Ever wish you could save some of those videos you’ve seen on YouTube so you can watch them whenever you want, without needing internet connectivity? Sounds impossible, but it’s not, because there is Airy.
Airy is a YouTube downloader for the Mac that lets sift through all of your favorite playlists and pick favorites to save and play when you want. You can even save entire playlists! What’s even more useful and unique is that you can download just the audio MP3 files, so you can play your YouTube playlists without videos.
I know there are other apps out there that download MP3 files, but Airy was extremely easy to use and provided a clean interface and organization tool to facility easy searches. The other neat thing about Airy is that you can also choose the format of the audio file besides MP3.
The easy integration of Airy with standard browsers makes the usability top notch. After downloading the Airy app, you integrate with the browser of your choice, and then you will see the Airy bookmark icon, which triggers the download. It was so easy to just bookmark a video link and then save it.
Make note that currently, Airy is in its free trial mode, so when you go to download a playlist, it will capture just the first two items. You will have to go in and download the remainders manually.
I haven’t done much downloading of videos, but the features I found in Airy were quite impressive:
- Video Quality – you can tweak settings for video download so that when they play you get the quality you want. Videos can download as MP4s, FLVs, and 3GPs, and you have the option to set the resolution, as well.
- Restrictions – if you have younger folk who will be using the app to download content and want to make sure they are accessing what they are allowed to view, you can easily place password protection on individual downloads. This keeps them out of what they should not have access to.
- Content Information – when you download a video or mp3, you also get the artist, title and album art.
A really neat feature in Airy is the ability to resume download that may has stopped by accident or that you intentionally paused. You can even have Airy alert you when a download completes.
I really could not ask for more in a YouTube downloader app. Airy seems to have it all. I found it extremely straightforward to use and it had no issues with any of the downloads I tried. I was able to easily save the files wherever I wanted them. I would say the only wish I could have is to have the app download directly into a file sharing app like Box.com or Google Docs, so I can easily share without sending files.
Apart from that, Airy YouTube Downloader has made YouTube downloading so easy and convenient. I never thought I would ever use an app like this, but I am seeing so many benefits to having it that I look forward to buying the official version when it comes out.