How to Watch YouTube Videos Offline on PC, Mac, Phone

UPDATES ON 2025.02

Streaming videos online has become a part of everyday life. However, many people often face challenges that disrupt their viewing experience. Poor network signals, limited data, or the complete absence of internet access—such as during commuting, flights, or in remote areas—make it difficult to watch YouTube videos smoothly. Additionally, official restrictions, device incompatibility, and format limitations further complicate offline viewing.

To overcome these challenges, finding a reliable way to watch YouTube videos offline is essential. In this guide, we'll explore different methods to help you watch YouTube videos offline.

How to Download & Watch YouTube Videos Offline on PC

• Quality Option: from 360P to 4K
• Playback: Windows Media Player by default
• Video Valid Time: Forever📌
• Pros: Bulk Download, ad-free, no device and  limitation
• Cons: Only for PC users

How can you save a YouTube video to your computer for offline viewing, regardless of whether you have a YouTube Premium subscription? The answer is simple: if you want to watch YouTube videos offline on a PC or Mac, you'll need to use third-party tools or services to download them. Once saved to your laptop, you can play them with any video player—no internet or Wi-Fi required.

EaseUS Video Downloader, the best video downloader for PC, stands out by allowing you to download your favorite YouTube videos in highly compatible formats like MP4 and MKV, ensuring the best quality. Once downloaded, you can watch them anytime, anywhere, without worrying about YouTube's 30-day viewing limit. It also works well to:

1. ✔️Save videos and download a full playlist from YouTube, Twitter, and other sites to your PC.
2. ✔️Download music from SoundCloud, MySpace, and more to a computer.
3. ✔️Download YouTube videos to MP3 directly.

Whether you're using a laptop, PC, or Mac, you can use the methods detailed below to download YouTube videos to your computer.

1️⃣To save a YouTube video to your computer for offline viewing:

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Video Downloader on your PC. Click "Download" to select the output format and press "Quality" for the resolution.

Step 2. Copy and paste the URL of the video you want to download and click "Paste Link" to proceed.

Step 3. After the downloading process finishes, you can check the downloaded video in the option "Finished."

Disclaimer: The information provided in this guide is for personal use. EaseUS is in no way collaborated or affiliated with the video-sharing site and will never approve any copyright infringement action. The end-user should be solely responsible for their behavior.

Step 4. Navigate to the "Finished" tab and click the file icon to open the folder containing the downloaded file.

Step 5. Click the file to play it, or right-click and select "Open with" to choose a media player installed on your PC.

2️⃣If you're using a Mac, you can also use it to download YouTube videos on a Mac.

Want to edit your videos by removing unwanted watermarks? If you do, utilize any one of the best free video editing software with no watermark to do it with ease. 

How to Watch YouTube Videos Offline on PC [with YouTube Premium]

• Quality Option: from 144P to 1080P
• Playback: Play on YouTube only📌
• Video Valid Time: Up to 29 days📌
• Pros: Multiple video quality options, mobile device and PC compatibility
• Cons: Only can be played in the YouTube app

As you may know, YouTube doesn't provide a free way to allow its users to download videos from the website. It is much easier if you get a YouTube Premium subscription. With this tool, you can download YouTube videos in various quality options, ranging from 144P to 1080P. To save a video to your computer, please open YouTube in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Opera first. 

Steps to download YouTube videos for later offline watch:

Step 1. Sign in to your Premium account in the YouTube app.

Step 2. Go to the Watch page of the video you'd like to download.

Step 3. Below the video, click "Download."

Step 4. After finishing downloading, go to the YouTube Home page, then from the left-hand panel, click "Downloads."

Step 5. Choose the one you are going to watch to play.

How to Watch YouTube Videos Offline with Browser Extension

• Quality Option: 360P to 1080P, but not always
• Playback: Depends on your player on Windows
• Video Valid Time: Permanent
• Pros: Free
• Cons: Quality options are not always available

Using desktop software to save a YouTube video to a computer needs the URL of the video. But if you use a browser extension, all you need to do is click the "Download" button.

After you add the YouTube video downloader extension to your browser, e.g, Chrome, you will see there is a "Download" option on the page when you play the video. Therefore, you can download videos on YouTube without copying the URL.

There are many such extensions available in the Chrome web store. Here I'd like to take one of them to show you how it works to download videos from YouTube.

Step 1. Go to https://addoncrop.com/youtube-video-downloader/ to install the YouTube downloader to your browser.

Step 2. Restart your browser and visit YouTube.com.

Step 3. Find the video you want to download for offline viewing and click to play the video.

Step 4. Now, you should see a download option under the video. If it doesn't appear, click the extension icon in the menu bar.

Step 5. Click the "Download" icon to start downloading the video to your computer directly, or click the "More" option and choose the quality you prefer to save the video to your computer.

