How To Download a YouTube Playlist Without Installing an App

Nearly everyone who uses the Internet uses YouTube, whether it’s to watch instructional videos on how to repair a bicycle tire, a favorite podcast, or just to watch some funny cat videos. YouTube (owned by Google) is the second most visited website in the world. Internet users watch over 5 billion videos on YouTube every day.

We stream billions of videos every day from the YouTube service. Yet some people prefer to download a YouTube playlist so that they can watch videos while offline rather than stream the video. There are a number of reasons users may benefit from downloading a playlist.

Sometimes we have a fast connection in one place but a slow connection in others, and we would like to grab our media while we can from the place where we have good broadband service. Sometimes, we have places where there is no internet service at all.

Whatever the reason, lots of people are searching for a solution that would let them download music and video playlists without having to install a new app.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to download YouTube playlists to view later without an Internet connection.

What Are YouTube Playlists?

A YouTube playlist is just a collection of individual videos linked together by whatever common factor the compiler of the playlist decides makes sense. A playlist could be made up of videos by the same artist, TV shows in the same series, a mix of tracks in the same genre, or something completely different. A playlist can be created by whoever published the media online and can be arranged in any way they see fit. You can create a YouTube playlist based on any criteria that you want!

In addition to users watching YouTube playlists on YouTube, playlists are immensely popular on streaming services such as Spotify. You can create your own or access other people’s playlists, providing a way to listen to music for hours without having to interact with the program or search for new music.

Many playlists are created by users, but some services deploy bots to automate the creation of playlists.

Download A Complete YouTube Playlist using Sites

Unless you already have certain software installed, your only option to download YouTube playlists without an app is to use various sites. Note, many free, third-party download sites install malware, adware, spyware, etc., onto your device along with the playlist, so use them with caution.

YouTubemp4

One such website that’s available for downloading YouTube playlists is YouTubeMP4. This site provides a simple UI and is easy to navigate and interact with. To download a playlist, you just need to upload the URL for the YouTube playlist and go through the steps.

Y2Mate

Another site available for downloading YouTube playlists is Y2Mate. This site is still available for US users and is quick and easy to use. Again, all you need to do is upload the URL for the YouTube video and click Download.

Download A Complete YouTube Playlist with Already Installed Apps

Technically, downloading media from YouTube is against their Terms of Service (ToS) and perhaps against the law.

As all kinds of media are published on the platform with all kinds of licensing, we will leave it to you to ensure you’re not breaching copyright by downloading from YouTube.

1. ByClick Downloader

If you have a lot of YouTube playlists to download, you’re probably already familiar with the ByClick Downloader. Although it may seem easier to download your YouTube playlists without installing any apps, the ByClick Downloader detects your playlist, and all you need to do is follow three steps.

If you already have the ByClick Downloader installed, you can do this to easily download an entire YouTube playlist:

1. Open YouTube and find your playlist. Copy the URL at the top.
   
2. Click Paste URL in ByClick.
   
3. De-Select any content you don’t want to download or leave them all checked. Then, click Download.
   
4. Wait for the download to complete.

That’s all there is to downloading an entire YouTube playlist. Fortunately, there are third-party services such as ByClick Downloader that make it possible to download YouTube playlists quickly.

2. Download A Playlist With The VLC Media Player

Many people out there already have the VLC media player installed as it is one of the best media players available. VLC is a cross-platform video utility toolbox that you can use on Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. VLC can play most multimedia formats and even play your DVDs, CDs, and so on. It’s a versatile media player with a lot of tricks up its sleeve!

One of VLC’s tricks is being able to download media from streaming sites to view offline later. The downside to this is that you have to manually save each track, but nonetheless, VLC will work through the entire playlist for you. Here’s how to download videos and other media from streaming sites such as YouTube:

1. Open the VLC media player, then select Media from the top menu.
   
2. Now, select Open Network Stream… from the dropdown menu.
   
3. Copy the playlist URL from YouTube, paste it into the Network Protocol box and select Play.
4. Next, select Tools > Codec Information from the menu at the top.
5. Then, copy the data in the Location box at the bottom.
6. Paste that location data into a browser tab and hit Enter. The video should now play in your browser.
7. Right-click anywhere in the browser window and select Save As.

Through this process, VLC will download each video in the playlist in turn to your computer. You will have to perform Steps 4-7 for each track, but that’s all you have to do. Depending on how many tracks the playlist contains, the download process could take a while.

Using the VLC Media Player is by far the most reliable way to download a complete YouTube playlist, even if you cannot download the whole playlist in one go. Many of us already have VLC.

If you don’t want to use VLC, there is another way to download a playlist without you having to save each individual track, though it’s a bit cumbersome.

3. youtube-dl

If you’re comfortable using CLI programs to download YouTube videos and already have Homebrew installed on your machine, there’s a super-simple package that you can use to download YouTube playlists directly to your computer. Just keep in mind that it’s going to take a little tech-savviness.

1. Assuming you already have Homebrew installed, open your computer’s terminal.
2. In the terminal, type: brew install youtube-dl. Homebrew may need to update first, which is ok. The package should only take a minute or two to install.
   
3. Now you can start using youtube-dl right away! To download a single video, just type youtube-dl (video URL), replacing the (video URL) with the actual URL. For example, if you were going to download the Baby Shark song by Pink Fong, you would type youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w into your terminal.
   
4. Downloading a playlist works almost exactly the same way, except that you’re going to copy and paste the URL to the playlist of videos instead of a specific video.

For more information on the commands for the youtube-dl package, you can check out the Git page here.

4. 4K Video Downloader

The 4K downloader is another great option that will safely and efficiently download YouTube playlists. Available for download on Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu, users can partake in the free trial or pay for a premium service.

Conclusion

There are many ways to download a complete YouTube playlist. Although most methods won’t download the entire list for you automatically, they do provide reliable ways to download the list for yourself with the minimum amount of effort. Plus, you don’t have to download and install any new third-party software, which is always a good thing!

Do you have any tips or tricks for downloading YouTube playlists to listen to offline? If so, please tell us about them in the comments below!