Download YouTube video
or extract audio

A free app for macOS and Windows that saves videos as MP4 or pulls just the audio as MP3. Everything runs on your own machine — no account, no server, nothing kept.

Download for macOS Download for Windows Build from source

Version 1.0.0  ·  macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon), 119 MB  ·  Windows 10+ (64-bit), 107 MB

YT Tools showing a fetched video with its thumbnail, duration and a resolution picker The same screen in dark mode

Installing

Neither build is code-signed — signing requires a paid certificate from Apple or a Windows CA. Your system will say so once, and the last step is how you answer it.

macOS

  1. Open the DMG

    Double-click the downloaded file.

  2. Drag YT Tools into Applications

    Both are shown in the window — drag one onto the other.

  3. Right-click the app, choose Open

    Confirm in the dialog. Needed once. Or, in Terminal:

    xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/YT Tools.app"

Windows

  1. Run the installer

    Double-click YT Tools Setup 1.0.0.exe.

  2. Click “More info”, then “Run anyway”

    SmartScreen flags any installer it has not seen signed before. This is that warning, not a virus report.

  3. Pick a folder and install

    It installs for the current user, so no admin rights are needed.

What it does

Paste a link, pick a quality, get a file. The parts that are usually fiddly are handled.

MP4 at any available resolution

Every resolution the video actually offers, each labelled with a size estimate. H.264 by default so it plays anywhere.

MP3 at 128, 192 or 320 kbps

Title, date and genre copied into the tags, so your library stays tidy.

Smaller files, faster

One checkbox picks YouTube's AV1 or VP9 rendition instead — about half the bytes at the same resolution.

Playlists as a ZIP

Tick the entries you want. A video that fails is skipped and listed, not allowed to sink the batch.

Straight to Downloads

Files land in ~/Downloads with a notification. Nothing is ever overwritten.

Nothing leaves your machine

No account, no telemetry, no server. Downloads use your own connection, and temp files are deleted immediately.

Nothing else to install

Tools like this normally ask you to install yt-dlp, ffmpeg and a Python that is new enough. All three are inside the app.

yt-dlp

The downloader, kept current with each release.

ffmpeg

Merges video with audio and encodes MP3.

Python 3.12

yt-dlp needs 3.10 or newer. macOS ships 3.9; Windows ships none.

Build it yourself

The whole thing is open source under the MIT licence. Building takes a few minutes and needs Node 20 or newer. Run it on the platform you are building for. 

git clone https://github.com/thomashendrixkw-code/yttools.git
cd yttools
npm ci

cd desktop
npm install
npm run dist        # → a .dmg on macOS, a .exe installer on Windows

There is also a Docker image if you would rather run it on a server.

Use this only for content you have the right to download

That means material you own the rights to, that is in the public domain, or that carries a licence permitting reuse — Creative Commons, for example. Downloading copyrighted content without the rights holder's permission may breach YouTube's Terms of Service and copyright law in your jurisdiction. You are responsible for how you use this tool.

YT Tools does not circumvent DRM, age verification, or regional restrictions, and no such feature will be added.