Downie Is the Easiest Way to Download YouTube Videos (and More) to Your Mac
It’s hard to find a good and reliable app for downloading videos from the internet. It seems like every time I come across one of these tools that I like, there’s a good chance that it will soon either stop working, be abandoned by its developers, or be sold to a new, shady owner. One app that has never had any of these issues is Downie for Mac . Downie is a one-click video downloader for hundreds of sites, including YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, Vimeo, and many more. It’s been updated regularly for years and operates on a simple business model — a one-time payment of $20. It’s definitely the best and most reliable option I can recommend if you have a Mac.
How to Use Downie to Download Videos
Once you have Downie installed on your Mac, the easiest way to use it is to install the extension in whatever browser you use. Options are available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
After that, just open any web page with videos, click the Downie button on your browser toolbar, and the app will do the rest. It’s really that simple. The only problem you might run into is if there are multiple videos on the page. For example, if you open your Instagram feed in your browser and click the Downie button, the app won’t be able to simply download all the videos in your feed. The trick is to first open the desired post in a new tab, and then click the Downie button.
If you have the URL of the video you want to download, you can simply copy and paste it into Downie, eliminating the need for browser extensions. For sites that Downie doesn’t support, there’s also a guided video extraction mode, though it’s not completely secure. I haven’t encountered any sites where I’ve had to use it, but if you need to, you can check out the developer’s guide on how to use it . Just don’t expect it to bypass copy protection.
In my testing, Downie was able to download most of the videos I needed to save. I tried Downie on a variety of other social media and video platforms, and it worked pretty well, even on complex ones like Instagram Reels. The most notable exception was Instagram Stories, which it couldn’t download reliably enough, but you can use other sites to download them .
Setting Up Downey Parameters
While Downie may seem simple at first glance, it is highly customizable, so it is worth exploring its settings to make it your own. With Downie open, click the Downie button in the menu bar and select Preferences . Now, browse through all the available tabs to familiarize yourself with the app’s capabilities. The General tab lets you choose download quality options, which is handy if you don’t want to fill up your Mac’s storage by downloading 4K videos.
In the Destination tab, you can specify the location where the downloaded videos will be saved and the format of the video files. You can also save video thumbnails as images. You can also extract audio from video files, meaning if you want to convert YouTube videos to MP3, Downie will do it for you. This feature can be configured in the Post-Processing tab of Downie’s settings, where you can choose the audio download format: MP3, M4A, or the original.
The Subtitles and Audio settings section is also useful, especially if you have hearing problems. It has a handy option to download all available subtitles, even in multiple languages. The Proxy tab lets you enable the download of videos blocked in your region. Finally, the Supported Sites tab lets you customize download settings for each site that Downie supports. There are a few more settings pages you can use for more precise control, but these basics should be enough for you.
Get Downey at a lower price
Downie’s $20 price tag may seem steep to some, but maintaining an app like Downie is a serious undertaking. Websites are constantly changing their code, meaning Downie has to stay one step ahead to ensure videos can be downloaded. I’ve seen plenty of cases where apps without updates have been rendered useless, which is why I appreciate a reliable app with a clear business model.
That said, Downie is part of Setapp, which gives you access to over 200 Mac apps for $10 a month. My colleague Justin Pot personally recommended Setapp , and I agree that it’s a good deal. If you plan on using more than just Downie, it could be a good way to save money.