Can I directly download audio using youtube-dl?

Can I directly download audio from a YouTube video instead of first downloading audio+video and then extracting the audio?

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3 Answers

Here is a recent article in webupd8.org that explains how to use youtube-dl to directly download audio instead of first downloading video+audio and then extracting audio using -x. Unfortunately, the search facility that Maythux asked for here isn't offered. But it is still worth a look:
Video Downloader youtube-dl Gets Support For Separate Audio And Video YouTube DASH Streams

Basically, download the latest version of youtube-dl from source or from the ppa offered in the link above but not from the Software Center.

Then, if you already have the video link ...

Run, as example:

youtube-dl -F '

This will list the various download formats available for this url (audio and video).

$ youtube-dl -F '
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Downloading webpage
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for HRIF4_WzU1w:
format code extension resolution note
171 webm audio only DASH webm audio , audio@ 48k (worst)
140 m4a audio only DASH audio , audio@128k
160 mp4 192p DASH video
133 mp4 240p DASH video
134 mp4 360p DASH video
135 mp4 480p DASH video
17 3gp 176x144
36 3gp 320x240
5 flv 400x240
43 webm 640x360
18 mp4 640x360 (best)

Now, choose desired audio format. I went for 140

Run:

youtube-dl -f 140 '
$ youtube-dl -f 140 '
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Downloading webpage
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] HRIF4_WzU1w: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: Martin Luther King - I Have a Dream on August 28, 1963 [Sous-titres & Subtitles] [FULL SPEECH]-HRIF4_WzU1w.m4a
[download] 100% of 15.19MiB in 00:04

That's it.

12

From @xiota's comment, to download the best audio in m4a format:

$ youtube-dl -f 'bestaudio[ext=m4a]' '

^{I've missed it on the first reading, so I've decided to post the comment as an answer to make it more visible.}

7

This alias let me easily download any audio with better filenames:

$ alias | grep audio
alias youtube-dl-audio='youtube-dl --ignore-errors --output "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --extract-audio --audio-format mp3'

Audio quality: From the documentation: "By default youtube-dl tries to download the best available quality, i.e. if you want the best quality you don't need to pass any special options, youtube-dl will guess it for you by default.". So there's no need for --audio-quality 0 or -f bestaudio.

Updates: Download last version of youtube-dl. Avoid repo or PPA version so you can upgrade with youtube-dl -U (necessary quite often).

To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:

sudo curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Albums (or compilations, mashups, etc.): You can split the file into chunks/tracks with mp3split. To generate the playlist timestamps (like the ones found on YouTube comments) and track count:

ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af silencedetect=n=-40dB:d=2.7 -f null - |& awk '/silence_end/ {print $4,$5}' | awk '{S=$2;printf "%d:%02d:%02d\n",S/(60*60),S%(60*60)/60,S%60}' | tee >(wc -l) # Play with tolerance (n/noise threshold level) and duration on silencedetect. More: `ffmpeg -h filter=silencedetect`.

Please leave a comment if you found a better approach, maybe something using MusicBrainz.

Common problems

• Extremely slow? Switch to yt-dlp. Includes things like --split-chapters!
• Error 403? Add --rm-cache-dir.
• Stuck at "Downloading webpage"? Add --force-ipv4.

Alternatives and other notes

• ytmdl: A simple script to get songs from YouTube in mp3 format with all tags from iTunes.

• To download in batch from a plain text, here.

• MP3 Tagging: I’m still trying to find a reliable CLI tool to fix and tag all the generated mp3:

  • Beets (maybe with tracker cheatsheet and gnome-music?)
  • lltag
  • foobar2000

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