Best 17 Free Desktop YouTube Clients and Players for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android

Best 17 Free Desktop YouTube Clients and Players for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android

A YouTube desktop client is a software application that allows users to access and interact with YouTube content directly from their desktop, without needing to open a web browser.

These clients often provide a more streamlined and smooth customizable user experience. YouTube desktop clients also allow users to avoid tracking from Google and other third parties, enhancing their privacy.

Many of these clients also come with built-in ad-blockers, allowing users to enjoy their content without interruption from advertisements.

Some clients even offer additional features not available on the web version of YouTube, such as background play and pop-up video windows, which is not supported by YouTube in Android and iOS as example.

In this list, we offer the best open-source free YouTube Desktop clients, for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.

1. AudioTube

AudioTube is an app for Android phones and Linux desktops that can search YouTube Music, list albums and artists, play automatically generated playlists and albums, and allows users to create their own playlists.

You can download the app using Flathub.

Install AudioTube on Linux | Flathub
YouTube Music App for phones and desktop computers

2. Minitube

Minitube is a free and open-source YouTube desktop client for Linux systems. It provides an endless stream of YouTube videos based on a keyword, with low CPU and memory usage, making it battery-friendly.

It features filters for inappropriate content, making it suitable for kids. It also supports channel subscriptions without a YouTube account for privacy and plays videos consecutively for a seamless experience.

It works for Windows, Linux and macOS.

Minitube
There’s life outside the browser! Minitube is a native YouTube client. With it you can watch YouTube videos in a new way: you type a keyword, Minitube gives you an endless video stream. Minitube does not require the Flash Player. Minitube is not about cloning the original YouTube web interfa
Install Minitube on Linux | Flathub
YouTube app

3. QtTube

QtTube is a Qt frontend for YouTube made in C++ that aims to emulate the normal YouTube experience as close as possible.

It's more private and it supports logging in, and with that, total integration with the YouTube website and app. It also comes with considerable improvements to performance and resource usage over the YouTube website.

It can be installed easily on Arch Linux and Arch-based Linux distro using AUR. Other distro users can install it as an AppImage.

GitHub - BowDown097/QtTube: A Qt frontend for YouTube.
A Qt frontend for YouTube. Contribute to BowDown097/QtTube development by creating an account on GitHub.

4. Invidious

Invidious is an open-source alternative to YouTube, allowing users to subscribe to channels and create playlists without a YouTube account. It is available in multiple languages and offers an ad-free viewing experience.

Invidious
Invidious has 18 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.
Invidious
Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

5. PsTube

PsTube is a free and open-source YouTube client thats is built using the Flutter framework.

Features

  • Beautiful user interface
  • Lightweight and fast
  • No Login Required
  • Keep your liked videos and comments
  • Playlists support
  • Download videos, audios and thumbnails
  • Ads free forever

Platforms

  • Linux: AppImage, Debian, Fedora
  • Windows
  • Android
Install PsTube on Linux | Flathub
Youtube client made using flutter

6. PlasmaTube

PlasmaTube is a Linux app that allows you to watch YouTube videos on your phone or desktop using an elegant user interface integrated with the rest of Plasma.

PlasmaTube
Watch YouTube videos
Install PlasmaTube on Linux | Flathub
Watch YouTube videos

7. NativeYoutube

NativeYouTube is a free and open-source YouTube client player for macOS systems. However, it requires YouTube client API to browse and play videos.

GitHub - Aayush9029/NativeYoutube: Personal App that turned into “alpha released app” v2
Personal App that turned into “alpha released app” v2 - Aayush9029/NativeYoutube

8. FreeTube

FreeTube is a privacy-focused, open-source desktop YouTube player that allows users to use YouTube without ads and prevents tracking from Google. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Features

  • Watch videos without ads
  • Use YouTube without Google tracking you using cookies and JavaScript
  • Two extractor APIs to choose from (Built in or Invidious)
  • Subscribe to channels without an account
  • Connect to an externally setup proxy such as Tor
  • View and search your local subscriptions, history, and saved videos
  • Organize your subscriptions into "Profiles" to create a more focused feed
  • Export & import subscriptions
  • Youtube Trending
  • Youtube Chapters
  • Most popular videos page based on the set Invidious instance
  • SponsorBlock
  • Open videos from your browser directly into FreeTube (with extension)
  • Watch videos using an external player
  • Full Theme support
  • Make a screenshot of a video
  • Multiple windows
  • Mini Player (Picture-in-Picture)
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Option to show only family friendly content
  • Show/hide functionality or elements within the app using the distraction free settings
  • View channel community posts
  • View most age restricted videos

Platforms

GitHub - FreeTubeApp/FreeTube: An Open Source YouTube app for privacy
An Open Source YouTube app for privacy. Contribute to FreeTubeApp/FreeTube development by creating an account on GitHub.
FreeTube - The Private YouTube Client
FreeTube is a feature-rich and user-friendly YouTube client with a focus on privacy.

