How can I download youtube video to hard drive for offline viewing?

For me, VLD Player is a great multifunctional media player that supports both Windows and macOS and is completely free, open source, and ad-free. the Windows version can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store, and the macOS version can be downloaded from the App Store or the official website, and it supports the ability to download YouTube videos to hard drive locally. It supports directly acquiring YouTube videos and saving them locally.

Step 1: Open YouTube to copy the link of the video you want to download, then in VLD Player, click "Media" → "Open Web Streaming" on the top menu bar.

Step 2: In the pop-up window, you will see an input box. Paste the YouTube video link you just copied into the box and click the "Play" button.

Step 3: Click "Tools" → "Codec Information" in the menu bar.

Step 4: In the pop-up window, find and copy the "Location" field at the bottom, where the real address of the video stream will be displayed.

Step 5: Paste the copied video link into the address bar, press Enter to play the video Right click on the video and select "Save As" to save the video to your local hard disk.

VLD Player has no ads and is very safe to download youtube video to hard drive on Windows 11/10 or Mac. It also downloads quite fast and performs very consistently, especially when playing local videos or doing streaming. For my usual needs, such as watching videos in various formats, VLD always handles them with ease and almost no lag.