Youtube to Mp3 Converter
Paste a YouTube link and take the audio as an MP3 you can play offline. The site fetches the video's audio track, encodes it at the bitrate you choose, and deletes the file when you have it.
This install is set to use C:\Users\zzadi\bin\yt-dlp.exe, but that program is not on the server. Install it, upload it to wp-content/uploads/yt2mp3-bin/, or point Appearance → Customize → Converter at its full path. That setting holds a path from another operating system, so it can never exist on this server: replace it with the binary name, or with a full path for this machine.
Any public watch, Shorts or music.youtube.com link. A playlist link converts the video it points at, because the queue is stripped before the request is sent.
A start and end range in seconds converts only that part, which is how a 20-minute section out of a three-hour recording costs two minutes of the server's time instead of three hours.
The sections below are the whole of what this converter does and does not do: the features it ships with, how a conversion runs step by step, the bitrates and what each one costs, the eight kinds of link it accepts, where the finished file plays, and why this site is built the way it is. The two ends of the topic are here as well — the failures a reader searches for by name, and the limits of the tool put in writing rather than left for you to discover — and the order they appear in is measured rather than chosen: neighbouring sections are the ones whose copy shares the most, so a reader meets a subject once instead of twice.
What a YouTube to MP3 converter does
A YouTube to MP3 converter reads the audio track a video is served with and writes it out as an MP3 file you can play without a connection. It is a format change, not a download of the video.
- Output container
- MPEG-1 Layer III (.mp3), constant bitrate
- Bitrate range here
- 96–320 kbps
- Sample rate
- 44.1 kHz, kept from the source
- Metadata written
- ID3v2 tags: title, artist, cover art
- Size at 192 kbps
- 1.4 MB per minute of audio
- Source audio
- Whatever YouTube serves that video: usually 128–256 kbps AAC
The conversion runs in two stages. First the site asks YouTube for the video's own audio stream, which every modern video carries separately from its picture. Then the audio is decoded and re-encoded to MP3 at the bitrate you pick. Nothing in that chain improves the audio, because the second stage can only describe what the first stage received.
That single sentence is the honest version of the case for this page: MP3 is worth having because it plays everywhere — every phone, car head unit, DJ deck and MP3 player ever built — not because it sounds better than the file it came from. If you want the audio to sound as close to the source as possible, MP3 is the wrong container and the format page says which one is right.
No video is downloaded. The picture stream is never requested, which is why a two-hour video is not a two-gigabyte transfer.
Nothing is re-uploaded. The finished file is written to this site's own disk and removed when you take it, or when the retention window closes.
Where the finished MP3 plays: 6 device classes
MP3's whole advantage is that this table has six rows and no exceptions. Every device class here reads the same file with the same tags and no conversion step.
Nothing in this table needs a second conversion, which is the point of choosing MP3 over a better container: the format page compares MP3 against M4A and WAV and names the one case where the better-sounding file is worth the compatibility you give up.
| Device | Where the file goes | How it gets there | Bitrate to pick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Android phone or tablet | Music/ or any folder a player indexes | Download in the browser, or drag over USB | 192 kbps |
| iPhone or iPad | Files app, or the Music app's library | Save to Files from Safari; no iTunes sync required since iOS 13 | 192–256 kbps |
| Windows PC or macOS | Your music library folder | Download, then import once — tags are already in the file | 256–320 kbps |
| Car head unit over USB | A FAT32 stick, flat or in folders | Copy to the stick. Heads units read ID3 tags for the display | 192 kbps or below for smaller sticks |
| DJ software (Rekordbox, Serato, Traktor) | The software's watched folder | Download into the watch folder; the library analyses it on import | 320 kbps — you may edit and re-encode |
| Smart speaker, NAS or car stereo over Bluetooth | The speaker's or server's media share | Copy to the share; the device indexes on its own schedule | 192 kbps |
Why choose pohk.org for YouTube to MP3 conversion
pohk.org does three things a converter page usually does not: it prints the bitrate the source was served at, it deletes the file the moment you take it, and it states what the tool cannot do on the same page as what it can. The table below lists every claim in a form you can check.
