![vlc youtube download vlc youtube download](https://www.techworm.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/vlc_yt_1.jpg)
Be careful though, some arguments might break it, especially any that change the output. Any arguments passed to the script will be passed unchecked to youtube-dl, so the same options are avaliable. Playback happens on-the-fly, no download is necessary. youtube-qta enables playback of the audio only version (no video), which may be more useful in some cases given the 720p limitation of Quicktime playback. youtube-qt enables video playback, but this has a caveat, as the MAX quality for most YouTube videos will be the 720p version, due to the limitations of Quicktime Player and codecs used by YouTube (however, some livestreams may open in 1080p by default).
#Vlc youtube download for mac
Youtube-qt and youtube-qta are bonus scripts for Mac users that allow YouTube playback in the built-in Quicktime Player. The quality is usually capped at 1080p (may be 720p for some videos) because 4K is encoded as VP9 by YouTube, so this is equivalent to watching YouTube in Safari on a Mac. Youtube-vlc2 behaves the same but prioritizes MP4/M4A, which should help with avoiding the seeking/replay issues sometimes present in VLC, and achieve better playback performance on older hardware. To keep the script lightweight, no metadata is passed to VLC except the video title.
![vlc youtube download vlc youtube download](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nO3x0MOoMYw/maxresdefault.jpg)
VLC v3 is recommended to avoid playback issues present in v2. Youtube-vlc allows playback of 1080p or 4K YouTube videos in VLC at full quality using youtube-dl, much better than the 720p version you get when opening a YouTube URL through the VLC interface. So I decided to write a simple and lightweight BASH script which would accomplish this, and work on my old 2006 iMac running OS X 10.8.5 as well as newer Macs or Linux machines.
![vlc youtube download vlc youtube download](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/D8ZXzXUwAVY/maxresdefault.jpg)
I couldn't find an easy way to open a YouTube video in VLC, in 1080p or 4K, without having to manually download it first.