# Saving Audiofiles From YouTube **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 11, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581 "2016-05-11T23:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/21 "2016-05-13T23:45:20Z")
I’ve found the site [keepvid.com](http://keepvid.com) to work very well, with options for saving video and/or audio in various formats. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/22 "2016-05-14T04:13:44Z")
[Audacity](http://www.audacityteam.org/) will record audio from streaming videos. Click the record button and start the video. (For legal purposes, I only do that with my friend’s videos, with his permission.) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/23 "2016-05-14T04:18:30Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > No, I just wanted the audio. If only someone upthread gave you a super easy way to do that. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/24 "2016-05-14T04:20:17Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > If you want to download a YouTube video to your computer, just put an “ss” before the “[youtube.com](http://youtube.com)” in the URL. > > For example, http: [//www.ssyoutube.com/blahblahblah](https://www.ssyoutube.com/blahblahblah) Just to be clear, however, that takes you to a different website. youtube dot com and ssyoutube dot com have nothing to do with each other. Call it a coincidence that they have similar domain names. ---
**Author:** ![12mgdaily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/f08c70/32.png) [@12mgdaily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/12mgdaily)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/25 "2016-05-14T04:51:58Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > As for download extensions, these are being disabled for YT. I don’t know about FF, but in Safari and Chrome my YT downloaders have been made inoperable recently. There are ways around this but they are inconvenient or cost money (and I’m cheap). This is relevant to me not for the audio but for the video–I make documentaries and use YT video for reference and temporary coverage. I’ve had similar problems with YT downloaders suddenly not working. But over a year ago I found one. It’s called ClipConverter.cc. This is a webpage. There is no program to download. Keep this bookmarked in your favorites if you want to use it multiple times. It has worked with no issues every time I’ve used it. It’s fantastic, free, it doesn’t contain ads, you don’t have to create any account, and the downloads are clean and free of any malware. With YT on, playing your song(video), highlight and copy the URL address at the very top, open another tab and open ClipConverter.cc. Paste the URL you copied into the space provided. If all you want is to download songs (and no video), then click the MP3 button in the conversion format. Then download. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/26 "2016-05-15T13:14:08Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Just to be clear, however, that takes you to a different website. youtube dot com and ssyoutube dot com have nothing to do with each other. Call it a coincidence that they have similar domain names. Why? It’s very much deliberate–not for any nefarious reasons, but to make it easy to quickly modify the URL. There are services that will detect a lower quality version of an MP3 and give you access to a higher quality one. Both Apple and Amazon have offered it–I don’t know if they still do. It didn’t even matter if the original was illegally obtained. So while it may be technically illegal, it’s very much in the realm of things that won’t get you in any trouble. There’s no way to detect the difference between copying the audio and just streaming the audio, so it won’t be detected when you copy. And there’s very little way to prove you didn’t at some point have whatever original was used to make the YouTube copy. Plus, mere ownership is usually not prosecuted–distribution is–whether the distributor or the distributee. I even only use usually to cover my butt–I can’t think of a single time it’s happened. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581/27 "2016-05-16T01:06:27Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > IANAL. Whoosh. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Unless you bought a copy of the You Tube video you wish to copy, I would rethink that position. My guess is that all those “videos” are just fans who have uploaded the songs, rather than being videos that are released by the artists. This is certainly true of an album old enough to have been released on cassette. Even though many copyright holders direct YT to take that kind of thing down, there are countless examples of this out there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saving-audiofiles-from-youtube/754581.md?page=1)