How to Play YouTube Videos Locally to Save Bandwidth, Skip Ads, & Always Watch in HD

Real suffering is sitting through a thirty-second ad to watch a fifteen-second video, or watching your favorite music video in three-second fragments. Real suffering is this: "An error occurred, please try again later."

If you're a modern human and multitask with multiple tabs while you're on YouTube, you don't have to sacrifice your bandwidth and sanity. There's a simple way to watch YouTube ad-free and lag-free.

Yes, I suppose you could visit one of those crappy downloader sites and spend ten minutes figuring out which "Download" button is not an advertisement, but why not quickly stream the video without even opening your browser?

How to Make Your YouTube Addiction Run Smoother

VLC is a dependable open-source media player that supports DVDs, CDs, VCDs, and most other multimedia files. And guess what? It can also stream.

In addition to saving bandwidth and skipping ads, VLC allows you to stream via URL in the highest quality available without slowing you down. Are you learning to dance? VLC also allows you to adjust the playback speed of streaming video just like you can on YouTube. Go ahead, learn the Nae Nae.

Step 1: Install VLC & Get the Video

There's no trick here. First, install VLC if you haven't already (it supports Linux, Mac, Windows, and more), and copy the YouTube URL you'd like to stream in the VLC media player.

Step 2: Select "Open Media"

Next, open VLC and click the "Open media..." button. After your first stream, a playlist will automatically replace the "Drop media here" window. For every subsequent stream, use the "Open Network..." option in the "File" menu.

Step 3: Watch Ad-Free, HD Video Without YouTube

Make sure you're in the "Network" tab and paste the URL of the YouTube video you want.

Then click "Open" and there you have it. It's Nae Nae time.

My personal favorite feature of VLC is that it saves all of your streamed videos onto a playlist. If you're like me and search for the same songs over and over again, accessing a playlist without even opening your browser is extremely convenient.