- Accounts
- None. No email, no signup, no cookie wall
- Output
- One MP3 per video, ID3v2 tagged at the bitrate you pick
- Bitrates
- 96–320 kbps, with the size of each printed
- Stored files
- Deleted on download; otherwise removed after 60 minutes
- Third-party requests
- Zero: no font CDN, no analytics script, no ad iframe on the tool
- Encoder
- One generation: source audio → MP3, with nothing in between
- Name the ceiling instead of hiding it: every setting is printed beside the bitrate YouTube usually serves that video at, so you can see where a bigger file stops buying anything.
- Delete the file the moment you take it, and everything else inside the retention window — no library of other people's downloads is kept here.
- Skip the account, the installer and the redirect maze: the tool is the first thing on the page rather than three screens below an advertisement.
- Diagnose the failures by name. Six failure messages are mapped to their causes, so a video that will not convert is explained rather than blamed on your link.
- State the boundary in the open: what a YouTube to MP3 converter cannot do is a section of this page, not a footnote, because a tool that promises everything is wrong about most of it.
The site holds no user accounts, so there is no profile to leak and nothing to log in to. A conversion is addressed by a random label rather than by a user, and the label stops working when the file is gone. The download link carries a signature derived from this install's own salts, which means a copied link is useless on another site and stops working when the site's keys rotate.
The tool is also the only page that runs script. Everything else — the bitrate table, the device table, the troubleshooting pages — is server-rendered text, so a reader on a slow connection or with script disabled still gets the whole answer except the download button itself.
| Question | On this site | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Account needed | None | A link is the whole input, so the tool is usable the second the page loads and there is no profile to lose. |
| Bitrate honesty | Source bitrate printed | A 320 kbps file of a 160 kbps stream becomes a known trade-off rather than a surprise. |
| Quality claimed | Matches the source | The page argues against its own biggest selling point before you spend a download on it. |
| Conversion chain | One encode | Every extra generation costs detail, so there is exactly one. |
| Third-party requests | Zero | No font, analytics or advertising request is made from another domain, so nothing on the page can watch what you convert. |
| File lifetime | One download, 60 minutes | A shared link stops working, which is the behaviour a private file should have. |
| Trim range | Start and end, in seconds | A long recording becomes usable without converting hours you will never listen to. |
What this site does not claim: that a converted file is yours to publish. pohk.org converts audio so you can listen to it; everything about republishing it is on the copyright page.
The 5 bitrates this converter offers, and what each one costs
Bitrate is the one setting most readers get wrong. It controls size exactly and quality approximately: pick the bitrate that matches what YouTube served the audio at, and pick the smallest one that is still above it.
The arithmetic is linear. A constant-bitrate MP3 spends 192,000 bits on every second of audio at 192 kbps, so a minute costs about 1.4 MB and a 60-minute mix costs about 84 MB. Doubling the bitrate doubles the file and does not double anything else.
The quality side is where the honest answer sits. YouTube serves most music at 128–160 kbps AAC, so re-encoding that to 320 kbps MP3 produces a file that is roughly twice the size and measures, on a spectrum analyser, as the same audio plus MP3's own artifacts. 320 kbps is still the right choice for one reason only: you intend to edit or re-encode the file later, and a second-generation lossy encode should start from the highest bitrate you have.
| Bitrate | Per minute | A 4-minute song | What it sounds like | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 320 kbps | 2.4 MB | 9.6 MB | Indistinguishable from the source for most listeners | Archiving, DJ software, anything you will re-encode later |
| 256 kbps | 1.9 MB | 7.7 MB | The sweet spot for a source that was served at 256 kbps | A default that will not embarrass you on a home system |
| 192 kbps | 1.4 MB | 5.8 MB | No audible loss on a phone or a car stereo | Phone storage, commuting, gym playlists |
| 128 kbps | 960 KB | 3.8 MB | Slightly soft cymbals on good headphones | Voice recordings, lectures, audiobooks |
| 96 kbps | 720 KB | 2.9 MB | Audible on music, fine for speech | Spoken word where size matters more than tone |
The bar is the audio YouTube served; the number beside it is the setting you choose. A 320 kbps MP3 of a 160 kbps stream is twice the size and the same sound.
