Download the best quality audio file with youtube-dl [closed] - audio

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I have just download youtube-dl so I can download video and audio files from youtube.
I want to download the best audio from the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWusmdmc0to
When I do a search for all formats with youtube-dl I get the following results:
format code extension resolution note
249 webm audio only DASH audio 58k , opus # 50k, 18.99MiB
250 webm audio only DASH audio 75k , opus # 70k, 25.20MiB
140 m4a audio only DASH audio 131k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2#128k, 52.40MiB
251 webm audio only DASH audio 147k , opus #160k, 50.95MiB
171 webm audio only DASH audio 149k , vorbis#128k, 52.64MiB
278 webm 256x144 144p 109k , webm container, vp9, 25fps, video only, 34.62MiB
160 mp4 256x144 144p 117k , avc1.4d400c, 25fps, video only, 37.86MiB
242 webm 426x240 240p 245k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 75.13MiB
133 mp4 426x240 240p 258k , avc1.4d4015, 25fps, video only, 81.39MiB
243 webm 640x360 360p 492k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 142.99MiB
134 mp4 640x360 360p 673k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 215.29MiB
244 webm 854x480 480p 828k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 256.58MiB
135 mp4 854x480 480p 1516k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 408.56MiB
247 webm 1280x720 720p 1882k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 526.18MiB
136 mp4 1280x720 720p 3012k , avc1.4d401f, 25fps, video only, 803.36MiB
248 webm 1920x1080 1080p 3622k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 938.81MiB
137 mp4 1920x1080 1080p 4724k , avc1.640028, 25fps, video only, 1.44GiB
271 webm 2560x1440 1440p 9253k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 2.86GiB
313 webm 3840x2160 2160p 18685k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 6.33GiB
17 3gp 176x144 small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2# 24k
36 3gp 320x180 small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2
43 webm 640x360 medium , vp8.0, vorbis#128k
18 mp4 640x360 medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2# 96k
22 mp4 1280x720 hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2#192k (best)
What is the best choice to get the best audio file? The first five are audio only. Do I need to pick one here? Or is the last one MP4 HD720 the best option and then convert it to MP3?
Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want mp3, just tell youtube-dl that:
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWusmdmc0to
will get you an audio version (-x, short for --extract-audio) in or converted to mp3 (that's the --audio-format option). youtube-dl will automatically pick the best quality and most appropriate format.
Note that the listed qualities are just guesses. In practice, opus is superior to anything else, but vorbis is picked for compatibility (refer to this related answer of mine for more details), so that will be picked.
While you can use -f to select a particular format, this is intended for people who want lower quality because of limited bandwidth or storage space, or for debugging. By default, youtube-dl already downloads the highest quality.

Answer 2

If you want to download audio in opus format - with best possible quality and without any conversion
In most of the cases best quality audio is oryginally provided by youtube in opus format.
You can download it in highest possible quality using this command:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29tZVZpZGVvUGxheWxpc3RQYXJ0
However opus format might be inconvenient for many reasons.
For example some media players especially in cars and telephones might not support it.
Probably you just want to have audio in mp3 file.
Below there is a solution on how to (using one command) download audio and convert it to probably most popular mp3 format with lossing as little quality as possible.
If you want to download audio and convert it to mp3 or any other lossy format.
To download audio from a single movie:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-quality 0 --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29tZVZpZGVvUGxheWxpc3RQYXJ0
To perform this command you need ffmpeg installed (audio and video converter which youtube-dl uses for convertion)
It downloads only audio (without video) and converts it to mp3.
Option --audio-quality 0 is very important there!
Without this option you lose a lot of sound quality during mp3 compression.
--audio-quality 0 tells youtube-dl to save audio file in the best quality (when converting to mp3).
Without this option mp3 audio-quality is set by default to 5 in 0-9 scale where 0 is the best quality and 9 the worst quality. So by default quality is worse.
Youtube streams for nonpremium users with variable bitrate up to 160kbps in opus format. Opus format is newer than mp3 and has better compression than mp3 preserving the same quality. So 160kbps opus = ~256kbps mp3.
When audio-quality is default (5 in 0-9 scale) mp3 bitrate is limited to 160kbps which means that some sound quality is lost during compression. When audio-quality is set to 0 mp3 goes up to 300kbps preserving almost original quality.
Almost original quality because mp3 is a lossy format so something is lost when converting to it. By using --audio-quality 0 option we just make sure that we loose as little as possible during this conversion. So difference between original opus audio file and audio file converted to mp3 is so small that it might be hard to spot by ear.
To download audio from all movies from a channel:
Command is the same, but you should put link to the channel instead of link to a single video:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-quality 0 --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/c/someChannelName1232143/videos
To download audio from a playlist:
You have to add --yes-playlist option.
You can put a link to a playlist (link with playlist word):
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 --yes-playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=c29tZVZpZGVvVVJMUGFy
Or the link to one of the songs from playlist while playing playlist (link with list word):
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 --yes-playlist "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29tZVZpZGVvUGxheWxpc3RQYXJ0&list=c29tZVZpZGVvTGlzdFBhcnRzc29tZVZpZGVvTGlzdFBhcnRz&index=4"
If you want to download audio and convert it to flac or any other lossless format
In this case you don't have to specify --audio-quality option as it is ignored by youtube-dl during conversion to lossless formats.
To download audio from a single movie:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format flac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29tZVZpZGVvUGxheWxpc3RQYXJ0
To download audio from all movies from a channel:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format flac https://www.youtube.com/c/someChannelName1232143/videos
To download audio from a playlist:
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format flac --yes-playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=c29tZVZpZGVvVVJMUGFy
or
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio/best" -ciw -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -v --extract-audio --audio-format flac --yes-playlist "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c29tZVZpZGVvUGxheWxpc3RQYXJ0&list=c29tZVZpZGVvTGlzdFBhcnRzc29tZVZpZGVvTGlzdFBhcnRz&index=4"
Command options explanation:
-f "bestaudio/best" <- Choose the best audio format.
As there is only audio format listed only the audio is downloaded.
-c <- (--continue) Force resume of partially downloaded files.
By default, youtube-dl will resume downloads if possible.
As docs state maybe it is default, but I put it to make sure it is set.
-i <- (--ignore-errors) Continue on download errors,
for example to skip unavailable videos in a playlist.
-w <- (--no-overtwrites) Do not overwrite files
(If something was already downloaded
and is present in the directory then continue with the next video)
-o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" <- (--output) Output filename template,
in this case it gives you file named movieTitle.mp3
where movieTitle is the title of the video on youtube.
-v <- (--verbose) Print various debugging information
--extract-audio <- (-x) Convert video files to audio-only files
(requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
--audio-quality 0 <- Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality,
insert a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for VBR or a specific
bitrate like 128K (default 5).
Youtube streams for nonpremium users with variable bitrate up to 160kbps in opus format.
Opus format is newer than mp3 and has better compression than mp3
preserving the same quality. So 160kbps opus = ~ 256kbps mp3.
When audio-quality is default (5 in 0-9 scale) mp3 bitrate
is limited to 160kbps which means that some sound quality is lost during compression.
When audio-quality is set to 0 mp3 goes up to 300kbps preserving original quality.
--audio-format mp3 <- Specify audio format: "best", "aac", "flac", "mp3", "m4a",
"opus", "vorbis", or "wav"; "best" by default; No effect without -x (--extract-audio).
In this case we choose mp3.
Alternatively you could choose for example flac which is loseless codec.
All links that I provided there are fake. I just put some random words encoded by base64 in them. So you have to replace them by your own links to make it work.
Hint:
Youtube-dl gives you opportunity to use your own youtube account to download stuff.
If your account is a premium account you can get
higher 320kbps opus bitrate which is equivalent of ~512kbps mp3.
Using your own account might be possible by setting --username and --pasword
(See Authentication Options in --help)
Note:
All of the above should be relevant for version 2021.12.17 of youtube-dl.
Newer versions might change something, so be aware of that.