How to Download YouTube Videos to Watch Offline with Online Tools

• Quality Option: 144P to 2160P, but not always
• Playback: Depends on your player selection 
• Video Valid Time: Permanent 
• Pros: No ads and pop-ups
• Cons: Not every video offers you multiple quality options 

How to watch YouTube videos offline on PC without downloading any tool? If that's what you are thinking about, you may prefer to use an online YouTube video downloader. Online tools allow you to save a YouTube video to your PC, Mac, or laptop with a browser, which is quite convenient.

The drawbacks of online tools are also obvious. When you use an online tool, you may be bothered by annoying ads, redirections, and download failures. Given that, you should be careful while choosing an online video downloader to apply.

We originally chose https://yt1s.de/ as an example, but it does not work now. So we choose another online video downloader from Media Mister:

Step 1. Find and click the video you want to download on YouTube.

Step 2. Copy the URL of the video, and paste it into its address bar: https://www.mediamister.com/free-youtube-video-downloader

Step 3. Paste the URL of the YouTube video to the address bar.

Step 4. Click "Find Video".

Step 5. Select the video quality you prefer to start downloading YouTube videos to your computer.

Step 6. Then, it will open a new window, click the three dots, and then choose "Download."

Step 7. When the downloading process is complete, the downloaded video file will be saved in the "Downloads" folder. Go check it, play it, and watch it as you like.

How to Save a YouTube Video to a Laptop by Changing URL

• Quality Option: 360p
• Playback: Depends on Your Player on Windows
• Video Valid Time: Forever
• Pros: No ads, no redirects
• Cons: No other quality options

The three ways above are the most common ones to download videos from YouTube or other websites. Actually, there is one more simple and practical method to save YouTube videos to your computer for offline watching, which is to change the video URL.

There are many ways to download YouTube videos by changing the URL. Let's see how it works.

To save a YouTube video to PC for offline watching:

Step 1. On YouTube, find and play the video you want to download.

Step 2. Go to the address bar and change "youtube" in the link to "youpak".

Step 3. On the new page, click "Click here to Download this video" above the video.

Step 4. Now, you can see different download options provided by the website.

Step 5. Click the download option you prefer to start saving the YouTube video to your computer.

How to Watch YouTube Videos Offline on Phone

• Quality Option: from 144P to 720P
• Playback: Play on Photo app📌
• Video Valid Time: Permanent
• Pros: No app installation
• Cons: Max. 720P

This is also easy if you get a YouTube Premium. If not, we recommend you use the Apple Shortcut and EaseUS Video Downloader Android version. There are also other ways you might be interested, so visit this page to get more insights.

To use Shortcut to download YouTube videos to your photo gallery:

Step 1. Download and install the shortcut.

Step 2. Open the desired YouTube video on your iPhone and press the share button.

Step 3. Click the "More" option and scroll down to find YouTube Shorts Downloader. Select "Allow Always."

Step 4. Choose the video resolution. Exit the program after the processing.

Bonus

Here are more details you might be concerned about downloading YouTube videos and watching them offline.

💡 If You Cannot Download Videos from YouTube...

There are many reasons why you can't download a video from YouTube:

• The video may be private and infer copyright issues.
• The video downloader fails to analyze the video address.
• The video downloader is currently unavailable in your region (especially for some online tools).

When you encounter such a problem, you can try all the tips to take a chance. If you still can't download the video, I'm afraid that you need to switch to another video to have a try.

💡Device Compatibility

When downloading videos directly from YouTube (using YouTube Premium or the official app features), the available formats are typically more limited. Here are the official video and audio format options offered by YouTube:

📺Video Formats:

MP4 – The most common video format for downloading videos through YouTube Premium, offering a balance of quality and file size. However, it may not be the best choice for ultra-high-definition formats like 4K.

🔊Audio Formats:

M4A – Typically used for audio-only downloads, providing good audio quality with relatively small file sizes. However, it may not be as widely compatible with non-Apple devices or third-party media players.

💡About Ads

YouTube's paid memberships offer you an ad-free experience. Or you can use an ad-blocking browser extension to block those ads. The good news is that EaseUS Video Downloader makes you download them without any ads.

The Bottom Line

It's quite easy to watch YouTube videos on a PC, Mac, or laptop without internet or WI-FI as long as you ask for help from reliable video downloader tools. Some of the tools also enable you to convert YouTube videos to MP3 and provide different video formats for you to choose from. Choose the one that fits your needs most to get the video you like within minutes.

FAQs on How to Watch YouTube Videos Offline

Keep reading more questions related to this theme.

1. Is it possible to download YouTube videos on a PC?

Yes, you can use a third-party service like EaseUS Video Downloader to download them on your device.

2. How to watch YouTube videos offline without premium?

If you don't have Premium, you can download them using an app like EaseUS Video Downloader or 4K Video Downloader.

3. Where do downloaded YouTube videos go on PC?

By default, YouTube downloads on Windows 10 are stored in the user's "videos" folder