However, a short video can take up a lot of space on your Mac, and obviously it is necessary to wait while the whole video plays through. This is without a doubt the best way to record from YouTube on a Mac.

The video will open so you can check it before saving it.

Once the YouTube video has played you can click on the stop button in the menu at the top of the screen.

Start the YouTube video playing (make sure the sound is on).

Now you will see instructions indicating you can click to record the full screen, or drag to record part of the screen.

Before you move to the next step click on the down arrow beside the red button and make sure that Internal Microphone is selected.

A Screen Recording pop-up window will appear.

Go to the menu at the top of the screen and choose File > New Screen Recording.

Open QuickTIme Player (press Command + Space and start typing QuickTime).

QuickTime can still be used in this way – at least for now.

Stop the screen recording (you’ll find a stop button in the menu at the top of the screen or in the box as seen in the image below.)īefore Apple merged the tools for screen recording with the screen grab tools in macOS Mojave Mac users could use QuickTime to record the screen on their Mac.

Wait for it to finish and then stop the video.

Drag the crosshairs to select the video.

This could be a solution for you if you don’t need the audio because it won’t record the sound. MacOS Mojave has its own in-built screen recording feature and since it’s part of the macOS it’s free to use. You don’t need to download an app at all. Luckily there are a couple of ways that you can download YouTube video for free with software that comes with your Mac. (If you see a warning that you need to install Flash, for example, it really could be a scam, or at worse malware!) In our experience the free apps are usually more trouble than they are worth and potentially dangerous. Some of these options are free and some are paid for. There are loads of tools that advertise their ability to save YouTube videos to your Mac.

But if you don’t want to pay £143.88/$143.88 a year for the privilege, there are thankfully other solutions. This would be the most legitimate way to download YouTube video. YouTube Premium only lets subscribers download video and music on to mobile devices, and it will only be available to watch offline for 30 days.

However, if you were hoping that you’d be able to download the video to your Mac you will be disappointed. And you get to watch YouTube Originals, which include movies and series that are only available on the subscription service. That service costs $11.99/£11.99 per month and along with being able to download video you can also avoid ads, listen to YouTube Music Premium (and Google Play Music). It’s worth mentioning here that YouTube offers its own YouTube Premium service that allows you to download YouTube videos.

Save youtube video to my computer