YouTube to MP3 converter & video downloader

YouTubeToMP3X was built around a single idea: turning a video link into a playable file should take seconds, not a signup, a software install, or a maze of pop-ups. Paste any public YouTube URL into the box at the top of this page, choose whether you want audio (MP3) or video (MP4), pick a quality, and the file saves straight to your device.

The same flow works across all seven supported platforms: paste, choose, save. There are no extra steps, no account to create, and no settings to learn before your first download.

You can choose 64, 128, 256 or 320kbps, and every option shows its file size before you commit. As a rough guide: 320kbps for music and careful listening, at about 140 MB per hour; 256kbps for everyday music with smaller files; 128kbps for podcasts, interviews and lectures, where speech stays clear at about 56 MB per hour; and 64kbps for voice memos and audiobooks when storage is tight.

It is worth knowing the honest limit. Most YouTube streams are delivered at roughly 128-160kbps, so exporting at 320kbps gives you a clean copy of that source, not audio that is somehow "better than YouTube". An MP3 can never hold more than the file it was made from, and we would rather show you the real options than promise a quality that cannot exist.

We timed a real conversion on this site on 22 August 2026 and measured the result with ffprobe rather than estimating. The source was Big Buck Bunny, the Blender Foundation short film released under a Creative Commons licence, 10 minutes 34 seconds long and converted in full at 128kbps. From pressing Download to the file being ready took 27 seconds, and the result was a 9.7 MB MP3, 48kHz stereo, measured at exactly 128kbps.

A typical three to four minute song finishes well inside that. Longer videos take proportionally longer, because the audio has to be fetched and encoded before your download starts, which is why you see a progress bar rather than an instant link.

A little, and it helps to know where. YouTube never stores an uncompressed copy of a video's sound. What it streams is already compressed, usually Opus or AAC at somewhere around 128 to 160kbps, so turning it into an MP3 means encoding it one more time, and every lossy encode discards a sliver of detail.

At 256 or 320kbps that extra loss is inaudible for almost everyone on almost any headphones. At 128kbps speech sounds exactly right and music still holds up on earbuds and phone speakers. Only 64kbps is a clear step down, and it exists for audiobooks and voice notes where file size matters more than cymbals. What no setting can do is put back detail YouTube never sent, which is why a 320kbps MP3 matches the source rather than improving on it.

Prefer to keep the picture? Download the video as an MP4 in resolutions from 144p up to 1080p Full HD. We use the widely compatible H.264 codec, so your file plays on phones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs and video editors without any extra conversion step.

Only the resolutions that genuinely exist for a given video are offered, so you never wait on a download that was never available in the first place.

There is nothing to install on either. On iPhone, open this page in Safari rather than Chrome, paste the link and download. iOS saves the file without much fuss, so if nothing seems to happen, check the download arrow in Safari's toolbar or the Downloads folder in the Files app. On Android any browser works, and the MP3 lands in your Downloads folder, where most music apps find it on their own.

On a phone the Paste button picks up a copied link in a single tap, and the live progress bar keeps you informed while longer videos are fetched and converted.

Beyond YouTube (including Shorts) you can paste links from TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, Pinterest and Dailymotion. Each platform also has its own dedicated tool page with guidance specific to that service, whether that's grabbing a Pinterest video pin or saving a TikTok clip without the watermark.

If you regularly convert whole albums or lecture series, the playlist downloader handles an entire playlist in one pass, and the MP3 cutter trims a clip down to just the section you need, which is handy for making a ringtone.

Choose MP3 when you only care about the sound: music you already own, a podcast episode for a commute, a lecture you want on a phone, or a backing track for editing. Audio files are a fraction of the size of video, so a two-hour recording that would run to well over a gigabyte as 1080p video comes to about 115 MB as a 128kbps MP3.

Choose MP4 when the picture matters: tutorials where someone is demonstrating something on screen, sports highlights, or anything you plan to re-edit. If you are undecided, 128kbps MP3 is a sensible default for spoken word and 320kbps for music, while 720p is the sweet spot for video on a phone screen and 1080p for a laptop or TV.

For lossless work in a DAW, the WAV converter is the better choice than MP3: it is uncompressed, so it avoids stacking a second round of lossy compression on top of the source.

The reasons are mostly ordinary ones. Podcasts that only exist as video, so they can be heard on a commute without burning mobile data. Lectures and language lessons to study offline at your own pace. The audio from your own uploads, when the original file is long gone. And Creative Commons or royalty-free music, to build an offline library you are actually allowed to keep.

A few situations genuinely can't be converted, and it's better to say so than to leave you guessing. Private, unlisted, age-restricted and members-only videos can't be read, because the tool only ever sees what a logged-out visitor would see. Live streams that are still broadcasting have no finished file to fetch, so wait until the stream ends and is published as a normal video.

Very long videos, several hours or more, occasionally time out while being fetched and converted. Trying a lower bitrate or resolution usually gets them through, and the MP3 cutter is a good alternative if you only need one section. If a link fails once, it is also worth re-copying it from the address bar, since share links that include tracking parameters sometimes point at a playlist rather than a single video.

We don't ask you to create an account, and we don't build a profile of what you download. Converted files are kept only for as long as it takes to hand them to you, then deleted from our servers automatically. There are no watermarks on your files and no daily download caps.

Because the whole tool runs in the browser, it behaves the same on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iPhone.

YouTubeToMP3X is an educational, experimental project and is not affiliated with YouTube or any other platform. Downloading is appropriate when you own the content, have the creator's permission, or the material is in the public domain or carries a Creative Commons licence.

Please respect each platform's Terms of Service and the copyright law where you live. Our blog has a plain-English guide to what is and isn't allowed if you want to read further before you start.