YouTube to Music (MP3)
YouTube to MP3 conversion is perhaps one of the most sought after techniques in what is the era of the internet and YouTube being the largest online video service hands down and one of the easiest sources to finding a favorite song only justifies this notion
YouTube is host to tens of billions of hours of video content in almost any language in the world mostly uploaded by individuals but with the current trend of what can be called “YouTubing”,.media sectors, music producers, song artists and aspiring musicians are thronging to this powerful media tool to showcase their product on the grandest stage of them all.
One can find whatever song is on his mind or whatever genre his heart yearns for at the moment just by typing on the magical search box, which has inspired many creative souls to upload rare music and string together beautiful playlists. Adding to this is the ability to upload and view HD (High Definition) content is an icing on the cake.
So, it’s no wonder that every day millions throng to YouTube to get their fair share of music and crave to have it and if possible flaunt it in their range of gadgets when they come across a piece they love. But downloading in the form of videos has its own drawbacks like memory constraints, data, and battery charge considerations.
This is the point where converting YouTube to MP3 becomes a necessity and YouTube to MP3 converters become a blessing.
How to Convert YouTube to MP3
There are a number of ways this can be achieved. The most common method is to search for “Convert YouTube to Mp3” in google. Some may go even as far as “YouTube to MP3 converter download”. But a tech-savvy person would probably know about the online YouTube to MP3 converters, Converter software, browser extensions and scripts for Linux. If you are one of the persons who has come across this article through google, then you have come to the right spot. It is time to get tech savvy.
In this article, I will run through some of the best options to download YouTube videos as MP3 files in HD quality and 320kbps bitrates. Reviews and feature lists of all the top products have been explored in depth to give you only the best. As a special bonus, I have added instructions for installing extensions in chrome, scripts for Linux and python users and software for Mac users.
1. YouTube to MP3 Converter online
Converting your favorite song into an MP3 format file just became easier with the introduction of online converter tools which offer a bunch of advantages, the most precious being the ability to convert without having to download the whole video files since most of the heavy lifting is done by the servers working in the background. This allows the user to download just the MP3 file even in HD quality (320 kbps) in small sizes.
Being online tools allows these converters to be platform independent, giving a reason for Mac and Linux users to cheer about. This means you just need a browser, an internet connection and of course a slight jab at your music senses to get started.
When it comes to online YouTube to the MP3 conversion of my favorite songs, I prefer this website just for the reason that it offers more options to tinker around and hence more freedom.
Of them, the most intuitive of all is the option to select audio bitrate. This gives you a chance to fine tune your music quality by considering the storage constraints of your device.
As a bonus, you also get the option to trim your MP3 file by adjusting the start and stop points.
The icing you ask…ha-ha.. it is all free!
Extra features include the option to select other formats Audio formats – mp3 .aac .ogg .m4a .wma .flac .wav and Video Formats .mp4 .m4v .mov .avi .flv .mpg .wmv. and user-friendly interface.
If you are looking for a deadly serious, no-nonsense service to convert your YouTube song to MP3, look no further than vidtomp3.com. It’s just a serious as its name suggests and just as robust and reliable.
The instructions are clear and the user interface is straight forward giving you fewer chances of getting lost.
Living to its tag line of “videos are meant to be heard”, this tool is the perfect blend of usability and quality.
As you may expect from such a straight forward tool, this one does not allow conversion of copyrighted content.
Downloading is fast and it’s free too.
Next in the line of popular online MP3 converters is the convert2mp3.net whose main attraction is the ability to search for YouTube videos straight from the website itself giving you that extra bit of flexibility and dexterity.
Note: This website is in German, you have to translate this page by clicking translate button in the pop-up.
If you look closely, there is a settings button that hides a very useful option called “show the desktop notification when finished”. This comes in handy when you are multitasking.
It also allows you to set the video thumbnail as the song cover so that your music never has to look dull.
Other than that the interface is fairly straightforward and the service is free!
2. Download YouTube to MP3 Converter
YouTube to MP3 converting software has been around for quite a while now giving them a chance to evolve into more feature rich and robust tools. With a slightly humble beginning of just meeting the basic song downloading requirement of the people, they have transformed into power packed applications offering direct MP3 downloads, multi-format conversions, bitrate selections, and MP3 cutters as default.
Some converters also give an option to download whole playlists and even go a step further by downloading from user channels, favorites, liked videos, watch later list, movie categories, music categories, trending videos and charts which are a boon as you often end up having to resort to grabbing audio from videos individually. While this is usually a paid option, some apps may offer it on a trial basis.
These apps work on your system, utilizing system resources to perform the conversion. However, this technology is currently becoming obsolete with the growth of cloud-based systems that allow conversion to take place in servers. You just have to download the converted file. Even then, the demand for standalone YouTube to MP3 Converter is still strong as none can match the features they offer from simultaneous, multi-thread downloading to HD quality output.
So how do you get started? It’s quiet simple. Just fire up the browser, search your way around YouTube and when you find a video or song that hits the spot, copy the URL and paste it in the app and just sit back and watch while the apps work their magic. Alternatively, you can also play around the user-interface, tweaking the settings and loading private playlists.
Let us have a look at some of the trending software currently available for free download on the web.
Fast. Free. The Best. That’s what the tag line says and that’s what it does, hands down.
With a size of around 33 Mb and a free download option, this is my first choice when it comes to clutter free, no frisk music downloading.
It features output format selection (MP3 Extreme, Insane or lossless), Multithreaded downloading, Playlists and channel downloads, Super-fast conversions, conversion of YouTube playlists to iTunes automatically
To sum up, this software offers the best feature list and conversion speed in spite of being a free version but falls short in reliability and compatibility as it is available only for windows.
