now.
Sadly, this is a potential problem for any such app. Google doesn’t want to allow downloads of videos, and they frequently make changes that break these apps.
Looking at the publisher’s download page, I see that there are two different apps:
“4K Video Downloader” was last updated in January 2025 and has a system requirement of macOS 12 or later.
“4K Video Downloader Plus”, which was last updated on April 13, 2026 and has two releases - Apple Silicon and Intel (macOS 12+).
It seems clear that they stopped work on the original app about 1.5 years ago and moved to the “Plus” version. Since I’ve never heard of this tool before today, I couldn’t begin to speculate why.
So it looks like you’ll need to get the Plus version, which might require getting a new license.
Another shout out for Downie. The Safari extension makes it particularly simple to grab a video without having to launch the app. It’s also very good at providing help if it runs into trouble (which can happen with embeds). And it has a wonderfully simple drag and drop interface.
Yes, the “Plus” version works just fine. While there may be many features offered for the paid version, for just downloading, the only limitation is 10 downloads per day.
I am a little curious. Why do so many people want to download from YouTube? Are there really so many videos that you want to watch repeatedly and don’t trust YouTube not to delete?
I do it pretty rarely. Usually it’s to have the video I want available for offline viewing. I’ve also grabbed one or two because my wife or a friend wanted just a clip from a video to keep, like maybe a church service where their kid participated, that sort of thing.
I began downloading videos—and was thrilled to come across Downie after trying out several, mostly free alternatives—during the pandemic. A lot of performing arts organizations were putting up free content that was only available online for a limited time. So for me, Downie acted as a sort of Tivo, where I could “record” stuff to watch that I would otherwise miss.
I currently use it less than I did then but still find it to be a well designed, well supported application.
I like to have a full archive of my own research locally. There’s a ton of documentaries and interviews on photography and photographers on YouTube. Gathering is important for me.
My students download all the time, mostly to edit into their own work, whether a short documentary or mashup.
I download videos that show how to do things that I think I will do again sometime in the future. How to take apart appliances, how to tie paracord knots to hold an Apple AirTag (did this in 2016 I can see from the video).
There are a lot of good videos describing fly tying. I tie up 5 of a new pattern using a video on YouTube. After 4 years, I lose the last one in a tree. So then I ask myself a lot of questions I sometimes remember, but often do not: What was it called? What are the materials used? How is it tied? Having a collection of videos makes this easy to answer.
Yes YouTube saved our dishwasher. The Bosch service technician on the phone asked how old and said ‘get a new one’. A technique and an explanation clarified everything in a video and it’s still running years later.
I recall a technique involving, of all things, the Documents app from Readdle. Never did actually try this… I see it involves the use of a ‘downloader’ site.
My lovely bride and I like to watch BananaBall. Watching it on YouTube via the YouTube app on my TV requires me to watch commercials. Downloading the file from YouTube via 4K Video Downloader + there are NO commercials AND I get to see the on-field entertainment that was missed by the commercial overlay. Anyone who enjoys BananaBall know that the on-field entertainment is almost the entire reason to watch!
I just took a look at the videos I’ve downloaded using JDownloader2. I’ve downloaded around fifty over the past couple of years.
Quite a few of them are long out-of-print musical recordings. By default, JDownloader2 downloads from YouTube an MP4 video file, an M4A audio file, and other files, including transcripts or captions, if available, so the M4A files are easily imported into Apple Music or iTunes.
A high school classmate uploaded a collection of decades-old school videos that were too precious not to download. Old band performances, football games, graduation clips, and so on.
I’ve also downoaded some videos to be edited down and used later as clips in educational materials under “fair use” terms.
Just between us, I admit to downloading an obscure audience-filmed rock concert clip or two.
