YouTube to MP3

How to convert a YouTube video to MP3

1. Copy the link. On the YouTube website, copy the address bar or use Share → Copy link. In the YouTube app, tap Share under the video and choose Copy link. youtu.be and Shorts links work too.
2. Paste it above and press Go. The video card shows the title, channel and length so you can confirm it is the right one.
3. Choose MP3 audio. The other buttons give you the video as an MP4; the MP3 button takes only the sound. Conversion starts right away and a Download button appears when the file is ready.
4. Save the file. Your browser downloads it like any other file. The MP3 stays available for about an hour if you need to fetch it again.

What you actually get

YouTube stores the audio of every video as its own stream, separate from the picture. We fetch that stream at the highest quality YouTube offers for the video and convert it to a standard MP3 at 192 kbps. Nothing else is changed: no fades, no normalisation, no trimming. The MP3 plays in every music app, car stereo and phone made in the last twenty years.

A rough guide to size: 192 kbps works out to about 1.4 MB per minute. A ten-minute video becomes a 14 MB file, an hour-long podcast episode around 85 MB. That is small enough to keep dozens of episodes on a phone.

We do not offer a 320 kbps option because it would be misleading. The audio YouTube serves is already compressed, and encoding it again at a higher bitrate only makes the file bigger. If you need the best possible audio from a video, the original uploader's file or a proper music service is the place to get it.

When MP3 is the right choice

• Podcasts and interviews that were only published as video. You get the episode as a normal audio file you can play with the screen off.
• Lectures, talks and conference sessions you want to listen to on a commute, at walking pace, or at 1.5× in a player that supports it.
• Your own uploads. If you lost the original recording, the YouTube audio is the next best copy.
• Music you are allowed to keep, such as your own tracks, royalty-free material, or Creative Commons releases.
• Sound for editing. Voiceovers and sound effects from your own videos, ready to drop into an editor.

If you want the picture too, use the YouTube video downloader instead; the MP4 options include the audio. If you only need what was said, the transcript tool gives you the text without any file at all.

Saving the MP3 on each device

iPhone and iPad. Use Safari. When the download starts, tap the arrow at the top of the screen or open the Files app and look in Downloads. The file plays inside Files. Apple's Music app does not import from Files directly on iOS; use a third-party player, or sync the file from a computer.

Android. Chrome saves to Downloads and shows a notification. Open it with any music or podcast app, or move it to a Music folder so your player's library picks it up.

Windows and Mac. The file lands in your Downloads folder. Double-click it to play, or drag it into your music library.

When something goes wrong

• "That does not look like a supported link." Copy the full video address, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123xyz45. Links to playlists, channels or search results are not videos.
• "This video is unavailable" or "private." The video has been removed, is private, or is blocked in the region our servers use. We can only fetch what YouTube shows to a signed-out visitor, which also rules out age-restricted videos.
• "YouTube is rate-limiting us." YouTube sometimes throttles automated requests. Wait a moment and try again; it normally clears within a minute.
• The conversion seems stuck. Long recordings need the entire audio fetched first. Give a multi-hour video a couple of minutes. If it still does not finish, reload the page and try once more; a job that already finished is reused rather than started again.
• You hit today's limit. Guests get a small daily allowance of downloads, and MP3 conversions count toward it. Sign up to raise it, or see pricing for Pro.

What makes this different from other YouTube to MP3 sites

Most converter sites re-encode whatever stream they can grab and label the result with a bitrate you cannot verify. We tell you exactly what you get: YouTube's best audio, converted once, to 192 kbps. There is no browser extension to install, no pop-up to close before the Download button works, and no account needed for the free allowance.

Every video you paste also gets a Transcript tab and a Summary tab. For a talk or interview you can read the key points before deciding whether the audio is worth keeping, or copy a quote with its timestamp instead of scrubbing through the file later.

A note on copyright

vidstill fetches public videos on your behalf and does not host copies of them. The MP3 is deleted from our servers about an hour after it is prepared. Convert only what you have the right to keep, and never re-upload or sell someone else's music or recordings. Rights holders can use the DMCA page to request removal of a public video page.