Introduction

If you want a fast, reliable way to download YouTube videos on your Mac, yt-dlp is one of the best tools available today. It’s a modern, actively maintained fork of youtube-dl, offering faster downloads, better format selection, and broad support for streaming sites. This guide walks you through installing yt-dlp on macOS and shows you the simplest ways to download videos, audio, and playlists.

Why Use yt-dlp?

yt-dlp offers several advantages:

• Consistently updated to keep up with YouTube changes
• Extremely fast downloading and processing
• Supports high-quality formats including 1080p, 4K, and 8K
• Playlist and channel downloads
• Audio-only extraction (MP3, M4A, WAV, etc.)
• Cross-platform and open-source

If you want a dependable local copy of videos, music, lectures, or tutorials, yt-dlp is the tool to use.

Install Homebrew

Homebrew is the package manager that makes installing yt-dlp effortless. Open Terminal and run:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Then add Homebrew to your shell:

echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Install yt-dlp

Once Homebrew is set up, simply run:

brew install yt-dlp

Homebrew will download and install the latest yt-dlp version.

Install FFmpeg (Recommended)

FFmpeg allows yt-dlp to merge audio/video streams and extract audio in different formats. Install it with:

brew install ffmpeg

Although optional, FFmpeg significantly improves yt-dlp’s capabilities.

Download a YouTube Video

Downloading a video is as simple as typing:

yt-dlp "<video_url>"

yt-dlp will automatically download the best available quality.

Download Audio Only (MP3, M4A, etc.)

If you only need the audio:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 "<video_url>"

Replace mp3 with m4a, wav, or other supported formats as needed.

Download Highest-Quality Video (Best Video + Best Audio)

Use this to download the top available video and audio streams:

yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba" "<video_url>"

This ensures 1080p, 1440p, 4K, or whatever the highest quality is.

Download an Entire Playlist

yt-dlp handles playlists effortlessly:

yt-dlp "<playlist_url>"

It processes each video one by one and saves them in order.

Favourite Download Commands For Video

Our favourite command for downloading video that combines good quality with good compression:

yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" "<video_url>"

Keep yt-dlp Updated

Because YouTube frequently changes its backend, keeping yt-dlp up-to-date ensures it continues to work smoothly:

brew upgrade yt-dlp

Final Thoughts

With yt-dlp and FFmpeg installed on macOS, downloading YouTube videos becomes fast, dependable, and highly customizable. Whether you’re saving tutorials for offline study, backing up content, or extracting audio tracks, yt-dlp gives you full control through a simple command-line interface.

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