youtube-dl is a versatile command line tool for downloading videos from YouTube and many other websites. I use it for making back up of my own YouTube videos.

Past default, you use youtube-dl for downloading videos. How about extracting only the audio with youtubde-dl? That'due south very simple really. Let me show you the steps.

Attending

Downloading videos from websites could be against their policies. It's up to you if you choose to download videos or audio.

Download only audio with youtube-dl

Please make sure that you have installed youtube-dl on your Linux distribution offset.

                  sudo snap install youtube-dl

If you simply want to download audio from a YouTube video, y'all tin use the -ten option with youtube-dl. This extract-sound choice converts the video files to audio-only files.

                  youtube-dl -x video_URL

The file is saved in the same directory from where y'all ran the youtube-dl command.

Hither's an example where I downloaded the voice-over of our Zorin Os 16 review video.

                  youtube-dl -x https://www.youtube.com/lookout?v=m_PmLG7HqbQ [youtube] m_PmLG7HqbQ: Downloading webpage [download] Destination: Zorin OS 16 Review - It'south a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a [download] 100% of 4.26MiB in 00:03 [ffmpeg] Correcting container in "Zorin OS xvi Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a" [ffmpeg] Post-process file Zorin Os xvi Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a exists, skipping

Did you lot notice the sound format? Information technology is in .m4a format. You may specify the audio format to something of your choice.

Say yous want to extract the audio in MP3 format. You tin can apply it similar this:

                  youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 video_URL

Here's the same example I showed previously. You can run into that it uses ffmpeg to catechumen the m4a file into mp3.

                  youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_PmLG7HqbQ [youtube] m_PmLG7HqbQ: Downloading webpage [download] Zorin Os 16 Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a has already been downloaded [download] 100% of four.26MiB [ffmpeg] Correcting container in "Zorin OS 16 Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a" [ffmpeg] Destination: Zorin Bone xvi Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.mp3 Deleting original file Zorin OS 16 Review - It's a Visual Masterpiece-m_PmLG7HqbQ.m4a (pass -k to proceed)

Download unabridged YouTube playlist in MP3 format

Yeah, yous tin can totally exercise that. The main thing is to get the URL of the playlist here. It is typically in the following format:

                  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

To get the URL of a playlist, click on its proper noun when the playlist is beingness displayed in the correct sidebar.

getting youtube playlist url
Click on the playlist championship

Information technology will take you to the playlist page and yous can copy the URL here.

youtube playlist url
Grab the playlist URL

Now that you have the playlist URL, you can use information technology to download the sound files in MP3 format in the following fashion:

                  youtube-dl --extract-sound --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)south.%(ext)s" playlist_URL

That scary looking -o "%(title)s.%(ext)due south" specifies the output file (with choice -o) and instructs it to use the championship of the video and the extension (mp3 in this case) for naming the sound files.

downloading youtube playlist audio

I hope you find this quick tip helpful. Enjoy the audio files :)

Creator of Information technology'south FOSS. An agog Linux user & open source promoter. Huge fan of archetype detective mysteries ranging from Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes to Detective Columbo & Ellery Queen. Also a movie buff with a soft corner for film noir.