For speech — lectures, interviews, podcasts — 96 or 128 kbps costs you nothing you can hear.
For music you will play on anything better than earbuds, 256 kbps is the setting where a careful listener stops finding things.
How it works: 4 steps from a YouTube link to an MP3 file
Four steps run between pasting a link and holding a file. Steps 2 and 3 are the server's, and they are the ones whose settings decide what your MP3 sounds like.
Paste a YouTube link
The page reads the 11-character video id out of whatever form you pasted — watch URL, Shorts URL, music.youtube.com or youtu.be — and refuses anything that is not a YouTube video. No account, no file to upload.
The audio track is fetched
The server asks for the video's separate audio stream and takes the highest one it is offered. This is the step that decides your ceiling: everything after it can only lose detail.
It is re-encoded to MP3
ffmpeg decodes the AAC stream and encodes MP3 at the bitrate you chose — 192 kbps by default. A 4-minute song takes a few seconds; a 90-minute mix takes about a minute.
Tags are written, file is handed over
ID3 tags carry the title and artist so the file lands in your library with a name rather than a hash. The file is then deleted — on download immediately, otherwise after the retention window.
The whole job runs on the server, so you can close the tab: come back to the same conversion URL and it will still be there until it expires.
The 7 features this YouTube to MP3 converter ships with
Everything listed here is checkable from this page: the bitrates sit in the form, the trim fields under it, the retention window on every finished job, and the tags inside the file you download.
Converts in one pass
The audio track is fetched and re-encoded in a single pass, with no intermediate file written to disk. A 4-minute song is finished in a few seconds.
96–320 kbps, with its size printed beside it
Every setting sits on the form with its cost per minute in the table below, including the ones that make the file bigger without making it better.
Trims before it encodes
A start and an end in seconds convert only that range, so 40 minutes out of a 3-hour recording costs 40 minutes of encoding rather than 3 hours.
Writes the ID3 tags
Title, artist and cover art are written into the file, so it lands in a music library or a car head unit under its own name instead of a hash.
No account and no third-party script
A link is the whole input. There is no signup, no email field and no analytics, font or advertising request from another domain on the tool.
Built for a phone first
The form, the trim fields and the download all work in a phone browser, and Android and iOS each save the finished MP3 without a desktop in the chain.
Files that leave when you do
Each MP3 is deleted the moment it is downloaded, and anything not downloaded is removed after 60 minutes, so no library of other people's audio builds up here.
- Paste any watch URL, youtu.be short link, Shorts URL or music.youtube.com link — the 11-character video id is read out of all four shapes.
- Choose a bitrate: 96, 128, 192, 256 or 320 kbps. 192 kbps is the default, and it is the setting most videos are served at or below.
- Trim to the minutes you need. The tool takes videos up to 3 hours long, and only the range you set is encoded.
- Download one MP3 with its ID3 tags already written, from a link that works without an account and stops working once the file is gone.
- Close the tab if you like: the job runs on the server, so a conversion you started on a phone can be collected from a laptop.
- Skip the signup. There is no account, no email and no installer, on this page or anywhere else on the site.
None of the numbers above are marketing copy: the bitrate list, the length limit and the retention window are read from pohk.org's own converter settings when this page is rendered. Change a setting in the Customizer and this section changes with it.
The 8 kinds of YouTube link this converter accepts
The tool takes any single public YouTube video. These are the eight kinds readers paste most often, in the order they are searched for, with what each one returns.
- Music videos
- Studio audio served at the highest bitrate YouTube has for the upload, usually 256 kbps. The most common conversion there is.
- Shorts
- A Shorts URL is the same video in a vertical frame, and the conversion is identical. Under 60 seconds, so a conversion takes seconds and costs a few hundred kilobytes.
- Lyric and visualiser videos
- A still image over a full-length audio track. The best source to convert, because the picture costs the uploader nothing and the audio is not competing with a video encode.
