Best YouTube to MP3 converter for Mac
  • Easily convert YouTube Video to MP3 in seconds
  • Save entire MP3 playlists from YouTube
  • Choose the desired MP3 quality for an awesome experience
  • Download Music from YouTube in Batches
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Airy YouTube To MP3 Converter

Top YouTube to MP3 converters for Mac



There are a lot of reasons why you might want to convert a YouTube video to an MP3 file. Often, it’s so you can easily listen to it on your iPhone, iPod, or Mac. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t let you download videos by default, much less convert them to MP3 files. Thankfully, all you need is a good YouTube MP3 converter for Mac to easily get your favorite songs from YouTube on your computer.

Review of top YouTube to MP3 converters

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1. Airy
Requirements: OS X 10.9+. 23.17MB free space. Version 3.20.310. (27 Oct, 2020). 4.9 Rank based on 812+ users, Reviews(889)
Category: UtilitiesApplication
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Also available for Windows

The best YouTube to MP3 converter for Mac on this list is Airy. It has a wide range of options and it’s extremely easy to use. You can download a single video, multiple videos at once (batch downloads), or if you choose, you can even download full playlists. Similarly, you can also download entire channels so you can get all your favorite songs in one go. You can convert YouTube playlist to MP3 and listen to them anywhere. Airy is a YouTube to MP3 converter best known for its utility. It supports MP4, FLV, and 3GP formats as well. Of course, you can also download as an MP3 if you just want the audio.

Airy save video from youtube

Pros:

  • Airy allows you to download entire YouTube playlists, channels or categories at once.
  • Output format can be chosen, including MP3.
  • Well-optimized interface for maximum convenience.
  • Built-in download manager.
  • Best YouTube to MP3 converter app for Mac.

Cons:

  • Free version limited to two downloads.

How to convert YouTube to MP3 on Mac?

1.Download Airy from its official website. Then install and launch the app.
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2.Choose the music video you want from YouTube and copy the address.
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3.Paste the YouTube link in the Airy app.
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4.Select MP3 as a target format from the drop-down menu.
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5.Click Download.
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6.Enjoy your music!
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The demo version of Airy lets you download two videos for free - check it out!


Save youtube videos online

2. MediaHuman

MediaHuman YouTube to MP3 Converter is meant to assist in downloading the audio track of your favorite YouTube videos, and supports MP3, M4A and OGG formats. Thus, it’s the best YouTube to MP3 converter in regards to simplicity and audio formats. The app is friendly to use and only requires that you have an active Internet connection. The utility lets you customize output location, audio format and quality and several other features.

Pros:

  • Easy and smooth operation.

Cons:

  • It doesn’t support downloading different playlists into different folders — you have to rename them manually before downloading.
  • No options for separate download folders.
MediaHuman

3. AllmyTube

Wondershare AllMyTube for Mac is an all-in-one tool combining a professional online video downloader and a great video converter. With it you can download videos from YouTube, besides other websites, and convert the downloaded videos to almost all popular video formats. Besides, AllMyTube can serve as a video player. This player lets you enjoy FLV, MP4, WebM videos on Mac. The Library helps you manage the videos. Overall, it’s the best YouTube to MP3 converter online for various video hosting services.

Pros:

  • After a conversion, transferring a video to your mobile device you need just scan the QR code that the app creates to begin the transfer process, which is a really cool feature.

Cons:

  • (This should be a “pro,” but…) There is decent built-in help…if you can find it.
AllmyTube

4. FLVto

Flvto YouTube Downloader for Mac lets you choose a wide variety of options beginning from MP3, to AVI, MP4, MOV and many more. This nets it the top spot of the best free YouTube to MP3 converter. If you have ever encountered problems when importing music to an Apple device, you'll find this app really useful to import favorite songs to iTunes in just a click. This YouTube Video Downloader for Mac supports the conversion of whole YouTube playlists and channels as a batch operation, no need to convert songs one by one.

