How to Download Audio from YouTube on Mac: Easy & Fast

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Peter William
October 20, 2023 Preview 35.6K Preview 0
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YouTube built a kingdom of digital entertainment. It hosts over billions of videos, which may contain audio like albums, movie soundtracks, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. you want.

If you are a YouTube Premium user, you can save these kinds of audio tracks for offline enjoying and import them into GarageBand, iTunes, or iMovie for editing. But you need to spend $13.99 a month on the subscription service. Any better or cheaper method?

This article will briefly explore how to download audio from YouTube on Mac with high quality.

 

How to Download Audio from YouTube on Mac with Apps

#1 Cisdem Video Converter

Cisdem Video Converter is a robust yet simple to safely extract audio from YouTube, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Myspace, Bandcamp, Tumblr, and other numerous sites. It will download audio from YouTube without reducing the audio quality.

It can download YouTube music in bulk, and perform audio conversion to be compatible with your devices. This YouTube audio downloader for Mac supports a large range of formats to suit any device imaginable.

Steps to rip audio from YouTube on Mac with original quality:

  1. Download Cisdem Video Converter and install it.
    Free Download
  2. Launch the software and go to the “download” interface.go to download interface
  3. Browse to www.youtube.com. Find a video that contains the audio you want and copy its URL.copy video url
  4. Back to the "download" interface of Cisdem. Paste the URL to the text box at the bottom. Click the “+” button to analyze the link.paste url
  5. Choose an audio format it detects, such as M4A. Click the “⬇” arrow to begin downloading YouTube audio on Mac.choose audio format

Tips:

1. Add multiple URLs for batch download.

Click “File” > “Input URLs” on the top menu bar. Paste several URLs copied from your clipboard into the opening window. Click "OK". Upon analysis, all URLs will be added to the download list.

paste multiple urls

2. Convert YouTube audio to any other audio format like MP3, FLAC, etc.

Hit the blue “checkmark” icon to open a window where stored the YouTube you downloaded. Drag it to the “convert” interface, and choose the output audio format you desire. Finally, click the “convert” icon.

convert to other formats

#2 VLC

VLC is a free multimedia tool that's famous for its excellent playback function. In fact, it can also help you download YouTube video and transcode it to MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc.

Since 2019, however, YouTube has continued to destroy VLC downloads in their ways. VLC has to frequently change the code in youtube.luac.

  1. Run VLC media player, and click “Open Network”.open network vlc
  2. Copy a link of the YouTube video and paste it to the appearing window. Click “Open”.paste url vlc
  3. The YouTube video will automatically play in VLC. Hit "Window" > "Media Information".open media information vlc
  4. Select the full URL from “Location” and copy it. Note: Disturbed by YouTube, version 3.0.14 won't be able to see the complete URL. But it's okay.copy location url vlc
  5. Open the copied location URL in a web browser page.
  6. Right-click the YouTube video. Click "Save Video As" and select a file destination.
  7. Hit “Convert/Stream” and import the downloaded YouTube video into the interface.
  8. Select an output format like “Audio – MP3”, name the file as “xxx.mp3”, and start to extract audio from YouTube on Mac.convert downloaded youtube to audio vlc

To be honest, VLC is not a great YouTube audio downloader for Mac. Its steps are too cumbersome and can't download YouTube songs at a time.

#3 YT-DLP

YT-DLP is an advanced download manager that absorbs all YouTube-DL’s code and features. It’s able to download video, audio, and playlist from YouTube, Bilibili, and a few more sites.

If you have no grasp of coding technology, it is advisable to bypass this method as it requires a substantial investment of time for learning.

  1. Install Homebrew on your Mac.
  2. Type brew install yt-dlp in terminal to install YT-DLP.
  3. Type cd [Folder Name] to specify a path to store your output audio.
  4. Run the command yt-dlp -F [YouTube ID]. It will retrieve all audio and video tracks of the YouTube link.
    The YouTube ID is the character following "v=" in the YouTube link, e.g., the ID of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAOZJPquY_w is DAOZJPquY_w. So the full command will be yt-dlp -F DAOZJPquY_w.check yt-dlp tracks
  5. Find the audio track you want. Then, execute the command yt-dlp [YouTube ID] -f[Audio Track ID].
    For example, if I want to get 129k M4A, my command will be yt-dlp DAOZJPquY_w f140.choose one audio format
  6. Press “Enter” to rip audio from YouTube on Mac. The audio file will be saved as M4A format.download youtube audio mac with yt-dlp

Tips:

1. Extract YouTube playlist to audio on Mac.

Use the command yt-dlp [YouTube Playlist ID] -f[Audio Track ID]. The YouTube playlist ID is the character following "list=".

2. Specify the output as other audio formats, like MP3.

You need to use YT-DLP plus FFmpeg. Type brew install ffmpeg to install the utility. Then input the command line yt-dlp [YouTube ID] -f[Audio Track ID] -x --audio-format mp3.

3. Download the complete YouTube, not audio or video only.

In my tests, if I don’t specify a track ID, but rather use yt-dlp [YouTube ID] to download, I will also get YouTube video with sound. The program randomly grabs it in MP4 or WebM format. On my macOS, QuickTime Player can't open the downloaded video.

