There are several reasons you might want to download videos from YouTube. Like most cloud-based things, YouTube videos can be ephemeral. Videos vanish all the time for all kinds of reasons: the uploader pulls it down, copyright restrictions (sometimes legitimate, sometimes not), and YouTube’s ever-changing and seemingly haphazard standards for acceptable content. But preservation isn’t the only reason people download YouTube videos. For example, they may want to download a clip to use in their own videos (respecting copyright, of course).
Note that downloading YouTube videos with a utility other than YouTube’s own apps (which require a YouTube Premium subscription) violates YouTube’s terms of service… That being said, I’ve never heard of YouTube punishing a user for downloading videos, although using copyrighted material in videos you upload to YouTube could get you in trouble.
MacDailyNews Take: In the full article, Centers covers four utilities that you can use to download YouTube videos in macOS:
• youtube-dl
• ClipGrab
• Downie
• 4K Video Downloader
Do you have a favorite?