Pros:

  • Rather nice for a completely free app.
  • Decent amount of features.

Cons:

  • During our testing, several users had YouTube download fails, caused by modified URLs.
FLVto

5. MacX Video Converter Pro

MacX Video Converter Pro offers excellent performance while downloading YouTube MP3 files and is ad-free and virus-free. It also lets you convert YouTube videos to any formats including 4K HD videos. MacX offers the best YouTube to MP3 converter variety.

Pros:

  • MacX Video Converter Pro can convert both video and audio files in over 1000 formats, from MP4, AVI, MKV, DVD, and others to iOS-compatible devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Cons:

  • Slow when switching between feature interfaces.
    • MacX Video Converter Pro

6. YTD Video Downloader

YTD Video Downloader for Mac allows you to download from YouTube. It is praiseworthy that this Mac app supports batch video and audio downloading. All in all, it is easy to use with a nice interface, supports multiple video hosting services, downloads fast, performs on-the-go conversion. Simply enter the video URL to start a download.

Pros:

  • The app interface is very easy to navigate.

Cons:

  • Too many ads on display, which might cause annoyance.
YTD Video Downloader

7. DVDVideoSoft Free Studio

DVDVideoSoft offers their own take on YouTube downloaders - DVDVideoSoft Free Studio. This app offers smooth conversion to MP3. Parallel downloads, a much sought-after feature, are present. The interface is compact, nothing feels out of place. There is a particularly interesting addition in the form of a download history, not that innovative, but rarely seen in such downloaders. Consider this as the best YouTube to MP3 converter app when it comes to uniqueness.

Pros:

  • Converts to AAC, OGG, M4A, FLAC and WAV.

Cons:

  • The application constantly tries to get users to download additional programs and browser extensions during installation.
Free YouTube to MP3 Converter

8. YouTube Music

YouTube Music is fine. It really is. There are 3 options.

Firstly, there's an ad-enabled version for people who want to give the service a risk-free shot.

Secondly, YouTube Music Premium is ad-free, accessible offline, and music will keep playing even with your device screen locked. YouTube Music Premium is $9.99 per month.

And finally, you can get Music Premium as a part of the YouTube Premium package.

A sharp eye will notice that there's no option to tweak the audio bit rate. Sadly, as they’ve stated, Google doesn’t intend to exceed 256 kbps for streaming. On the upside, though, the YouTube was steady in our testing, playing without crashing and freezing.

Pros:

  • Nice streaming music service with a feature to download content to watch offline.

Cons:

  • No additional features for YouTube downloads. (And that’s why you’re reading this article in the first place!)
YouTube Music

What is the best YouTube to MP3 Converter for Mac?

There are a lot of great options when choosing the best YouTube to MP3 converter app for Mac so you’ll need to do some legwork. Finding the right option that has everything you need will involve a bit of research. Luckily for you, we went ahead and did most of the research, comparing and testing lots of different choices to find the ones we like the best. We’ve compared dozens of different apps and software with a wide range of features and options to bring you the cream of the crop.

With so many different YouTube music downloaders for Mac, it’s important to know which factors to consider when choosing your software.

These are the things we’ve considered when choosing the best Mac audio converters:

  • Price - there are a lot of great inexpensive options to choose from if you don’t need professional grade tools.
  • Format Compatibility - a program’s capability to handle or produce certain file types.
  • Efficiency - the speed and the amount of consecutive downloads. All of our choices can handle 150 files per hour.
  • Simplicity - ease of use and accessibility. The opposite of interface bloat.
  • Utility - the amount of different operations available in given software.
  • OS Compatibility & Mobility - the multitude of OS (macOS/Windows/Linux) and devices (iOS/Android) that support the software.

