Downie - Video Downloader

If you want to download video from YouTube, there are a variety of ways. There is a Raycast Extension. There is the great free YouTube muti-action app, Freetube. For CLI folks, there is yt-dlp.  Finally there is Downie from Charlie Monroe. Downie not only downloads from YouTube, Youku, Bilibili and Vimeo it can download from more than 1,000 sites with more being added bi-weekly. You can even write to the developer and request that a site be added and chances are he will act on it. He even offers to help if you run into a problematic video on a site already in the supported list.

Downie can download 4K video, which not all downloaders can do. It can also convert to MP-4 (for iPad and iPhone use) or do only audio extraction on the fly. It supports iCloud synchronization to maintain your download history over different devices. The app has muli-language support and the developer offers free licenses to anyone who adds a new language to the support library. If you have a legacy operating system, past versions of Downie can be downloaded.

Downie is a one-time purchase of $19.99 from the developer's website and a single license is good for all the computers you personally own, although if that is greater than three you need to contact the dev for an accommodation. Downie is also available on Setapp.

There was a minor controversy some time back when the developer left empty threats in his code to delete files from the computers of those running pirated versions of the software. He has since apologized for doing that and no files were actually deleted from anyone's machine.