Download YouTube videos with Tooble
There's plenty of YouTube applications out there, but walking around the Macworld show floor a mere ten days ago, I came across Tooble: another (free) application that allows you to download your favourite YouTube videos to your Mac. Now, before people shout-off that Google could feasibly break the app by changing URLs, the developers were quick to point out that the application uses the fully-supported and entirely-ToS-valid YouTube and gData APIs to grab the videos.The software, written (incredibly) by high-school students is going to remain free for the YouTube version. There's also mention of a paid-for version supporting other sites currently slated to appear later this year (Metacafé being one site mentioned) along with a Windows version too.
I've been playing with Tooble since the show, and I've found it incredibly reliable. Testing it both when downloading 40-minute epics such as the Steve Jobs Macworld Boston 1997 Keynote, or the truly insane -- don't try this at home -- skiing down Europe's longest escalator, the application handled them both with aplomb.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Metryq said 4:47PM on 1-28-2008
CosmoPod
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Luigi193 said 4:59PM on 1-28-2008
You could also do it safari by loading a youtube vid, clicking a, and then select the movie URL, option click, and then add a .flv onto the end of the file.
Not glamorous, but it works... or you could download the free app... your choice.
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anon said 1:24AM on 2-06-2008
sorry, your method doesn't work
Fritz Laurel said 5:10PM on 1-28-2008
And then there's:
http://www.keepvid.com
which will d/l vids from a variety of sites.
I've been using keepvid.com for the past year or so.
Cheers,
FL
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Yazdgerd said 5:13PM on 1-28-2008
Using RealPlayer's downloader (a hidden app inside realplayer), you can do the same. Just leave its window open, watch the clip on YouTube, then have it listed and ready to be saved somewhere.
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BabyGotMac said 5:24PM on 1-28-2008
The key feature of Tooble (not mentioned in the article) is that not only does it download them, but it converts them to mp4 and adds them to iTunes. THAT'S the selling point.
http://babygotmac.com/a/download-youtube-video-to-itunes-with-tooble/
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MacAttack said 5:31PM on 1-28-2008
I had been using http://vixy.net/ I'll have to give this a whirl though.
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Disgruntled said 5:36PM on 1-28-2008
So this is like Tubular (http://tubularapp.com) but not vaporware? Steve Streza took a lot of people's money and then disappeared, so it's good to see that a freeware solution has appeared on the scene.
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kryptonianson said 5:52PM on 1-28-2008
I use Videobox. I plugs into safari and automatically lists the video you watch. With a click of the button it downloads/converts/imports into iTunes. I have been using it for a few weeks and I think it is the best, personally. Oh and it is only $8.
http://www.tastyapps.com/
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kryptonianson said 5:57PM on 1-28-2008
The other good thing about Videobox is it works with just about every video site out there. At least the ones that matter.
Tice said 6:02PM on 1-28-2008
I guess the easiest way is with Safari Stand: Just Command-click the Video (when it's completely loaded) and save it.
http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html
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Big John said 6:37PM on 1-28-2008
This got a mention on MacBreak Weekly this past week and for every video I tried, it failed. They were mostly US political speeches. While I appreciate the fact it was made by kids, it doesn't do any better of a job than any other of the myriad of YouTube tools out there.
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Derek Guder said 11:55PM on 1-28-2008
I gotta say that I much prefer Tube TV (http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/). it's got a few more options and allows you to tweak a few things - plus it's browser-like, so you can preview the YouTube videos in the same program without having to flip back to another program to see if it's actually what you want to download. It seems to do everything Tooble does (short of the auto-adding videos to iTunes).
With Tooble, on the other hand, it took me a bit to figure out where it was saving these files (\users\movies) and now it's not responding while converting a bunch of random test videos I gave it. Seems to be chugging along, but it's eaten up all the memory/CPU it can and is beachballin' away.
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Sketch said 10:54AM on 1-29-2008
Seconding TubeTV. I haven't tried Tooble, but TubeTV is good enough I don't need to. Being able to watch and even search YouTube in the app itself is a great help, as I often have requests from friends "hey download this youtube for me" with a URL, and I'd rather not have to open both my browser and my YouTube ripper.
rednimer said 2:37PM on 1-29-2008
http://savingyoutube.com is a great site for saving youtube and other video sites like MetaCafe to your computer. Just put in the url of the video and save it to your computer
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Pat said 4:36PM on 1-31-2008
Here is a nice web site where you can search, view and download YouTube videos.
http://www.ilikeyoutube.com/
Enjoy.
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dzzpp said 3:17AM on 2-02-2008
Now I'm using PQ FLV Downloader from http://www.pqdvd.com/download-youtube-videos-tool.html. Its download speed is the fastest in the softwares which I even used.
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BabyGotMac said 3:38AM on 2-04-2008
Hey, Tubular has updated and issued a public beta:
http://tubularapp.com
http://babygotmac.com/a/tubular-is-no-longer-vaporware/
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macnme said 11:23PM on 2-11-2008
Tooble is nice. But there's another application Web2 Delight. You can download videos and photos from YouTube, BlipTV, Veoh, Eyespot, Flickr, Picasa, Webshots, Photobucket etc, on to your Mac and on iPod/ iPhones. These people were at MacWorld this year. Check www.web2delight.com
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Istvan said 11:52AM on 3-12-2008
I would like to suggest also http://www.tubedownloader.info
It is a free online tool so you don't have to download and install any software on your computer. On the site you can find also detailed instructions and a video-tutorial.
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