Table to find the best YouTube to MP3
Converter for Mac

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Top features
VideoDuke
Airy
MediaHuman
AllMyTube
FLVto
MacX Video Converter Pro
YTD Video Downloader
DVDVideoSoft Free Studio
YouTube Music
Extraction of Audio from YouTube
Extraction of Audio from YouTube
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Download Videos from YouTube
Download Videos from YouTube
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Download Videos from 1000+ Other Sites
Download Videos from 1000+ Other Sites
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Download in different video formats
Download in different video formats
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Choose Video Resolution
Choose Video Resolution
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Download HD Video
Download HD Video
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Playlist downloading
Playlist downloading
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Channel Downloading
Channel Downloading
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Batch downloading
Batch downloading
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Browser integration
Browser integration
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pause/ Resume Downloading
Pause/ Resume Downloading
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Windows Supported operating systems
Windows Supported operating systems
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Mac Supported operating systems
Mac Supported operating systems
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Help & Support
Help & Support
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

How MP3 files work

The MP3 era marked one of the most exciting moments for the music industry. Compared to other big moments for music, like when audio cassettes or CDs were launched, MP3 did not originate in the music industry. It was the huge family of music lovers where MP3 started its rise towards history. The massive impact MP3 had on digital music can hardly be measured in words.

However, despite the immense progress it brought, not everyone is happy about MP3. Old-school audiophiles still claim that an MP3 song will never compare to the same song on Vinyl or CD. Other voices go as far as saying the way music engineers work was changed for the worse because of MP3 and digital audio. And while there’s a certain amount of truth in these claims, the small size of these files is a huge plus.

Another plus that MP3 files bring comes from being able to control just how much information you want to put on an MP3 during compression and encoding. Being able to create various versions of the same file with different sound quality is quite helpful. The main indicator of quality / compression comes from the bit rate, or how many bits per second get encoded in an MP3 file.

Things to avoid while using a YouTube to MP3 converter

Even with the best and most trusted MP3 music converters, there is a slim possibility that the tools will try to install malware or adware into your system. That said, here are a few tips to keep your Mac safe:

  • Don’t accept requests to send you notifications.
  • Try to avoid the extra software offered while installing a video downloader.
  • Scan downloaded MP3 files with an antivirus program.
  • Make sure to take a closer look at the type of file being downloaded. It could be hiding something malicious.

Audio Formats to Convert YouTube Videos to Audio

When you’re using a Mac YouTube converter, you should know there are two types of audio quality provided by various formats: lossless or lossy. Lossless audio retains its original quality, whereas lossy loses some during the compression process. If you want to know how to convert YouTube to MP3 and find the best ratio between quality and sound, check out the following article.

MP3

MP3 is at the same time a file extension and a compression method that is based on the MPEG standard to reduce the size of audio files by a factor of 12. The thing with MP3 is that even though they do miracles at saving storage space, the quality is still comparable to a CD and that has allowed an entire class of products to be rolled out. Remember how amazed you were when the iPod was able to fit a thousand songs into your pocket? You have MP3 to thank for that.

The audio quality is measured in bitrate and expressed in kilobytes per second (kbps). The higher the bitrate, the better the quality. With MP3, the common bitrates for MP3 files range between 128 kbps and 256 kbps.

Even though MP3 is one of the most popular audio formats on earth right now, Apple doesn’t use it to distribute music. Despite being compatible with iTunes and other iOS devices, MP3 is not the format of choice for iPhone and iPad devices.

OGG

Another format that you probably see often listed in the presentations of Mac YouTube converter software is OGG. This open-source file format is versatile as it can contain music, video, text, and other data. OGG is optimized for streaming content and it has an open license.

M4A

An extension that was considered by many the successor of MP3, M4A is encoded using advanced audio coding ( AAC) and offers lossy compression. M4A stands for MPEG 4 Audio and that should already ring a bell since MPEG 4 is a container used for video files as well. M4A was developed as a third layer in MPEG 1 and 2 video files that were used with DVD players back in the day.

