Nigh of today'due south internet traffic is spent streaming online video, with YouTube taking up a massive chunk. Over 400 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every infinitesimal, and YouTube has a greater reach in the 18-49 demographic than even cable TV.

And then you have to consider other video streaming sites like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Twitch, and and so on. That'due south a lot of data flowing effectually—and if your Internet service provider caps your monthly data allowance, then all this video streaming can be expensive.

The solution is to capture or download online videos to sentry offline, allowing y'all to re-watch as many times as you want without wasting information.

Here are some of the best tools for capturing and downloading streaming video from websites online so you can watch them offline.

1. Video DownloadHelper

Bachelor on: Chrome, Firefox.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Lynda, Twitter, Udemy, and hundreds of other sites.

Video DownloadHelper is hands ane of the nigh useful browser extensions for downloading streaming video that yous'll always install. The downside (sort of) is that you take to install it on your browser; if you already run a lot of extensions, the terminal matter you need is another one making Chrome even slower. But if you lot download a lot of videos on a day-to-day basis, Video DownloadHelper is definitely worth it.

The extension adds a button adjacent to your browser's address bar. Whenever you come across an online video, just click the push to download any video on the current folio. Apply the pop-upward box to decide where to save information technology on your computer.

2. 4K Video Downloader

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Flickr, Dailymotion, and several other sites.

4K Video Downloader is the simplest and well-nigh straightforward tool to capture video from a website. We recommend it if you want a no-hassle option that requires close to null effort on your role. It works extremely apace and doesn't throttle your download, plus it'south really like shooting fish in a barrel to go to grips with.

But copy the URL of an online video and paste it into 4K Video Downloader. Yous can paste links to YouTube playlists or YouTube channels to download every video bachelor, and you can even subscribe to YouTube channels and auto-download new videos as they're made available. You can also download the annotations and subtitles in YouTube videos.

Video downloads are available in 8K, 4K, 1080p, or 720p (equally long as the source video was uploaded at that resolution, of course). Videos can exist downloaded in MP4, MKV, and FLV formats. Or you can download but the audio portion in MP3 or M4A formats.

3. Freemake Video Downloader

Available on: Windows.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Liveleak, Veoh, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and dozens of other sites.

Freemake Video Downloader is 1 of the most popular video downloading tools out there. Information technology'southward completely gratis, easy to use, and relatively flexible as far every bit quality and format options are concerned. The i big downside is that information technology'due south only bachelor on Windows.

Videos can be downloaded in a handful of formats, including AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, and WMV. Videos can also be downloaded in MP3 format if you only want the audio portion. The bodily process only requires the URL of the video—just copy and paste it in.

4. JDownloader

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: Well-nigh whatsoever site with streaming video.

JDownloader is like Freemake Video Downloader merely with a twist. You take the URL of whatever folio that has a streamed video on it, paste information technology into the app, and it volition scan the page for all the videos information technology can detect. Y'all get to pick which of the detected videos y'all want to download.

The nice thing virtually JDownloader is that you don't demand the direct URL of a specific video. Take a MakeUseOf article with v embedded videos, for case, and all of them will be detected. No demand to fumble around finding out the direct URL of the video. This makes it very piece of cake to capture several videos at once.

However, exist aware that the installer comes with bundleware, which is where other programs are pushed on you lot that you don't demand. When you lot run the installer, you lot'll come across a page that offers to install "Bing Search" or something else. On this page, the buttons will change to Reject and Accept. Ensure you click Decline, considering this volition prevent bundleware from existence installed on your system.

5. youtube-dl

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, HBO, Metacafe, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and thousands of other sites.

youtube-dl is a tool for avant-garde users who are comfy using the control line. If you lot adopt graphical interfaces, save yourself the headache and just use i of the ones listed above.

But if yous're okay with command line utilities, then youtube-dl offers the most flexibility of whatever video downloading tool. It's complicated enough to accept a non-piffling learning curve though, so fix to read the documentation, or else you'll be lost.

You lot could also try youtube-dl-gui, which is an unofficial front-end user interface that'due south available for Windows and Linux.

Features include several video selection and quality parameters, playlist processing, download charge per unit limit, batch video downloading, automatic naming of files, inclusion of ads, and downloading subtitles (for sites like YouTube).

The following formats are supported: 3GP, AAC, FLV, M4A, MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV, and WEBM.

The Last Resort for Capturing Online Videos

If you run across a video that isn't supported by whatsoever of the above tools, the last resort is to play the video in full screen mode and record your screen as it plays.

Information technology'southward not a perfect solution, merely it normally works when nothing else does. Go along in listen, however, that some sites and apps (especially Television streaming services) will not let a screen recorder capture the footage. When you get to play the video back again, yous will just exist faced with a bare screen.

If you tin get the directly URL of an online video, you can also use VLC to play and record online videos as a kind of streaming video recorder.

How to Record Your Screen Using VLC

VLC Media Player has many uses, but did you lot know that it can record your screen likewise? Here's how to easily record your desktop with VLC.

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Dan Price (1608 Articles Published)

Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Achieve out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. You can too observe him roaming the show flooring at CES in Las Vegas every twelvemonth, say hi if yous're going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.

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