Download YouTube videos with MiniTool

After reading this article, you can not only download YouTube videos, but also convert video files to all kinds of video and audio formats. We also show you how to convert your screen images into video. With MiniTool uTube Downloader you get these three functions in one go.

The name uTube Downloader suggests that you can only download YouTube videos with it, only you can do other things with it as well. In any case, the installation is a piece of cake. You don’t have to do more than on Install Now after executing the downloaded installation file.

Through Custom Installation you can still set your own installation path and avoid just participating in the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

YouTube page

After installation, you can start uTube Downloader. The YouTube webpage immediately appears. The YouTube login window may also pop up here, but you just click away with I agree† Actually signing up with Sign in appears to be unsuccessful from the uTube Downloader browser module, because it does not have the necessary permissions from Google. Good to know: you can return to the YouTube page within this program at any time via the house icon.

Just like in a regular browser, you can play videos from here and of course also search for videos via keywords. But of course you want to know how to download videos from YouTube. That can be done in different ways. Let’s start with a multiple download.

batch download

Suppose you have as keyword blue whale typed in so that in the address bar https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blue+fin whale appears. If you wish, you can immediately download a lot of videos from this hit list at once. In practice, this usually turns out to be about 35 to 40. Press the arrow button at the top right and a window will appear with a thumbnail, title, duration and author for each video. Uncheck the boxes next to the videos you don’t want to include in your download.

At the bottom you can read the number of videos to download. You will also see a drop-down menu here where you can choose a suitable output format for all selected videos: mp4or wav or mp3 with audio only. Press Download and indicate an appropriate download folder. As soon as you confirm with Select folder start the batch download. You can follow this process nicely in the window History†

You will notice that the downloads are usually very fast. Each downloaded video has two buttons: play and Navigate to File† The latter will open an explorer window of the download folder. You can check videos and remove them with the trash can icon (Clear Selected Downloads† This will only remove the videos from your download history. So you don’t delete them from your disk.

Individual download

Of course, you don’t have to download several videos at once. You might as well get a separate video. To do this, you type or paste the video URL into the address bar yourself. Or you click on a video in the YouTube page, so that the url automatically appears in the address bar. Then press the arrow button again Download in.

This time you get just a little more options when downloading a video. You can choose from a number of video formats (mp4 or webm) in various resolutions, where you also read the download size. There are also the audio formats wav and mp3† Depending on the selected video, you can select subtitle You can also choose the language in which you want to download the corresponding subtitles.

When you press the Download pressed, the video will be retrieved immediately. Unlike with a batch download, this time you will not be given the opportunity to choose a download folder. You define this at the level of the application. Click on the hamburger button at the top right, choose Settings and refer to Download via the Browse button to the desired folder. Confirm with OK†

Download playlist

Music lovers will be happy to hear it: you can also download an entire playlist in one go with uTube Downloader. That is not difficult. Type in the desired keyword, such as the name of the singer or band, click at the top of the YouTube page Filtersselect playlist and click on the desired playlist. As soon as you press the arrow button Download pressed, the question appears whether you want to download the complete playlist.

Press playlist to indeed get the whole list or click on clip to download only the first, top video. go ahead playlist, you will be presented with a list of all associated videos just like with a regular batch download. This time it actually concerns all videos from that playlist. The number is no longer limited to 35 to 40 pieces.

YouTube from the prompt

Now uTube Downloader is a user-friendly app, but of course you may not like this application for some reason. Or maybe Google has closed the access a little more firmly, so that the app no ​​longer functions. In that case, you can consider YT-DLP.

Go to https://kwikr.nl/ytdlp and click Latest and download yt-dlp.exe† You would do well to also get FFmpeg directly via https://kwikr.nl/ffmpeg† In the extracted subfolder bin do you think ffmpeg.exe that you then place in the same folder as YT-DLP.

YT-DLP is a tool that can be controlled entirely from the command prompt. The basic instruction is yt-dlp.exe -F

Now a list of available video and audio formats will appear, each with an ID in the first column. Now to download one of these files use the command:

yt-dlp.exe -f

Note that the parameters are case sensitive (-F is not the same as -f). You can also combine specific audio and video codecs. You do this as follows:

yt-dlp.exe -f + .

There are also many more possibilities, as is clear from the command: yt-dlp.exe -h†

Another quick tip: Are you unable to download videos at a certain point? Then quickly get the latest version of YT-DLP. The developers and Google like to play a cat-and-mouse game.

Convert media

It can always happen that a media player or device cannot handle a certain video or audio format. In such a case, you should consider converting the media file. Keep in mind that such a process usually involves some loss of quality.

But uTube Downloader has just such a conversion module on board. Press the button at the top Video Converter and click Add Filesor (via the arrow button) on Add Folder, to import one or more media files. The videos are added neatly including thumbnail view, size, resolution and duration.

You can specify a different target format (Target) by pressing the button with the rectangle and arrow. A dialog box will now appear in which you can choose links from various formats, such as mp4† mov† mkv† avi† wmv and xvid† On the right you can choose from a few resolutions. Not interested in the video images? Then open the Audio tab and select the desired format and quality (expressed as bitrate).

Want the same output for all videos at once? Then open the drop-down menu at Convert all files to (bottom right) and set the appropriate parameters here. At the bottom left you define the output folder. Confirm with convert (all) to achieve the required conversions. A list of the converted files can be found on the tab Converted† You can also listen to or watch them from there using your default media player.

Screen capture

In addition to downloading and converting video (and audio), uTube Downloader also allows you to capture your own screen recordings in video format. Click on the button at the top Screen Recorder and then on Click to record screen† The main uTube Downloader window now gives way to the Recordermodule. In the drop-down menu you can choose between full screen and Select Region† In the latter case, you immediately have the opportunity to mark out a rectangle on your screen: it will be bordered with red dotted lines.

In principle you can immediately press the red record button, but you can first indicate whether you System Audio and/or the sound of you Microphone want to be included in the recording. Unfortunately, the recorder couldn’t get the microphone to work in our test setup.

Afterwards you will hear the file name (<date>-.mp4), duration and file size of your screen recording. To set the file location, click the gear icon Settings and open you output folder† You can also set parameters here, such as output format† frame rate† codec and Quality†

You can also indicate here whether you want the mouse cursor, with or without an extra marking, and the mouse clicks in the recording. The shortcuts are also customizable: that’s the default F6 to start and stop recording, F9 to pause and resume it. Have fun videoing with uTube Downloader!