YTMP3 Alternative: YouTube to MP3

What YTMP3 is

"YTMP3" is shorthand for "YouTube to MP3". Like YTMP4, it is not a single product but a name shared by many unrelated websites, each on its own domain ending, that convert the audio track of a YouTube video into an MP3 file. You paste a link, press Convert, wait for a progress bar, and download the result.

What people used them for is easy to list: keeping a lecture or podcast episode that only exists on YouTube, saving a live performance or a mix to listen to offline, pulling the audio from their own uploads, or grabbing a language lesson to play in the car. The video part is irrelevant in all of these cases, so an MP3 is smaller and more convenient than an MP4.

Why people are looking for a YTMP3 alternative

Three things send people searching for a replacement. The first is that the sites move. A YTMP3 address that worked for years may now redirect to a different domain, be blocked by a school or workplace filter, or go dark. The second is the experience once you arrive: ad-heavy pages, download buttons that open new tabs, and browser notification prompts before the actual file appears. The third is the promise of quality that does not exist. YouTube serves audio at roughly 128 to 160 kbps, so a "320 kbps MP3" from a YouTube video is just a bigger file of the same sound.

vidstill takes a plainer approach: one address, one box, a 192 kbps MP3 that keeps everything the source has, and no pop-ups on the way to the Download button.

How to convert YouTube to MP3 with vidstill

1. Copy the YouTube link. From the address bar, or Share → Copy link in the YouTube app. youtu.be and Shorts links work.
2. Paste it into the box at the top of this page and press Go. You will see the title, channel and length so you can check it is the right video.
3. Pick MP3 audio. The conversion is prepared on our servers, usually within a few seconds; a Download button appears when it is ready.
4. Save the file. It downloads like any other file and plays in whatever your device uses for music.

The MP3 counts as one download against the daily allowance. The prepared file stays available for about an hour; paste the link again if you need it later.

About the 192 kbps MP3

Some converters let you choose from 64 kbps up to 320 kbps. That choice is mostly cosmetic for YouTube content. YouTube's audio streams top out around 128 to 160 kbps depending on codec, so anything above that is empty headroom: larger files, identical sound. 192 kbps is high enough that the MP3 encoding itself does not remove anything audible from the source, and low enough that an hour-long talk is roughly 80 MB.

If you need the audio for editing or transcription rather than listening, the MP3 is still the right choice. It opens in every editor, and vidstill's own Transcript tab can produce the text for you directly, so you may not need to run it through a separate tool.

What you get beyond the MP3

• The video too. The same quality picker offers the MP4 in 360p, 720p, 1080p or up to 4K, always with the audio included. If you sometimes want the picture, you do not need a second site; see /youtube-video-downloader.
• Transcript and summary. Each video gets a Transcript tab (captions with timestamps, or speech-to-text when there are none) and a Summary tab with a TL;DR, key points or chapters written from the transcript. For a podcast or lecture, that is often more useful than the audio itself.
• A public page for the video. Every video you run gets its own page holding the transcript and summaries, shareable by link and switchable to private after you sign in.
• TikTok, Instagram and X. The same box accepts links from those platforms and gives an MP3 or MP4 of them as well.

How vidstill compares with YTMP3 sites

For the basic task the result is the same: a YouTube link becomes an MP3 in a few seconds, free for a handful of conversions a day. The differences are honesty about bitrate, no advertising between you and the download, the transcript and summary tabs, and an address that does not change.

What vidstill does not do: it has no browser extension, so you paste links rather than clicking a button on YouTube itself. It does not convert playlists or batches yet; one link at a time. Guests get 3 downloads a day, a free account 10, and Pro removes the limit (see /pricing). There is no bitrate menu, only 192 kbps, and no formats other than MP3 and MP4, so if you specifically need WAV, FLAC or OGG you will need another tool. It only works on public videos, not private, age-restricted or login-only ones, and not on live streams.

A note on copyright

vidstill fetches public videos on your behalf and does not host copies. The MP3 is deleted from our servers after about an hour. Keep audio only from content you have the right to keep: your own uploads, Creative Commons work, or something you may watch and want offline for personal use. Do not redistribute or sell other people's recordings. Rights holders can use the DMCA page to have a public video page taken down.