Nearly of today's net traffic is spent streaming online video, with YouTube taking up a massive chunk. Over 400 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and YouTube has a greater accomplish in the 18-49 demographic than even cable Television.

And then you accept to consider other video streaming sites similar Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Twitch, then on. That's a lot of data flowing around—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 watch offline, allowing you lot to re-watch as many times as you want without wasting information.

Hither are some of the best tools for capturing and downloading streaming video from websites online so y'all tin can watch them offline.

one. Video DownloadHelper

Bachelor on: Chrome, Firefox.

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

Video DownloadHelper is easily one of the most useful browser extensions for downloading streaming video that you'll ever install. The downside (sort of) is that you take to install it on your browser; if you already run a lot of extensions, the final thing you need is some other one making Chrome fifty-fifty slower. But if you download a lot of videos on a day-to-twenty-four hours basis, Video DownloadHelper is definitely worth information technology.

The extension adds a button next to your browser's address bar. Whenever yous come across an online video, simply click the button to download whatever video on the current folio. Use the popular-upwards box to make up one's mind where to save it 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 y'all desire a no-hassle option that requires shut to zippo effort on your role. It works extremely quickly and doesn't throttle your download, plus it's actually like shooting fish in a barrel to get to grips with.

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

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

iii. Freemake Video Downloader

Available on: Windows.

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

Freemake Video Downloader is one of the most popular video downloading tools out there. Information technology'south completely free, easy to use, and relatively flexible every bit far as quality and format options are concerned. The one big downside is that it'due south simply available on Windows.

Videos can exist 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 actual process only requires the URL of the video—just copy and paste it in.

4. JDownloader

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: About any site with streaming video.

JDownloader is like Freemake Video Downloader just with a twist. You take the URL of any folio that has a streamed video on information technology, paste it into the app, and it volition browse the folio for all the videos it can detect. You get to option which of the detected videos you want to download.

The nice thing almost JDownloader is that you don't demand the direct URL of a specific video. Have a MakeUseOf article with 5 embedded videos, for example, and all of them volition be detected. No demand to fumble effectually finding out the directly URL of the video. This makes information technology very easy to capture several videos at in one case.

Even so, exist enlightened that the installer comes with bundleware, which is where other programs are pushed on yous that you don't need. When y'all run the installer, you'll encounter a page that offers to install "Bing Search" or something else. On this page, the buttons will alter to Decline and Accept. Ensure you click Turn down, because this will preclude bundleware from being installed on your organisation.

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 comfortable using the command line. If you prefer graphical interfaces, save yourself the headache and just use one of the ones listed above.

Just if you lot're okay with control line utilities, then youtube-dl offers the well-nigh flexibility of any video downloading tool. It'south complicated plenty to have a not-lilliputian learning curve though, so prepare to read the documentation, or else you'll be lost.

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

Features include several video option and quality parameters, playlist processing, download rate 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 y'all encounter a video that isn't supported by any of the in a higher place tools, the terminal resort is to play the video in total screen mode and record your screen every bit it plays.

Information technology's not a perfect solution, but information technology normally works when nothing else does. Proceed in mind, however, that some sites and apps (especially Tv set streaming services) volition not let a screen recorder capture the footage. When you get to play the video back again, you lot volition just be faced with a blank screen.

If you can go the direct URL of an online video, you can also utilise VLC to play and record online videos as a kind of streaming video recorder.

How to Record Your Screen Using VLC

VLC Media Thespian has many uses, but did yous know that it tin can record your screen too? Here's how to easily record your desktop with VLC.

Read Next

About The Author

Dan Price (1609 Articles Published)

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

More than From Dan Price