How to Install the YouTube App on Your Mac
Reading Time: 3 minutes The YouTube app is available on many different types of devices. However, it has no desktop app version available on the Mac App Store, even though it is one of the most visited websites in the world. Thus, all you can do is open a browser like Safari and visit youtube.com to watch your videos or manage your account.
However, there is a way for you to download the web app version, which looks and acts like the native version. This will provide you with an app-like experience. In this article, I will explain how you can do this.
I will show you how you can add the YouTube app to the Dock, Applications folder and your desktop so that you can open it with a click. This method works with any kind of Mac device, like MacBook or Mac Mini, running macOS.
We will use the Safari Web Apps feature to install YouTube. Stacey previously explained this method here: How to Use Safari Web Apps in macOS Sonoma.
Steps to Download the YouTube app on Mac
- On your Mac, open Safari and visit youtube.com.
- With YouTube open in the browser, click File and then Add to Dock from the top menu.
- A new information box saying Add to Dock will appear. You can change the app name if you want before adding it. If everything is good, click Add. If you want, you can also change the app icon by clicking on it.
Now, the YouTube app icon is added to the Dock and Launchpad. You can simply click it to open the newly installed YouTube app.
Open it, and you can start watching or uploading videos through this app, as you can see below:
If you want to place the app icon on your desktop for easy access, here is how:
- Find the YouTube app on the Dock and then Control-click (or right-click) it, then go to Options and Show in Finder.
- This will open the Applications folder where the YouTube app lives. A side note is that if you go to Finder and Applications, you may not find this because this app icon exists in the root level, as we explained in this article: Installed Applications Not Showing in Applications Folder in Finder? Fix.
- Then, select the YouTube icon and drag it to your desktop to create an alias there.
- Now, you can open the YouTube app by clicking this icon on the desktop.
If you want to uninstall the YouTube app, simply drag it to the Trash.
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I tried going through the steps in this article “How to install YouTube app on my mac”.
However when I got to the step
Click File…I don’t have the option “ADD TO DOC”.
You included an example so I know EXACTLY where to look-unfortunately it “add to doc” wasn’t on my computer.💻
(the picture shows it being right under:
Share
Export as PDF…
I don’t know what else to do. I really want the YouTube on my doc. Darn it.
You will need to be running Sonoma or later to use web apps. If you have Ventura or earlier, it won’t work.