Freemake Video Downloader Review
There are many awesome videos on YouTube: music clips, series, films, how-to guides, and so on. No doubt people are looking for a way to save these videos for offline viewing. Of course, you can enjoy YouTube videos online, but what if your favorite videos get deleted?
It may happen if an owner decides to delete the video or a complete YouTube account; the video may become restricted in your country or blocked by your provider. Besides, if your connection has traffic limits, it’s not comfortable to stream a video every time. And finally, you might want to enjoy a video on a plane while going on vacation. So taking into consideration all these factors, it’s better to stay on the safe side and save a YouTube video right onto your PC.
There are many ways to download YouTube videos: online services, software, browser plugins or even browsers with a built-in option to save video content. Each method has its pros and cons.
A web-service being the easiest way can get a single video or MP3 only. Moreover, if many people are using the service, it might become unstable, and you’ll have to wait. Not speaking about numerous ads that in some cases might even damage your PC.
A browser plugin has the same pros, and as for the cons, you lose the freedom to choose a browser to watch a video. The same situation is with a browser that comes with a built-in feature to extract videos from webpages.
The software in its turn if you’ve made a right choice can offer numerous output options for YouTube videos and playlists and doesn’t depend on a number of people currently using it. Have a look at Freemake Video Downloader. This tool literally stands out. First of all, it’s completely safe. The software doesn’t contain any ads or third-party plugins. Thus you can just click Next all the time while the installation process and be sure that nothing bad will be installed on your PC or laptop. Please note the program can run on Win Vista or higher and requires .Net Framework 4.5. If you don’t have it, you’ll be asked to install this Microsoft component. For Win XP, please contact the Support Team through Freemake official website.
When the installation is completed, launch Freemake Video Downloader. If you are afraid to see the software with many buttons, you may keep calm. The tool has only four. The Paste URL button serves to paste YouTube video link. Keep in mind, that with Freemake Video Converter you can save single videos, playlists and free YouTube channels. Paid videos are not supported.
The 2nd button is Pause all. You’ll need it in case you’d like to stop the downloading process for some time and use a whole power of your connection for some other purpose.
Then comes the Options button. Here you can set how many videos can be downloaded simultaneously (from 1 to 5), the connection speed (4MBps, 2MBps, 1MBps, etc.) and add proxy settings to save geo-restricted files.
Now let’s get back to the downloading process. To save YouTube video with Freemake video Downloader is very easy. The 1st thing you need to do is to find a video that you want to get on YouTube. It doesn’t matter which browser you are using. Copy the video URL from the address line, run Freemake Video Downloader and click the Paste URL button. In a new window, there will appear a list of formats and qualities you can save your video to. Usually, you can choose among MP4, FLV, 3GP, and WebM. For each option, there will be shown an estimated file size and audio quality. Freemake software takes only formats and qualities available for a particular video on YouTube. So if you don’t see 4K or 1080p among output options, more likely this video is not available in Ultra HD or Full HD on YouTube.
In case you want to save your video in AVI, MKV, for iPod, iPhone, Android or another device, scroll down the software window and choose an option Convert to. Then select a necessary gadget or format. For music, choose to MP3 option. By the way, Freemake Video Downloader can extract an original audio track from YouTube video without any quality loss. So if you prefer to have high-quality tracks in AAC or M4A, this feature is right for you.
Now set a destination folder for your new video and audio files. By default, the files go to My Videos and My Music folder. You can change it to whatever one you need including Dropbox, Google Drive or any other cloud service folder.
When you are done with all the settings, click the Convert button to run the downloading process.
Whether your video is age-restricted or private, you’ll have to add your YouTube login details in Freemake Video Downloader. Click Options in the low left corner of the software. Then go to Accounts -> Add an account and add your YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or other website details. If the software doesn’t accept your correct YouTube info, go to YouTube privacy settings and make sure you are allowed to use your YouTube login data in 3d party apps. Also, keep in mind that you can save only those private videos that you have access on YouTube.
To save YouTube playlist or YouTube channel, follow the same steps as above. Please note that the software doesn’t save sets of videos. A playlist should contain the word playlist in its URL. The software can save a playlist with up to 500 files.
For those who need to download YouTube content always in the same format and quality for smartphone or tablet, there is a special One-click download mode. Pay attention to the top right corner of the software. Enable the option and chose quality (best, optimal, minimum), output audio or video format, and a destination folder. Next time when you add YouTube video address in the software, it’ll be automatically saved with pre-set parameters.
When your video is saved, you might need to edit it, for example, cut video moments that you don’t need or join two movie parts into a single file. That’s where Freemake can help you again, but this time with its video converter. Not only it can convert videos between 500+ formats, but perform simple video editing tasks. For example, to cut a video, you need to:
- Add your video via drag-n-drop or +Video button;
- Click the green scissors sign;
- Mark the beginning and the end of a part you need to cut;
- Click the blue scissors button to cut it;
- Click OK;
- Select a video format you’d like to save your edited video to;
- Choose quality or device;
- Run the conversion process.
In a couple of seconds you’ll get a video file with all the changes. Please note that Freemake doesn’t delete the original file. So you’ll have to do it manually.
That’s how you can easily save and edit YouTube video with Freemake software. Both tools are very user-friendly yet provide a huge number of options and are definitely worth installing and giving a try.