To download videos properly, you still need FFmpeg. The command I use is yt-dlp [YouTube ID] -f[Video Track ID]+[Audio Track ID].

 

How to Download Audio from YouTube Mac Online without Apps

Option 1. Using y2mate.is

Y2Mate is a widely used resource to extract audio and video from YouTube online for free. There are two output formats - MP3 and MP4. You don't need to install the extra apps or plugins.

But the audio quality is up to 192 kbps (even the original is 320kbps) and the video resolution is up to 1080p (even a 4k video). If your input YouTube video is large or long, the URL detection speed will be very slow.

  1. Visit https://y2mate.is/ website.
  2. Copy the YouTube video’s URL from the address bar.youtube audio downloader online mac y2mate 01
  3. Paste the URL in the given box on Y2Mate and click on “Start.”
  4. When the output options appear, switch to “Audio” and select one of the quality levels you like.
  5. Click “Convert” to change the button into “Download”. Then, hit it again to download YouTube audio on Mac.youtube audio downloader online mac y2mate 02

Option 2. Using YTmp3.cc

YTmp3.cc is another online service that designs to download YouTube videos into MP3 or MP4 format. Although it supports limited format, it is simple for everyone to use through a browser, and it does a good job in downloading audio from YouTube for free.

  1. Open YTmp3.cc on your browser.
    open ytmp3.cc
  2. Paste the copied video’s URL from YouTube into the blank box. It will recognize the link immediately and show you the download information.
  3. Click “Download MP3” button to extract the audio from YouTube.
    download audio from youtube

Option 3. Changing YouTube URL

It's actually the same as the online tool. The principle is to apply an URL trick to jump straight to the online YouTube audio downloader for Mac.

Many tricks you can use to fetch YouTube video, e.g. changing “youtube” to “ssyoutube” or “youpak”, adding "pwn" before "youtube", etc. But not all of them are able to download audio from YouTube on Mac. To extract audio file, try the following:

  1. Open the YouTube video in web browser.
  2. Click on the video URL. It will be somewhat like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ0yjYUFKAE.
  3. Insert "pp" after "youtube": https://www.youtubepp.com/watch?v=tQ0yjYUFKAE. Hit “Enter”.insert pp
  4. You will redirect to y2mate.com where already shows you the download option of your YouTube video.
  5. Go to “Audio”, and select the audio file you wish to download.download audio from youtube mac with changed url

 

How to Record YouTube Audio on Mac

If you just want to extract audio from YouTube on Mac, the pre-installed audio recorder - QuickTime Player can do you a favor. It works, however, through the computer microphone, capturing many ambient sounds.

  1. Open a YouTube video that involves that audio you need.
  2. Initiate QuickTime, choose “File” > “New Audio Recording”.new audio recording quicktime
  3. When the menu pops up, pick a microphone, quality level, and tweak the volume control.recording settings quicktime
  4. Click the red “Record” button to start recording and play the YouTube video immediately.
  5. Once finished, click the “Stop” button.
  6. Navigate to “File” > “Save” to export YouTube audio to M4A.

 

FAQs

Can I rip audio from YouTube on Mac with Google Chrome extensions?

No, you can’t! Despite a large number of YouTube downloaders in the Chrome Web Store, none enables you to fetch YouTube audio. Since 2014, almost all add-ons remove the functionality of YouTube download to avoid offending YouTube's Terms and Conditions.

Can I download YouTube audio from specific time?

No. YouTube allows you to copy the video URL at the current time, which will trigger YouTube to start playing the video at that time when you click the URL. But the feature only helps you position the YouTube video without manually dragging the progress bar. If you use this URL to download YouTube sound on Mac, you'll still get the entire file. One way to resolve it is to download the whole YouTube audio and clip it to a specific time period.

Can Audacity download audio from YouTube?

No. As a free audio editing software, Audacity can edit & enhance audio, record audio, reduce noise, convert audio files to another format, create audio mixes, etc., but can't download audio. To rip audio from YouTube on Mac with Audacity, you can use its recording feature, which works similarly to QuickTime's.

Is it legal to download YouTube audio on Mac?

It depends on the type of video you download. It's illegal to distribute, sell, and make copies of copyrighted content. But you can download YouTube audio files:

  • By subscribing to YouTube Premium
  • From Public Domain & Creative Commons
  • Protected by a Copyleft license

As it's a gray area, we suggest that you do not use copyrighted YouTube music or audio tracks for commercial purposes.

 

Conclusion

We have explained the ways to download audio from YouTube on Mac. To download audio without software, the online tools - Y2Mate and YTmp3.cc are good solutions. But to rip lots of YouTube audio files at the same time and without quality loss, the dedicated application - Cisdem Video Converter is perfect. And don’t waste your time on Chrome or Firefox extensions.

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Peter William
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Peter has always had great enthusiasm for writing, programming and web development. He likes writing about software and technology, his works are featured on some tech blogs or forums like Tom's Hardware, CNET, etc.

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