9. Spotube

Spotube is a free and open source, cross-platform Spotify client compatible across multiple platforms utilizing Spotify's data API and YouTube, Piped.video or JioSaavn as an audio source, eliminating the need for Spotify Premium.

Features

  • 🚫 No ads, thanks to the use of public & free Spotify and YT Music APIs¹
  • ⬇️ Freely downloadable tracks
  • 🖥️ 📱 Cross-platform support
  • 🪶 Small size & less data usage
  • 🕵️ Anonymous/guest login
  • 🕒 Time synced lyrics
  • ✋ No telemetry, diagnostics or user data collection
  • 🚀 Native performance
  • 📖 Open source/libre software
  • 🔉 Playback control is done locally, not on the server
GitHub - KRTirtho/spotube: 🎧 Open source Spotify client that doesn’t require Premium nor uses Electron! Available for both desktop & mobile!
🎧 Open source Spotify client that doesn’t require Premium nor uses Electron! Available for both desktop & mobile! - KRTirtho/spotube

10. MoonPlayer

MoonPlayer is a versatile video player that allows online streaming, downloading of videos from platforms like YouTube and Youku, as well as playback of local videos.

MoonPlayer - Coslyk
Install MoonPlayer on Linux | Flathub
Video player for playing and downloading online videos from YouTube, Youku etc.

11. YouTube Desktop

The YouTube Desktop client is a sleek widget that allows users to enjoy YouTube content while working on other tasks. It includes a built-in ad-blocker and offers full functionality of the web version, including watching, commenting, subscribing, uploading, and sharing content.

GitHub - B-0-B-B-Y/desktop-youtube: An elegant desktop client version of YouTube.
An elegant desktop client version of YouTube. Contribute to B-0-B-B-Y/desktop-youtube development by creating an account on GitHub.

12. SmartTubeLegacy

SmartYouTubeTV is a free and open-source YouTube client for set-top boxes and Android-based TVs.

Features

  • 4K support.
  • Designed for TV screens.
  • Any remote controller support.
  • Login support.
  • Doesn't depend on Google Services.
  • Fully localized.
  • Multilingual search keyboard.
  • Automatic update mechanism.
  • No root required!
GitHub - yuliskov/SmartTubeLegacy: Watch YouTube videos on your TV and set-top-box with comfort
Watch YouTube videos on your TV and set-top-box with comfort - yuliskov/SmartTubeLegacy

13. devtube: CLI YouTube Music client

Play Youtube music via your terminal. No ads, no auto paused 🎵💥✨

GitHub - vinhlh/devtube: Play Youtube music via command line. No ads, no auto paused 🎵💥✨
Play Youtube music via command line. No ads, no auto paused 🎵💥✨ - vinhlh/devtube

14. DeskVideo

DeskVideo is a desktop-styled video-stream platform front-end that utilizes third-party APIs. Piped, a privacy-centered video provider, serves as the backend, while Unsplash provides random wallpapers.

GitHub - malisipi/DeskVideo: A video-stream platform front-end
A video-stream platform front-end. Contribute to malisipi/DeskVideo development by creating an account on GitHub.

15. Cloud-Player

Cloud-Player Desktop is a free and open-source client for YouTube, SoundCloud and Mixcloud.

GitHub - Cloud-Player/cloud-player-desktop: Desktop music player built with electron to play youtube, soundcloud and mixcloud tracks
Desktop music player built with electron to play youtube, soundcloud and mixcloud tracks - Cloud-Player/cloud-player-desktop

16. YouTube Browser App

DeskVideo is a desktop-styled video-stream platform front-end that utilizes third-party APIs. Piped, a privacy-centered video provider, serves as the backend, while Unsplash provides random wallpapers. It does not support offline mode.

17. NewPipe (Android)

NewPipe is an open-source Android application that allows users to view and download video and audio from YouTube, SoundCloud, and more. It's designed to be lightweight and privacy-friendly, with features like background play and pop-up video windows.

NewPipe - a free YouTube client

12 Free YouTube Android Clients to Watch Videos and Stream YouTube Music without Ads.
This list provides information on various YouTube frontend alternatives for Android, including WebTubePlay, LibreTube, SkyTube, NewPipe Legacy, SimpMusic, ViMusic, YaShlangOnline, and InnerTune. These apps offer features such as ad-free experience, video blocking, music streaming, playlist creation, and more. How To Download a YouTube Video To MP4 for All PlatformsLearn how






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