- Podcast episode uploads
- Speech at 96–128 kbps, where the smaller settings cost nothing audible and save whole megabytes per hour.
- Live sets and concert VODs
- An uploaded recording of a live stream converts like any other video. A stream that is still live does not convert, because there is no finished audio track to fetch.
- DJ mixes and full albums
- An hour or more of continuous audio. Convert at 320 kbps if the set will be mixed again, 192 kbps if it is for listening — and check the length limit before starting.
- Lecture and course recordings
- Board-heavy recordings where the audio is what you need. The trim range is what this case is for: convert the 40 minutes you will revise instead of the three-hour session.
- Gaming clips and commentary
- Mixed speech and effects. 160–192 kbps is the range where the difference between settings stops being audible under the noise floor of the recording itself.
A video that is private, members-only, a rental or an age-restricted upload that requires a sign-in cannot be converted. The troubleshooting page names each case and what the message means.
A playlist link converts one video: the list parameter is stripped so you get the video you meant rather than the queue you came from.
What a YouTube to MP3 converter cannot do
Six things this tool does not do, stated plainly, because a converter page that promises all of them is a page whose promises the first reader discovers are false. Each one names the alternative that would remove it.
- It cannot convert a private or members-only video
- Those videos are served only to a signed-in account. The fetch returns a refusal rather than audio, and no converter can change that.
- It cannot convert a live stream
- A stream has no finished audio track to take. The same URL converts normally once the broadcast ends and YouTube publishes the recording.
- It cannot unlock licensed music
- Tracks YouTube Music serves under a subscription are delivered with access controls that a converter does not have a key for. Converting those is a gap in what is possible, not a setting you have missed.
- It cannot add quality the source does not have
- A 320 kbps MP3 of a 128 kbps stream contains no more detail than the stream did. The bitrate table states the arithmetic rather than implying otherwise.
- It cannot convert a whole playlist in one job
- Playlist mode is a backend setting that is off by default, because a 200-video playlist is 200 encodings and a lot of disk. Convert the videos you want, one at a time.
- It cannot decide what you may do with the file
- The copyright page covers this properly: converting audio for your own listening is a different act from publishing it, and the second one needs the rights holder's permission.
A video that will not convert is usually telling you something true about that video. The troubleshooting page maps each message to its cause, so you know whether to try a different video or a different setting.
The pages that go deeper than this one
Four starting points for the parts of this topic that need more than a section: the source map, the attributes you choose between, and the two ends of the tree.
The 6 failures to check first
Almost every failed conversion is one of six things. Each row names the symptom you see and the cause behind it.
Frequently asked questions
Twenty-five answers in four groups: the converter, the quality it produces, the devices and failures, and the legal and privacy side. Every answer opens with the answer.
Converter
How do I convert a YouTube video to MP3?
Paste the video's URL into the field at the top of this page, choose a bitrate, and press Convert. The site fetches the video's audio track, encodes it to MP3, and gives you a download link that works until the file expires.
Do I need an account or an app?
No. The converter runs in the browser and takes a link, so there is nothing to install and no account to create on any device, including a phone.
Which YouTube URLs does it accept?
It accepts the standard watch URL, youtu.be short links, Shorts, and music.youtube.com links, plus a bare 11-character video id. Anything that is not a YouTube host is refused before the server is asked to do anything.
Can I convert a playlist?
Playlist conversion is off by default, because a long playlist is a long queue of encodings and a lot of disk on a shared server. A playlist URL still converts the single video it points at. The site owner can turn playlist mode on in the Customizer.
How long does a conversion take?
A 4-minute song takes a few seconds; a 90-minute mix takes about a minute. Most of the time is the encode rather than the download, so the bitrate you choose changes the duration only marginally.
Is there a length limit?
Yes, and the tool prints it under the form. The default is 3 hours, which covers albums, mixes and lectures; the limit exists so one conversion cannot hold the server for an hour.
Can I convert part of a video?
