Watch YouTube videos on Linux with Haruna

Haruna is an open-source video player app for Linux. It has a lot of excellent features, but its best feature is built-in YouTube support. In this guide, we’ll show you how you can use the Haruna application to watch your favorite YouTube videos on the Linux desktop.

How to install Haruna on Linux

Before you can use the Haruna application on Linux, you’ll have to install it as a package on your system. You must install the “youtube-dl” package, as Haruna uses it as a backend to enable YouTube playback.

Installing Haruna on Linux is quite easy, as they support it on all mainstream Linux operating systems. It also has support for both Snap packages and Flatpak packages. To start the installation process, open up a terminal.

Unsure how to launch a terminal window on your Linux desktop? Press Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Alternatively, search for “terminal” in the app menu, and launch it that way.

Once the terminal window is launched, the installation can begin. Follow along with the instructions below that correspond with the Linux operating system that you currently use to get it working.

Ubuntu installation instructions

On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you can get Haruna working through the official repos. If you are using this version of Ubuntu, simply run the following apt install command below to get it working.

sudo apt install haruna youtube-dl

If you’re on a newer release of Ubuntu, you can get the Haruna app using the Snap package instructions. As Ubuntu is the developer of Snap, there’s no need to configure the runtime, just run the snap install command and go!

Debian installation instructions

Those on Debian 11 can install the Haruna video player through the official software repositories included out of the box. To install the Haruna application on your Debian 11 system, use the following apt install command.

sudo apt install haruna youtube-dl

If you’re on an older release of Debian, you’ll want to install the Haruna app by following either the Flatpak or Snap package instructions. It’ll get everything up and running on your OS just fine.

Arch Linux installation instructions

The Haruna app is distributed via the “Community” software repo. To get it working on your Arch system, use the following pacman -S command. Be sure also toinstall the “youtube-dl” program.

sudo pacman -S haruna youtube-dl

Fedora installation instructions

If you use Fedora 37 or newer, Haruna is easy to get working through the official software sources. To install it, use the following dnf install command below.

sudo dnf install haruna youtube-dl

OpenSUSE installation instructions

The Haruna application is available for all OpenSUSE Linux users via the “Oss” software repository. To install it on your OpenSUSE system, use the following zypper in command below.

sudo zypper in haruna youtube-dl

Snap installation instructions

To get Haruna working via the Snap package, you’ll first need to enable the Snap runtime. To do that, follow our in-depth setup guide. Then, use the snap install command to install Haruna.

sudo snap install haruna --candidate

Flatpak installation instructions

To get Haruna working as a Flatpak, you’ll first need to turn on the Flatpak runtime. You can turn on the runtime by following our Flatpak setup guide.

After configuring Flatpak, use the commands below to install Haruna.

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

flatpak install flathub org.kde.haruna

How to use Haruna to watch YouTube on Linux

To watch a YouTube video with Haruna on the Linux desktop, start by launching the app. You can open up Haruna by searching for “Haruna” in the app menu. Once it is open, follow the step-by-step instructions below.

Open up a web browser and navigate to YouTube.com. Once there, find a YouTube video you’d like to watch, and right-click on it. Copy the URL to your clipboard.
After copying your YouTube video URL to the clipboard, find the “Open Url” button, and click on it with the mouse. When you select the “Open Url” button, a text box will appear.
Inside the text box, paste the YouTube video URL into the box by pressing Ctrl + V. You can also right-click, and select “Paste” to add the URL into Haruna.
Once you’ve added in your YouTube URL to Haruna, find the “Open” button, and click on it with the mouse. When you select the “Open” button, Haruna will load up the YouTube Video.