WMA

Short for Windows Media Audio, .wma is, as you might imagine, a file type invented by Microsoft. It is natively supported on Windows Media Player on all devices and it was designed to compete with AAC and MP3 for supremacy in audio files. Unfortunately, its incompatibility with Apple devices means that it doesn’t see much use. QuickTime can’t read the extension either, so if you really want to play WMA on a Mac, you’ll need a Mac YouTube converter to get the job done.

FLAC

FLAC may ring a bell to all audiophiles out there. A format that is actually an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec, it does an outstanding job at reducing the size of audio files up to 60% without any quality loss. While FLAC isn’t compatible with iTunes or iOS devices, you can still play it through third-party software.

WAV

WAV stands for Waveform Audio Format and it’s a high-quality audio format used mostly on CDs. There’s no compression in WAV files and that’s why they require a lot more space than AAC or MP3. For context, with WAV you need around 10 MB for 1 minute of audio, while MP3 can fit a minute in 1 MB. WAV is compatible with Apple devices as well and represents a great choice for music lovers.

FAQ

If you still have some unanswered questions about formats and Mac YouTube converter solutions, we put together some frequently asked questions and answered them. Read below:

While most YouTube media downloaders have restrictions that prevent them from downloading copyrighted audio, you can use Airy (#1 in our review list) to rip music from any YouTube video.

Step 1: Download and install Airy.

Step 2: Copy the video link.

Step 3: Paste the video link (URL) into the Airy window.

Step 4: Select MP3 as target format.

Step 5: Click the Download button.

If you’d rather not install an app, you can use an online video converter. If you have a YouTube Music premium account you can download music on your mobile device.

From our experience, Airy leads the pack as the best standalone YouTube to MP3 converting app. For online tools, the winner is OnlineVideoConverter. Airy is a downloadable app that runs on your Mac desktop, and OnlineVideoConverter is a web-based app.

What’s the benefit of desktop apps like Airy?

First and foremost, they are safe, with a low risk of malware infection.

Also:

  • No ads.
  • Playlist creation, channel downloads, pause/resume function.
  • Ability to download long videos.
  • Many more media formats.

You might prefer online downloaders like OnlineVideoConverter for these reasons:

  • No installation necessary.
  • Completely free.
  • Usable on any OS, any Browser.
  • Many online websites also allow you to download from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and other services.

It’s quite simple.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to use an Apple iOS native app called “Workflow.” Here’s a YouTube video (naturally) to show you how.

Bitrate refers to the number of bits (a bit is a unit of data) that is processed within a certain length of time. In audio, this usually means kilobits per second. For example, the music you bought on iTunes ran at 256 kilobits per second, meaning there are 256 kilobits of data stored in every second of a song. Now that iTunes has evolved into Apple Music — offering both streaming and downloadable music — Apple has maintained a 256 kbps bitrate.

The higher the bitrate of a track, the more space it will take up on your computer. Generally, an audio CD will actually take up quite a bit of space, which is why it's become common practice to compress those files so you can fit more on your hard drive (this goes double for phone memory and cloud storage). This is where the competition between "lossless" and "lossy" audio comes in.

YouTube is filled with videos from users from all over the world. And while some downloaders come with restrictions when it comes to downloading copyrighted audio, Airy is a piece of software that will get the job done excellently.

Here’s how to use it:

  • Visit YouTube and choose the video you want to convert to audio and store on your Mac.
  • Grab the URL for the video and paste it in Airy.
  • Select the audio media format you want from the list.
  • Press download and have the file saved on your Mac.

YouTube is rich with media content. And there are many great reasons to find a good YouTube to MP3 app for Mac. There are also a lot of good options to choose from. Now you have the tools to download, convert and enjoy. Have fun!

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Requirements: OS X 10.9+ , 23.17MB size
Version 3.20.310 (27 Oct, 2020) Release notes
Category: UtilitiesApplication
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Convert YouTube video to MP3 with Airy

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