FreeTube is an open source desktop YouTube player built with privacy in mind.
Use YouTube without advertisements and prevent Google from tracking you with their cookies and JavaScript.
Available for Windows (10 and later), Mac (macOS 12 and later) & Linux thanks to Electron.
Download FreeTube
Screenshots • How does it work? • Features • Download Links • Contributing • Localization • Contact • Donate • License
Website • Documentation • FAQ • Discussions
[!NOTE]
FreeTube is currently in Beta. While it should work well for most users, there are still bugs and missing features that need to be addressed.
If you have an idea or if you found a bug, please submit a GitHub issue so that we can track it. Please search the existing issues before submitting to prevent duplicates!
Screenshots
| The main FreeTube window |
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| Watching a video |
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| Settings |
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How does it work?
FreeTube uses a built in extractor to grab and serve data / videos. The Invidious API can also optionally be used. FreeTube does not use any official APIs to obtain data. While YouTube can still see your video requests, it can no
longer track you using cookies or JavaScript. Your subscriptions, playlists and history are stored locally on your computer and never sent out.
[!IMPORTANT]
Using a VPN or Tor is highly recommended to hide your IP while using FreeTube.
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, playlists and history
- 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
- DeArrow
- 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 posts
Browser Extensions
The following extensions open YouTube links directly in FreeTube:
LibRedirect automatically redirect YouTube links to FreeTube.
[!IMPORTANT]
To ensure proper functionality, select FreeTube as Frontend in the Services settings of the extension.
RedirectTube, doesn’t automatically open YouTube links in FreeTube (although this feature can be enabled in the settings). Instead, it adds buttons to the toolbar and context menu, which you can click to open videos in FreeTube manually.
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Download LibRedirect from Mozilla Add-ons (for Firefox based-browsers) or developer's website (for Chrome and Chromium-based browsers).
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Download RedirectTube from Mozilla Add-ons (for Firefox based-browsers) or Chrome Web Store (for Chrome and Chromium-based browsers).
[!NOTE]
These extensions do not work on Linux portable builds!
If you have issues with the extension working with FreeTube, please create an issue in this repository instead of the extension repository.
Download Links
Official Downloads
[!CAUTION]
FreeTube is only supported on Windows 10 and later, macOS 12 and above, and various Linux distributions. Installing it on unsupported systems may result in unexpected issues.
Automated Builds (Nightly / Weekly)
[!WARNING]
Use these builds at your own risk. These are pre-release versions and are only intended for people that want to test changes early and are willing to accept that things could break from one build to another.
Builds are automatically created from changes to our development branch via GitHub Actions.
The first build with a green check mark is the latest build.
[!IMPORTANT]
You will need to have a GitHub account to download these builds.
Unofficial Downloads
[!WARNING]
These builds are maintained by the community. While they should be safe, download at your own risk. There may be issues with using these versus the official builds. Any issues specific with these builds should be sent to their respective maintainer. Make sure you always try an official download before reporting your issue to us!
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Arch User Repository (AUR): Download
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Chocolatey: Download
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FreeTubeAndroid (FreeTube port for Android and PWA): Download and Source Code
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Homebrew Formulae (Mac only): Download for Apple Silicon
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Nix Packages: Download
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PortableApps (Windows Only): Download and Source Code
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Scoop (Windows Only): Usage
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Snap: Download and Source Code
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WAPT: Download
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Windows Package Manager (winget): Usage
Contributing
Thank you very much to the People and Projects that make FreeTube possible!
If you like to get your hands dirty and want to contribute, we would love to
have your help. Send a pull request and someone will review your code.
[!IMPORTANT]
Please follow the Contribution Guidelines before sending your pull request.
Localization
We are actively looking for translations! We use Weblate to make it easy for translators to get involved. Click on the badge above to learn how to get involved.
For the Linux Flatpak, the desktop entry comment string can be translated at our Flatpak repository.
Contact
If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask it on our Discussions page. Alternatively, you can join our Matrix Room.
[!IMPORTANT]
Don't forget to check out the rules before joining.
Donate
If you enjoy using FreeTube, you're welcome to leave a donation using the following method.
- Bitcoin Address:
1Lih7Ho5gnxb1CwPD4o59ss78pwo2T91eS
While your donations are much appreciated, only donate if you really want to. Donations are used for keeping the website up and running and eventual code signing costs.
[!TIP]
If you are using the Invidious API then we recommend that you donate to the instance that you use. You can also donate to the Invidious team or the Local API developer.
License
FreeTube is Free Software: You can use, study share and improve it at your
will. Specifically you can redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the
GNU Affero General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
/FreeTube