Try NewPipe, it's an open source YouTube downloader and background player for Android:

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.schabi.newpi...

Looks promising. Doesn't seem to support subscriptions, though, which is the problem every unofficial YouTube app seems to have. Probably because logging in and accessing subscriptions requires the API, which has a ToS.

Yeah, the XBMC Youtube addon used to do subscriptions and the like, it was pretty nice, but I think it broke and the main developer abandoned it. Youtube-dl does support channels and resuming though so you could fairly easily just set up a cron job and use syncthing to get the videos onto your phone. No pretty GUI for that though.

I personally use an RSS Reader to handle my "subscriptions".

The YouTube-webpage also has an option to export your subscriptions to an OPML-file (which can then be imported into an RSS Reader): Log into your YouTube-account, then go to "Manage Subscriptions", and then at the bottom of that page, there's a button for it.

(This is how it worked a few months ago. I actually don't have a YouTube-account anymore, so I can't check if it still works like that.)

On Android, I personally use SpaRSS [0] with it, which does work quite well, but it being available on F-Droid was pretty much essential to me, so if you don't care about FLOSS, you might be able to find an RSS Reader which integrates even better with this setup...

[0]: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=net.etuldan.spar...

NewPipe is what I use exclusively now for YouTube (my phone is currently GApps-free). Works great.

I'm curious, how do you make your phone GApps free? I want to uninstall them but don't want to brick it..

By installing a custom ROM without also installing GApps. For example, I have a Nexus 6P running CopperheadOS, which doesn't include GApps (it, like CyanogenMod, supposedly supports it but makes it optional/separate from the OS itself).

You might also like WebTube if you're looking for a good way to search and browse YT as well.

There is also this app [1] (shameless plug, I wrote it) which uses youtube-dl to download videos off any supported sites. No real UI as it just parses the media URL (when a link is shared to it) and passes it off to the android download manager.

I threw it together (over a few hours) simply because I like watching stuff on youtube at 1.5x speed and the android app does not allow you to do it (whereas if you use VLC to play the downloaded video, you can increaseplayback speed)

It's also available on the play store [2] with youtube downloads disabled by default

[1] https://github.com/zeronickname/VideoDownloader

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.me.gman.get...

That's awesome, but you should consider F-Droid because you're probably going to get a takedown on Play if you get any level of popularity.

I just tried NewPipe. However, after downloading a video, you can no longer play it directly in NewPipe (with NewPipe's ability to play in the background), only in an external player.

If you install VLC, you can let videos (or audios) play in the background. I also found it more stable for watching/streaming longer in NewPipe.

For that reason I call it NewPipe/VLC, or as I've recently taken to calling it, NewPipe plus VLC.

Thank you. You just rocked my world. Just being able to choose the bitrate of the stream prior to it chomping down on data is awesome.

I tend to use youtube-dl to grab what I want while at my laptop and sync to my phone so that I have things to watch while about. Not a perfect solution, but works for me for now.

As I mentioned in the other [1] thread, you can use this android app [2] (which uses youtube-dl) to download directly onto your phone. If you're on iOS, sorry :(

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12595973

[2] https://github.com/zeronickname/VideoDownloader

An HNer posted this, his creation (https://videocyborg.com), in the past month. September happens to be a month where I had to endure a slow home connection most of the time so, when in the odd cafe, it was nice to have the service so I could watch videos later (at home).

I use youtube-dl as well, though I don't sync that to my phone. I need to set up a more automatic mechanism to sync files to my phone when my phone and laptop are on the same network or in the same vicinity.

Self promotion, but I recently wrote an iOS app that allows you to download YouTube videos for offline use and play them in the background. Unfortunately not on the App Store, but you can still put it on your device through Xcode.

Link: https://github.com/MrAdamBoyd/DownTube

Saving videos sounds awesome until you have that feature (Amazon video app has it for instance). You never think about saving stuff when the connection is good, and when you think about it, it is because the connection just went horrible and you are not able to stream or save anything anymore.