How many times has it happen to you that you watch a video on YouTube and become a fan of it, but when it comes to downloading you only prefer it’s audio? Not sure how you can download only audio and skip the video part? All you need to do is use this tutorial to download audio from YouTube video.
While most of the YouTube videos have restricted the download of any copyrighted content such as music, you can always take support from 4K video downloader to download that video you enjoyed, also if this method is not available you can use the VLC audio download. After you complete the download you can use to rip music away from the video and enjoy only the audio format.
Download using 4K downloader
- Download and install the 4K video downloader file. For this go to this Link then click ‘Get 4K video downloader’ link, you will find this link on the left side of the page. Follow the setup process according to the instruction given
For Window – Double click on the setup file, Click ‘Yes’ and follow the given instruction thereafter.
For Mac – Double click the setup file, verify the installation if prompted, Slect the 4K video downloader app and drag the app icon to ‘Applications’ folder and follow given instruction. - Go to www.youtube.com on your web browser, search and open the video you are interested in.
- Copy the video address from the top bar of your browser. (for Windows ‘ctrl+c’, fro Mac ‘command+c’)
- Click on start menu (for Windows) or Spotlight (for Mac), type in ‘4K video downloader’ and click to open it, double click on it if you are on Mac, you should see a window pop up of the 4K video downloader. You can skip this step if the app opens automatically.
- Click on the ‘Paste’ link at the top of the screen.
- Wait till the video parsing is completed. Seeing quality option of the 4K video downloader you can now proceed.
- Select ‘Download video’ link in the drop down that is in the upper left side of the screen. Click on the ‘Extract Audio’ option from the drop down.
- Change the audio file type if you find it necessary.
- Select the quality of audio you want to download, by default the highest quality will be selected if you want to change you can do it here.
- Browse and select a save location for your audio file to be saved. For this click ‘Browse’ at the bottom of the window then select the folder where you want to save the file and click ‘Save’. For Mac, click ‘Choose’ to confirm your choice.
- Click ‘Extract’ at the bottom of the screen, this will begin your audio download in your selected format, after the download is completed you will be able to find your file in the provided location in your system. Double clicking the file will also prompt it to play in your device’s default player.
Using VLC Media Player
- Open YouTube on your desktop’s browser
- Search for or navigate to the video from which you want to download the audio.
- After the video is selected, select the video link (highlight the whole address of the video link in the browser’s top), then press ctrl+c, if you are using windows or command+c if you are using mac, this will copy the selected link.
- Open VLC media player (the app icon resembles a orange traffic cone), if you do not have one then download it for free here and install the application following the steps provided.
- Open a new network stream, this allows to play content from your web browser in VLC. For windows, click ‘Media’ and open Network Stream, for Mac, click ‘File’ then open ‘Network’.
- Click ‘Please enter a network URL’ link and paste your selected video address.
- Click ‘Play’ (windows) or ‘Open’ (Mac) which is at the bottom of the window, doing so will open the video page.
- Open the video’s Codec page, for windows, click ‘Tools’ and hit ‘Codec Information’, for Mac, Click ‘Window’ then click ‘Media Information’.
At the bottom of the page you will find the ‘Location’ field, copy this address, for windows, right click the ‘Location’ field and click ‘Select All’ then right click here again and click ‘Copy’, for Mac, right click ‘Location’ field and click ‘Open URL’. - In a web browser, paste the selected information in the address bar, this will open the video in your browser. Skip this step if you are using a Mac.
- Right click on your video screen then click ‘Save video as’ link in the drop down menu. This step will start downloading your video. Depending on your browser’s setting, you might be asked to select a save location and to enter a name for your file before downloading it.
- Open VLC media player again. Click ‘Media’ (Windows) or ‘File’ (Mac), click on ‘Convert / Save’ in the drop down menu. Click the ‘File’ tab, click ‘Add’, then select your downloaded video and click ‘Open’ or ‘Choose’.
- Click ‘Convert / Save’ it is at the bottom of the page.
- Click ‘Profile’ drop down menu, scroll down to ‘Audio-Mp3’.
- Click on ‘Browse’ which you will find near bottom of the screen, type in the file name, click the desired location file to save this audio, then click ‘Save’.
- Click ‘Start’ at the bottom of the page, doing this will prompt an mp3 version of your video to be saved in your selected location. After the video is converted to mp3 you can open it by double clicking on the file.
When you are trying to convert MP4 video to a MP3 file, it can result in an error where VLC attempts to overwrite the MP3 file over and over again, if this is the case you can force VLC to quit, to do so;
- For Windows – Press ‘ctrl+shift+Esc’ all at once, When you find VLC in the processes tab, click on ‘VLC’ and select ‘End task’ at the bottom right corner.
- For Mac – Click the Apple logo, click ‘Force Quit’, click ‘VLC’ option and click ‘Force Quit’, if you are asked to confirm your decision, do so.
Make sure not to use any random website that pop ups and claims to download MP3s from any YouTube video, since most web based YouTube downloaders are not capable of doing so and are also not a reputed one. Avoid using any unknown source to attempt your download process.
