YouTube is a paradise for you to browse through millions of entertaining videos like music videos, talk shows, audiobooks, etc. What if you want to download and save YouTube to audio for offline listening? This article lists out the 5 best YouTube to AAC converters and also shows you how to convert YouTube to AAC with high quality.
Cisdem Video Converter
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later 
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is a lossy audio compression format. It's mainly used for audio coding at medium to high bit rates. AAC is the default audio format by iTunes as well as the standard format for many other devices and platforms. Sometimes, it will be housed in an M4A file container, so it usually has an .M4A file extension.
You may be confused that why not convert YouTube to MP3, the most commonly distributed lossy audio formats? Because AAC is designed as the successor to MP3 format, it produces better audio quality than MP3 for a given bitrate rate (e.g. 128 kbps). It's also compatible with almost all devices and software that support MP3, such as iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player, PlayStation 3, BlackBerry, Android, and so on.
Cisdem Video Converter is a simple and nifty YouTube to AAC converter for Mac or Windows, with many video processing features you need. It's able to rip audio from YouTube and save audio as any lossy or lossless formats like AAC, M4A, AC3, MP3, WMA, OGG, AIFF, MKA, AU, etc. Besides downloading movies and music videos from YouTube, it also supports thousands of websites, such as Niconico, Facebook, Instagram, Veoh, Vine, Blip, Wistia, Periscope, and more.
As an all-in-one YouTube to AAC downloader app, it allows you to engage in essential editing work prior to exporting videos to audio files.
Step 1. Download and install Cisdem Video Converter.
Step 2. Launch the software, and click the 
icon to enter the video download panel.
Step 3. Search for your needed YouTube video.
Step 4. Copy the YouTube video’s URL from the address bar at the top to the clipboard.
Step 5. Paste the URL into the text box of Cisdem Video Converter, press + to analyze the link, and choose m4a option from the "Format" list. YouTube provides M4A in AAC format for all videos. Click Start to begin downloading YouTube to AAC.
The software allows batch downloading, even for videos longer than 2 hours. Therefore, you can add a plethora of video URLs (from YouTube or other websites) to analyze and download at the same time.
When the YouTube download finishes, click the 
button to find those video/audio files.
If you haven't downloaded YouTube videos in M4A format, you can also use Cisdem to convert them to AAC after downloading.
Step 1. Click the 
button to switch to the “convert” interface.
Step 2. Directly drag-n-drop your downloaded YouTube videos to it.
Step 3. Move to the bottom left and find "Convert all tasks to". Click the format next to it to open the format list.
Step 4. Navigate to "Audio" category and select "AAC" > "High Quality".
If you just wish to convert YouTube to any AAC-encoded audio format, you can also choose M4A and MKA as the output format.
Step 5. Click the "Start" button to convert YouTube to AAC.
Tip: Cisdem Video Converter is equipped with advanced settings for full quality control over the resulting files before conversion. On the format panel, click the 
icon right beside format. A window as shown in the screenshot below appears, where you can regulate the media settings like sample rate, audio channels, quality, codec, etc.
YouTube to AAC online converters work on all platforms, Mac, Windows, and mobile phone included. They are free and no installation requirements. However, most online converters enable you to convert YouTube to MP3 or MP4, few to AAC. This section will introduce two available online YouTube videos to AAC converters to you.
Claiming to be the best YouTube to AAC converter online, Anything2mp3.cc attracted me to try. Currently, it accepts video download from three websites, respectively are YouTube, Vimeo, and MetaCafe. You are able to download videos from supported sites and save them as MP3, OGG, AAC, and WMA. Plus, you can select one of the bitrate values, ranging from 96k to 320k.
Note: The website recommends you to use it on either Firefox or Chrome.
Starting in 2019, Loader.to is a relatively new cloud-based service for downloading and converting YouTube to AAC online free. It's suitable for a few kinds of video platforms such as YouTube, Redit, Pinterest, TikTok, etc. It can also download up to 20 videos from a YouTube playlist at a time, along with several formats to choose from, including AAC, MP3, M4A, MP4, WebM, FLAC, OPUS, OGG, and WAV.
Before you decide to use a YouTube to AAC online converter, understand its disadvantages (compared to professional desktop software):
You can use the free recording software to record YouTube videos first, and then convert YouTube to AAC audio. It would be better if a certain app can directly record YouTube as AAC. Below I will show to how to finish the task with two apps: QuickTime Player and iMovie. Both of them are freeware preinstalled on Mac.
TubeMate YouTube Downloader app, powered by Devian Studio, is a decent YouTube to AAC downloader for Android. It's packed with a built-in browser, empowering you to download videos from preferred sites, like YouTube, Smule, SoundCloud, Naver TV, YouKu, and so forth.
Meanwhile, it provides you with options to select file quality and format. The downloaded video will be automatically stored in your Android phone's memory.
But the biggest problem of TubeMate is that there are many intrusive ads.
You should gain a clear understanding of the best YouTube to AAC converters. Among all the methods discussed above, online tools are free but not as helpful as dedicated apps. As for recording YouTube videos, it should be taken into the last consideration. The above methods are all tested. You can make full use of the tools to convert YouTube to AAC audio.
Emily is a girl who loves to review various multimedia software. She enjoys exploring cutting edge technology and writing how-to guides. Hopefully her articles will help you solve your audio, video, DVD and Blu-ray issues.
