How To Download YouTube Videos

Bottom line? YouTube doesn't seem to want you downloading their videos to your computer. They want you to always go through their website to watch them. I assume this is because they make money when you go to YouTube.com and click on their ads.

Regardless, YouTube makes it difficult... but not impossible... to download their videos directly to your computer. They will be stored in Flash video format (YouTube's video format).

Here are the basic steps for doing it on your own... or you can just skip to the end and get the free YouTube downloader add-in. The add-in only works with Windows using Internet Explorer.

The first thing you need to do is go to the YouTube page for the video you want to download. Simple enough, right?

This step is the hardest part for most people. Stay with me, though... I'm going to take you through some technical stuff... but you'll do ok. It's pretty easy, really... just different for most people.

Okay, so now you're on the YouTube page with the video you want to download. Right-click on the web page and select View Source. That will bring up all the technical jargon that actually makes up the YouTube video page you are viewing.

Don't stress out! I'll walk you through exactly what to do...

You're almost there!

Search the source code now for the phrase var swfArgs (which should appear only once). You should be at a long line of text that probably doesn't make any sense to you. No problem... it makes sense to a geek like me ;-)

You need to find the part of the line that looks like "t": "{Long Random Text}". It should be in the last third, or so.

You need to copy the entire text between the quotes that looks like a long string of random characters. That's YouTube's secret code for your video. Without that you can't download the video.

By the way... Ctrl+C will copy the text once you select it.

Almost there...

Whew! You're past the hard part. Now you just have to download the video.

Go back to your browser and type this in the address bar:

http://youtube.com/get_video?video_id={Video ID}&t={Secret Code}

Where it says {Video ID} you type in the YouTube ID of your video. You can get this by looking at the address of the YouTube video page you want to download. The ID is the part after watch?v=.

And, obviously, where it says {Secret Code} you type the secret code from step 3.

Also, one other bonus for you... if the video you want is available in YouTube HD you can download that instead. In that case just add &fmt=6 to what you already typed above.

Your download will start and you're good to go. Congratulations! You just downloaded your first YouTube video right to your computer.

Of course, if that's too much work for you just go to jiffieTube.com and download their free Internet Explorer add-in that does all of this for you.

It's pretty slick.

Anywhere you see a link to, or a video of a YouTube click it places a little icon above the link/video. You simply click on the link and it does all the above steps automatically and just starts the download.

Super easy, huh?

Good luck! And enjoy all your new YouTube clips directly from your computer.