Notes on Android YouTube clients
Last updated : 6/5/2025 (initial writeup and cut/paste from the app list page)
Introduction
Welp, the YouTube downloader entry started getting too bloated (especially after setting up YTDLNis) so here I am, splitting the YouTube entry into its own page.
Common advantages of most unofficial YouTube clients
- Proper video downloads ‐ you actually keep the file.
- Supports other platforms and/or video platforms (limited by what the client has implemented).
Common issues with most unofficial YouTube clients
List of YouTube clients I've played with
NewPipe
An open source YouTube front‐end that used to be decent, and still has some advantages compared to both official YouTube & YouTube Vanced, such as support for some platforms like Peertube & ability to download videos. However, starting with 0.20.x, it has gone too far to be an alternative to anything. And with YouTube ramping up its "security" measures, NewPipe can be expected to fall off even further.
Unique advantages in addition to the common unofficial YouTube clients :
- Open source. Also claims to be libre, except I would rather argue that NewPipe is less non‐free than official YouTube but still non‐free because it primarily relies on YouTube (which is what the users will see on 1st opening).
- Available in F‐Droid & IzzyOnDroid (and provides its own F‐Droid repository as well, but that one is slower than directly downloading from either F‐Droid or GitHub Releases (maybe with Obtainium) so...).
- Supports additional platforms like PeerTube, SoundCloud, BandCamp, and media.ccc.de.
Unique flaws in addition to the common unofficial YouTube clients :
- Extractor integrated into the app, forcing an app update to keep its supported platforms working on NewPipe. Nightly builds exists, though it's exclusively on GitHub Releases.
- No support for YouTube accounts.
- Does not embed subtitle to downloaded videos by default, requiring you to download them separately & eventually overcrowding your folder.
- Cannot be configured to connect to invidious instances instead of YouTube (not that it would help against upstream YouTube throttling).
6/7/2022 Update : Support for Invidious is being worked on. Better late than never, though for NewPipe it's a bit too late.
- Starting with version 0.20.0, Newpipe went from being an usable YouTube client to a shitty one. Here are my problems:
- Correct Video Orientation feature (unified player BS) (redacted by 24/7/2021 update, seen below)
1 tap to play & unlock fullscreen, 1 tap to switch to landscape (if watching landscape video & Autoplay is disabled) & be stuck there if you started on portrait mode (& vice versa), & 1 tap to finally go to fullscreen. As someone who don't enable auto rotate unless it's absolutely necessary (I don't see Newpipe as an app that needs auto‐rotate), this sucks.
For some smaller devices (such as Xperia XZ1 set to 432 dp), at least it's a 1 tap straight to landscape fullscreen & 1 tap back to portrait, which should be the default for all. Unfortunately, the tap back to portrait refers to tapping the back button on the navbar, but at least it's back to portrait.
24/7/2021 Update : Newpipe 0.21.6 added a toggle to disable forced tablet mode in Settings > Appearance > Tablet mode. Sure, it's opt-out (since it's not enabled by default) & it only works if the back / minimize video button is pressed, but at least it's there.
- Back in version 19.8, the progress bar were easier to tap. Now, it's annoyingly harder (and also easier if accidentally done) for no reason whatsoever.
- Autoplay enabled by default when using Wi‐Fi connection. It can be disabled in Settings > Video and audio > Autoplay.
- The unified player feature ensures that the video keeps on playing even when I exit NewPipe, by dropping the video to the background. It stops when I close Newpipe, but the notification stays for a bit.
- Confrontational contributors that may act like they're the developer. An example can be found here.
Is it just me, or does this avently guy seem like someone who enters a project & (forcefully) "contributes" a change that nobody aside from avently perself even wants (and prevents this "contribution" from ever getting removed / made optional)?
- Newpipe will give YouTube their user's IP, after being "somewhat anonymized". 10/4/2021 Update : Linking the Privacy Policy.
- Auto-update check enabled by default, can be disabled in Settings > Updates.
- NewPipe's development team is a bunch of tyrants who will happily censor stuff they do not like. Examples listed below.
- Rejecting BitChute as a "hateful right‐wing platform".
- Completely locking down a discussion about supporting Rutube as soon as someone speaks of political reasoning against it, while ignoring counter‐claims regarding YouTube politics (and hiding various comments off non‐logged in users)
- While there might be more examples hiding in plain sight, I am not going to search for it any further, as I don't want to throw NewPipe any more attention than DigDeeper would throw any positive affection at Mozilla. Speaking of Mozilla, anyone could probably think NewPipe is the Mozilla Firefox of Android's YouTube clients if YouTube's official client is treated as Google Chrome... except the "Mozilla Firefox" here doesn't seem to be hidden Go‐ogle actors (but probably misguided enthusiasts at best). But then again, those issues could be avoided by leaving support for every other platforms to other developers & solely focusing on being an alternative YouTube client & keeping the app working (but then once you put psyop politics in the limelight this point will always be on the backburner).
A "full‐featured" downloader using yt‐dlp.
Unique advantages in addition to the common unofficial YouTube clients :
- Has an option to embed subtitle files and optionally save them separately from the video.
- Supports any platforms yt‐dlp supported.
- ytdl component (yt‐dlp) separate from the app so you can update ytdl separately without having to update the app itself. May come in handy if YouTube implemented some crippling "security" addition and the unofficial YouTube client developer(s) didn't release an update to counteract the addition in time while yt‐dlp did them in either nightly or master.
- SponsorBlock support in case you don't want to (or can't) manually tear out those sponsor sections, imprecise as it is. API URL are not set by default.
- Available in IzzyOnDroid if you wanted to update through F‐Droid clients. Also & provides downloadable apk files in GitHub Releases, which also works if you're into Obtainium.
- Open source, as (not obviously) implied in the previous bullet point.
Unique flaws in addition to the common unofficial YouTube clients :
- Requires another YouTube client to properly browse content & "share" stuff to YTDLNis so it can download things. YTDLNis's interface is not that well suited towards browsing and/or watching videos without downloading it. Not to mention it pulls video recommendations by default, though it can be disabled in More > Settings > General > Video Recommendations.
- Tonnes of download options that could overwhelm first‐time users.
Lukas's preference (particularly on 1080p YouTube videos) is AVC1 (1080P (1920x1080)), though it returns a .mkv file despite showing as .mp4 in YTDLNis by default.
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