How to download YouTube (age restricted) videos

[Lycalopex]

Any ideas how to save age-restricted videos?

I have a program called MediaHuman Youtube Downloader, which (provided you give login info to YT) will save age-restricted videos. It's a genuinely useful program I do recommend getting, but if you can't acquire it or don't want to I could save and mirror next time I have the opportunity.

[Like Ra]

MediaHuman Youtube Downloader

Found it! Thanks!

https://www.mediahuman.com/howto/downloa...utube.html

Will move it to the tech section.

[Like Ra]

MediaHuman Youtube Downloader,

Ah... It's free for 20 videos only... I wonder if reinstalling on Ubuntu will help to work around.

[Lycalopex]

It's lifetime access for about $20, which isn't bad; I actually did buy it. Just make sure you save the email where your activation code is in case you have to move computers or somesuch.

[Like Ra]

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp can do that now

[Penguin]

Sometimes these need more careful study than you can give them with a single pass through a browser.


And I've run across several that really need even closer study.  For example, there's an interview with Sarah Paine....

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcVSgYz5SJ8


She's a military historian with a decades-long bibliography who teaches at the Army War College.  I've read some of her work, and she's lightyears from being the sort of BS artist you've probably seen on Youtube.  She knows what she's talking about and has the track record to prove it.

She's addressed some serious conundrums, such as WTF happened to Imperial Japan between 1905 and 1940.  In 1905, they could hardly do anything wrong.  Just 35 years later, they could hardly do anything right.  OMFG, really.  They made more mistakes than the Nazis, which is really saying something.  And they capped their run of master-class idiocy by starting an obviously hopeless existential war, without any possible exit strategy, with the absolute worst possible opponent on the entire planet.

But the running time of this monster is almost 2.5 hours.  Yeah, it needs D/L and careful study.


But as you probably know, Youtube dropped the hammer on all of us back around the first of April.  Up until then, the "Video Download Pro" Firefox extension worked fine.  After April 1, it didn't work at all.  I couldn't get yt-dlp to work either.


I now have found a couple of methods that test out.


First method: Use an external web site, ssyoutube.com.

In order to get this to work, you actually need to paste the Youtube URL into the field on their web page.

Older guidance, that you replace "youtube" by "ssyoutube" in the Youtube URL and simply play it, hasn't worked, at least in the US, since 2020.

But copy-and-paste, per the instructions, gets the job done, as I verified earlier.


Second method: Use VLC on your client system.

I've also tested this, very recently.  It works, albeit slowly.  It doesn't complete until the video you pasted into your browser address bar in the final step completes.

Source: How to Download Video from YouTube? Try these 6 Methods!

• Download and install VLC Media Player on your Windows computer.
  
  Go to the YouTube video you want to download and copy the URL from the address bar.
   
  
• Open VLC Media Player and go to "Media" > "Open Network Stream".
  
  
   
  
• Paste the copied YouTube video URL into the "Network Protocol" field and click "Play".
  
  
   
  
• Once the video starts playing, go to "Tools" > "Codec Information" and copy the URL from the "Location" field.
  
  
   
  
• Paste the copied URL into your web browser and press Enter. Right-click on the video and select "Save Video As" to download the YouTube video to your Windows computer.
  

[Anne]

I have been using this for years: https://www.downloadhelper.net/

Works on a lot of sites including youtube.

[Max515]

I use JDownloader.
It can take clipboard links automatically (copy link from web page or address bar), I can choose video quality/resolution before starting the downloads, then the downloads run in the background and it can shut down the PC when done.
It supports lots of video and file sharing sites and has options to wait for those annoying countdown timers.
It works in Linux too.

[Lycalopex]

MediaHuman Youtube Downloader still seems to work, fwiw, but again, you do have to buy it.

[Iniga]

@Max515 JDownloader & @Like Ra yt-dip, thanks, they look interesting.

General free tips... non age-walled sources...

For non age restricted youtube stuff there are several online tools like https://en.loader.to , the latter works very well for various formats to be saved, which also allows you to, for example, just save the audio track. I don't have a YT account 🤷🏻‍♀️, so I can't say anything about the restricted videos.

The following do not work for YT, but many other sites...

If you are using VLC & firefox (or a browser which supports them) there are a few extensions which without the cut & paste actions above, can be used to start most videos/audios in VLC via a task bar icon or right click and if viewable/listenable with it, can then be simply saved and/or converted with VLC's (format selectable) "save" function. Works with most sites (but not YT). I use "Open in VLC™ media player" on Linux.

The fastest method, if the site has not added protections against it, is simply looking at the page source, finding the mp4/mp3 etc link with the correct resolution and saving the link or opening it in a new tab and saving it (often there is a time code, so start the clip & then quickly search in the page source before it expires).