Easy YouTube downloads on Mac

Apr 14, ’26, 9:10 AM

Some YouTube videos are worth downloading, and YouTube doesn’t want you to do that. So here is how you do that on a Mac:

Install yt-dlp and ffmpeg, for example using brew.
Create /etc/yt-dlp.conf with this content:

# Default to H.265 HEVC files
-f "bestvideo[vcodec^=hevc][ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]"

Now, every time you want to download a YouTube video, you can use yt-dlp and it will automagically download and convert it to a space saving H.265 (HEVC) file.

If you don’t know how to follow these steps, I highly recommend you do not attempt to, until you’ve taught yourself how to work the macOS Terminal (which will give you super powers on a Mac, and is absolutely worth the effort!). You could use Apple’s Guide to get started, or just search “macOS Terminal beginners guide/tutorial” in the search engine of your choice.