Answer 3

Download best audio:
youtube-dl -f bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_y2jVPmPBw --output "out.%(ext)s"

Answer 4

This should give you the best sound quality:
youtube-dl --extract-audio "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWusmdmc0to"
I'd recommend not to specify any audio format. If you specify an audio format then that probably is different from the original encoding and you will lose sound quality.

Answer 5

I use a bat file in windows, which passes the youtube url through to a preset list of arguments to download the highest quality audio stream and save it as MP3.
batch file contains:
youtube-dl -f bestaudio -x --audio-format mp3 %*
save the batch file in the same dir as youtube-dl (I save it as youtube-mp3.bat) in the same directory have ffmpeg installed
Whenever I want to download audio (Usually for me a youtube DJ Mix) I just pass the (youtube) URL to the batch file. Saves having to remember what arguments to use each time.
youtube-mp3 https://www.youtube.com/?v=xxxxxx

Answer 6

You can try to download audio with desired format by
youtube-dl -f m4a https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=ZtrEWtk9kbo
command.
Sometimes ffmpeg is required.

Answer 7

I personally currently use
youtube-dl -f bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0
which is a nice combination of all the other answers.
I created the alias youtube-dl-music by typing
alias youtube-dl-music='youtube-dl -f bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0'
Hopefully this helps those in a need for a quick command to copy and paste.

Answer 8

Check whether you have ffmpeg package installed from your side by below methods.
sudo apt install ffmpeg
sudo pip install ffmpeg
After above i got like below:
youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qmnh5C4Pmo
[youtube] 6Qmnh5C4Pmo: Downloading webpage
[download] Destination: Pipenv Crash Course-6Qmnh5C4Pmo.f248.webm
[download] 100% of 33.19MiB in 00:26
[download] Destination: Pipenv Crash Course-6Qmnh5C4Pmo.f251.webm
[download] 100% of 15.15MiB in 00:09
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "Pipenv Crash Course-6Qmnh5C4Pmo.webm"
Deleting original file Pipenv Crash Course-6Qmnh5C4Pmo.f248.webm (pass -k to keep)
Deleting original file Pipenv Crash Course-6Qmnh5C4Pmo.f251.webm (pass -k to keep)

Answer 9

Although you can get the best audio like this:
$ youtube-dl -f bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-cwdnsiow
You can also get the worst video with the best audio like this:
$ youtube-dl -f worstvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-cwdnsiow
Or you can separate the best audio and best video into two separate files like this:
$ youtube-dl -f bestvideo,bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-cwdnsiow
Better yet, you can seek out the best video within what you would consider reasonable and combine it with the audio:
$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-cwdnsiow

Answer 10

This works for me for sites providing audio in the M4A (MPEG-4 audio) format (e.g. YouTube, Facebook video):
youtube-dl -f "bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]" -x "https://..."
Since it doesn't specify --audio-format, youtube-dl won't do any reencoding, thus it doesn't lose audio quality. However, it may happen the video is available in a better quality (with a different ext=...).