How to Download YouTube Videos using VLC in PC?

If you have VLC media player installed in your PC, the good news is, you can download YouTube videos in few clicks. VLC media player comes with a feature of streaming online YouTube videos which let you play any YouTube videos within VLC player. In this blog post, we are going to see how to leverage this feature to download YouTube videos directly into your PC without any third party YouTube downloader.

Before moving to the steps to download YouTube videos with VLC, we need to understand a few important things about downloading videos from YouTube.

1. Is Downloading YouTube video Legal?

The answer is Partially yes. YouTube recently changed its terms and policies that restrict any downloader from downloading YouTube videos. If someone does that, it will violate copyrights rules of YouTube and may suffer legal punishment for this violation.

But there is an exception.

If the creator of the video has allowed sampling of video or published his video under Creative Commons license, then only downloading video from YouTube is taken as legal.
Another case is where downloading video from YouTube is considered legal is when you are the contributor of the channel whose videos you are trying to download.

2. Can I download private YouTube videos?

Of course not. Private YouTube videos are only visible to its creators and there is no way you can access it from outside YouTube.

3. Can you share or upload downloaded videos from YouTube?

Probably yes.

You can re-upload or share downloaded video from YouTube only in three circumstances.

YouTube video you have downloaded is of your own channel or the channel in which you are a contributor.
Video is available under Creative Commons license by the creator.
Only sample of video is re-uploaded to YouTube. It can be max about 60 seconds.

However, if you share downloaded YouTube video in offline mode through flash drives, there is no way YouTube can detect the copyright violation. It is still considered illegal to share those YouTube videos, but you will not get any legal punishment until unless detected or claimed by respective owner.

Hope you get all the above points clearly. If you have any other questions, you can always ask in the comments.

Now it's time to move to the interesting part of the article, i.e., steps to download YouTube videos using VLC media player.

Steps to Download YouTube videos in PC using VLC media player

Go to youtube.com and browse the video you want to play.
Copy the video link from the address bar and head over to VLC media player
In VLC, click on Media > Stream from the menu bar to open an advance browse window.
Switch to the Network tab and Paste the YouTube video link in the input box provided.
Tap on the small down arrow adjacent to the Stream button in the bottom right corner.
Choose Play from the drop-down list of actions to play your YouTube video inside the VLC media player.
Hold for a minute, your YouTube video will start to play in VLC. Once started, pause the video.
Now, head over to the menu bar, click on Tools > Media Information. You can also open it with the shortcut Ctrl+I.
In the media information displayed, move to the bottom of the window and copy the Location input box value.
Paste this Location link in any browser you like, you will find that browser will start playing your YouTube video.
Right click somewhere on the video and choose Save video as… Option from the context menu.
Type a name for your file and choose the location where you want to save your YouTube video.
Your video will start downloading now.

Congratulations! You have successfully downloaded YouTube Video using VLC media player.

Using VLC media player to download YouTube videos is not always the safest option, you may get stuck in copyright violation legal issues. Few years back, YouTube has added an option of offline viewing which let you download and watch YouTube videos within its app. So let's see how to do it.

How to Download YouTube videos Legally?

If you are only worried about watching your videos offline, you can legally download videos from YouTube without violating any copyright law. To do this, you have to download YouTube app in your smartphone. If you already have it, then let's see how to download YouTube videos Legally in YouTube app.

Open YouTube App and browse to the video you want to download.
Play the video. Just below the YouTube player, you will find a Download button with a down arrow sign.
Click on the download button to make your available for offline viewing.
After YouTube video gets downloaded, you can turn off your smartphone data and try to play your video. It will play without any issue.

Tip: Before saving YouTube video offline, set the quality of video to something suitable for you. for example, 720p videos are enough for playing on smartphone. Choose your desired value save your memory space.

How to Convert Downloaded YouTube Video to MP3 in VLC ?

Often times it happens that we like the song used in YouTube videos and want to extract that audio or song from YouTube video. Once you have downloaded a YouTube video, you can convert it to MP3 in VLC. Follow the steps down below to easily extract audio from YouTube video

Steps to Convert YouTube Video to MP3

Open VLC media player in your PC
Go to Media > Convert/Save... in the menu bar at the top.
In the new window just opened, click on Add button to add your downloaded YouTube video to the list.
Once added, Hit on Convert/Save button at the bottom to open the Profile window.
In the Profile window, you need to choose the format in which you want to convert the YouTube video. Choose Audio MP3 from Profile Selection box.
Next step is to choose the destination filename and location to save the converted file.
Tap on Start button at the bottom to start the conversion. You can see the progress in VLC timeline. Once the conversion is finished, you can try to play your convert MP3 file from the location where you save it.

How to compress Downloaded YouTube MP4 video in VLC?

When you download YouTube video in VLC, you will probably get the highest quality video which is large, eating up unnecessary storage space. In this scenario, you have to compress your video to suitable size without comprising quality.
VLC media player got you covered here as well.
With VLC media player you can resize your video, reduce frame rate, and audio bit rate to compress your downloaded YouTube video easily. Follow the steps down below to properly compress YouTube video without loosing its quality.

Start VLC, go to Media > Convert/Save from the menu bar. In this new window, add your high quality YouTube video to the list by clicking on the Add button.
Hit Convert/Save button to open Profile window. This is where magic happens.
From the Profile selection input box, select Video H246 MP3/MP4 and tap on the edit profile button next to the selection box.
In Edit Profile window, switch to Video tab and set the height and width of the video. You can also change the dpi value to something lower to compress video more. But be careful, don't go too far otherwise you will harm video quality of your YouTube video.
Next, switch to Audio tab and change the bit rate to something lower Hz value. Finally, when you are satisfied with the configuration, click on Save to apply this setting.

Tip: You can also save this setting as a new Profile. It becomes handy when you want to compress more than one YouTube video.

Finally, choose a destination file and location of the compressed file and hit start to compress your video.

Wrapping Up

Downloading YouTube videos using VLC media player is easy, but that does not mean you should use it to download every single video on YouTube. The purpose of this how to guide is to help creators download their own videos for editing or re-uploading purpose. Downloading YouTube videos is like stealing someone precious work and effort, and I would never recommend that to do so.

Respect creators and Make YouTube environment healthy for all. All the best