Another free YouTube to MP3 Converter is this one. Though it may not appeal to everyone on the interface side, it still enjoys a huge fan following just for its reliability and feature list
Pros:
Automatic URLs: If you copy a YouTube video’s URL, it automatically shows up in Free YouTube Downloader. Settings include optional sound and balloon notifications.
Robust: Output files play smoothly on all devices
Multi-threaded download acceleration technology
Inbuilt music trimmer comes in handy when you want to cut out a specific section of the song you have downloaded.
Cons:
YouTube only and compatible with windows only.
3. Using Browser extension to Download YouTube to MP3
Developers are constantly working on making life simpler for end users and what better way to convert YouTube to MP3 than in the browser itself.
Extensions are add-ons for the browser which perform app like functions while being light and nimble.
Using extensions for music download was a hassle free method until google removed all the extensions from the Google Chrome Store and you will have to manually install the extensions. For this purpose, you will need to enable the developer mode in the Google Chrome.
However, installing extensions in Firefox is fairly simpler but since chrome is more widely accepted, let us look deeper into how these extensions can be installed.
YouTube Centre is one of the best extensions of the precious few available for chrome. It has to be downloaded manually from their website and installed in chrome.
Instructions:
- Open the options panel in chrome and navigate into “more tools” to “extensions”.
- Enable the Developer mode check box on the top right corner.
- Click on “load unpacked extensions”, then browse and select YoutubeCentre.zip
Pros:
- Tons of features
- Works with latest versions of Google Chrome
- Easily download Mp3 from YouTube
Cons:
- Very complicated method to install the extension
- Not suitable for every user
- No option to change track information
Installing and using extensions, unlike in chrome, is a very simple process in Firefox.
Users just need to type their keyword, preferably YouTube to mp3 converter, in the “search for addons” search box and results pop out in a jiffy.
The most preferred one is “YouTube to MP3 Converter”.
Pros:
- Tons of features including 320kbps HD song download
- Works with latest versions of Firefox
4. YouTube to MP3 converter for Linux
YouTube-dl is a small command-line program for Linux to download videos and music from YouTube.com as command line tools are probably the only way to download in Linux.
Based on python, youtube-dl can be used on almost all (if not all) Linux distributions.
Let us begin by learning to install youtube-dl in Linux.
It can be easily installed by using the following commands:
$ sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
$ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Now to download a video as mp3 track, we have the following two options:
- extract-audio (short option -x) – Convert video files to audio-only files.
- audio-format specifies the audio format in which the file will be downloaded. The supported audio formats are “best”, “aac”, “vorbis”, “mp3”, “m4a”, “opus”, or “wav”; “best” is set by default
To download a video as mp3 file, you can use one of the following commands
# youtube-dl -x –audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwD4AEVBL6Q
If you want to have a cover art for the mp3 file, you can add the –embed-thumbnail option:
In that case, the command will look like this:
# youtube-dl -x –embed-thumbnail –audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwD4AEVBL6Q
Now let us see hoe to download multiple MP3 Tracks from YouTube playlist:
For that purpose, you will need to use the following options:
- —playlist-start NUMBER– Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
- —playlist-end NUMBER– Playlist video to end at (default is last)
Where “NUMBER” is the starting and ending point of the playlist. The command below will download the first 5 songs from the given playlist:
# YouTube-dl -x –audio-format mp3 –playlist-start 1 –playlist-end 5 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9LUD5Kp855InMnKTaRy3LH3kTIYJyBzs
Conclusion: YouTube-dl is a very powerful tool to help you download music to your devices using the highly efficient Python scripts running on Linux OS.
5. YouTube to MP3 converter for MAC
When it comes to Mac, people prefer professional YouTube to mp3 converter rather than online converters for a smooth and stable downloading experience with fast and high-quality audio.
Hence the anxiety surrounding the choice of selecting the best software from the crowd.
The definition for best software may not be the same for everyone, so let me suggest what my version of the best is
MediaHuman YouTube to MP3 Converter
It allows you to download the YouTube MP3 with original audio quality with fast downloading speeds. Unlike other tools, it brings simultaneous downloads which are very important. In addition, it brings a tag editor and playlist support as well. By the way, similar to other YouTube MP3 music downloaders, it owns an extremely easy-to-use interface for free download MP3 from YouTube.
Features:
- Downloads all music from playlist or channel
- Downloads highest available quality up to 320 kbps
- Multi-thread downloading
- Includes simple tag editor with cover art support
- Imports into iTunes
- Clipboard tracking
- Multilingual interface
Pros: Fast downloading speed and original audio quality reserved
Cons: Won’t work properly on some older Macs
Cons: Won’t work properly on some older Macs
Best choice for YouTube to MP3 conversion:
The world of media content has a lot to offer to those willing to explore and the above YouTube to MP3 conversion methods is just a few of them.
The browser extensions may seem the easiest and smartest of them all but have their own short comings when it comes to features and robustness. Add to it the difficult of using chrome extensions, it is easier to look elsewhere.
I would recommend standalone software, as a tech geek myself, just for the feature list they offer and a whole lot of advantages over online converters. Moreover, online converters are just blooming and may take a few more years to offer the features and reliability of converter software while offering the same level of quality.
Linux users have no better option than the YouTube-dl script which is powerful and flexible by itself. It just requires a basic knowledge of python to get started.
Mac users may feel at home with the MediaHuman youtube-to-mp3-converter which supports most Mac versions and offers a comparative feature list. So it is highly recommended.
As stated before, the internet has a lot to offer and you are guaranteed to be surprised by the range of converters available for download and trial if you are willing to be open-minded, but I would highly recommend you to start with this.