Yes. The trim fields take a start and an end in seconds, and only that range is encoded — which is why converting 40 minutes out of a 3-hour lecture costs three minutes of the site's time rather than three hours.
Does the tool work on a phone?
Yes, and the site is built mobile-first because that is where most conversions happen. On iOS and Android the finished MP3 lands in the browser's download manager, and the device page names where each system puts it.
Quality and formats
Which bitrate should I choose?
Choose 192 kbps for general listening, 128 kbps for speech, and 320 kbps only when you will edit or re-encode the file later. YouTube serves most music at 128–160 kbps AAC, so bitrates above that increase the file without adding detail.
Does a higher bitrate improve the sound?
No. Re-encoding can only describe the audio it received, so a 320 kbps MP3 of a 128 kbps stream measures as the same audio in a larger file. This is the one place a converter can mislead you, which is why the bitrate table prints both columns.
Why MP3 and not M4A or WAV?
MP3 plays on everything ever made, including hardware that predates every other format here, and its tags are read by head units and DJ software without a plugin. M4A keeps the source audio without a second encode and is the better choice when only Apple and Android devices matter; WAV is uncompressed and roughly ten times the size of an MP3.
Is the converted file lossless?
No. YouTube's audio is already lossy, so any file derived from it is lossy twice over. Nothing in the chain can make it lossless, including a larger bitrate.
What sample rate and channels do I get?
The source's own: usually 44.1 kHz stereo for music and 48 kHz for uploads that came from video masters. The converter keeps the source rate rather than resampling, because a resample is a second chance to lose detail for no benefit.
Are the ID3 tags filled in?
Yes. Title, artist and cover art are written into the file's ID3v2 tags, so the download lands in your library with the video's title and uploader rather than a filename like audio.mp3.
Devices and failures
The converter says the video is unavailable. Why?
It means YouTube refused to serve the audio: usually because the video is private, removed, region-locked or a rental. Those four all answer the same way and only the first is fixable by the uploader, so the troubleshooting page shows how to tell them apart.
Why did the conversion stop without finishing?
A job that goes quiet for three minutes is treated as dead and marked as failed, which usually means YouTube dropped the connection mid-download or the video exceeded the length limit. Converting at a lower bitrate, or trimming to the part you need, is what makes those videos work.
The MP3 has no sound. What happened?
Check the trim range first, then the source. A range that starts after the video ends, or a video whose audio is silent in its opening minutes, both produce a valid MP3 with nothing audible in it.
Where does the file go on my phone?
On Android it lands in the Downloads folder and any music player indexing that folder will see it. On iOS it goes to the Files app's Downloads, and the Music app imports it from there; no desktop sync is needed.
Can I convert an age-restricted video?
Usually not. Videos that need a signed-in account to watch need one to convert as well, and this converter has no account to sign in with. The failure message names this case specifically, so you are not left guessing.
The file I downloaded is gone from the page. Can I get it again?
No, and the link is deliberately one-time. Each file is deleted when it is downloaded and every remaining file is deleted when its window closes, so a link that worked ten minutes ago cannot be reused or shared.
Legal and privacy
Is converting a YouTube video to MP3 legal?
It depends on what you do with the file, not on the conversion itself. Keeping audio for your own listening is a different act from republishing it, monetising it or using it in a video of your own, and the last three need the rights holder's permission.
What do you store about me?
A converted file and the link you submitted, for the length of the retention window, and nothing that identifies you. There is no account, no profile and no analytics script on the tool.
Are the files encrypted or private?
Files are addressed by a random label and the download link carries a signature, so a file cannot be found by guessing. Anyone you send the link to before it expires can download it, which is worth knowing before you share one.
Do you use cookies?
Only for your theme choice — light or dark — stored in your browser. There is no tracking cookie and no advertising script on the converter.
Can I use this converter on my own site?
The tool is part of this site rather than a service you can embed, and it depends on a server-side encoder that has to be installed where it runs. Hosting it yourself means installing yt-dlp and ffmpeg and running this theme's backend there.
Convert a video now
Paste a link, choose a bitrate, and take the file. No account, and nothing left on the server once you have it.