Of course, it would be reductive to describe YouTube as a popular website for music lovers. Its collection of content covering topics such as food, fashion, tech, art, science, travel, tutorials, news stories and more just keeps growing everyday. You don’t even have to leave the site and visit the rest of the Internet to stay updated on the what’s happening around the globe. But your data plan might be a problem sometimes. This is where tools like the online YouTube video downloader Y2Mate and similar options come in handy.
How To Convert Videos To MP3?
So why store content locally on your mobile device or computer if you can stream it and thus save on memory space? Maybe your network connection is spotty when commuting. Or as mentioned above, maybe your data plan is too costly to justify streaming that favorite video or song over and over again.
If you combine the two issues of a limited data plan and having an entire YouTube video taking up storage when you just want to listen to the audio, downloading and converting videos on YouTube to MP3 may feel like a far better idea. YouTube already allows you to download certain videos for offline viewing through its mobile app (region-restricted).
But this official YouTube tool does not let you transform videos into small, audio files. Here’s where software that lets you convert videos to MP3 files is necessary. There are plenty of websites as well as Android and iOS apps that allow you to do this. How do you determine which option will serve you best?
Make sure that you have a reliable and updated antivirus tool on your device first. Do not download software or apps from sites that ask for more personal details than absolutely required such as your email ID. It’s preferable to use an application that can deal with downloads from multiple sources such as YouTube, Vimeo and Instagram, for example. And always look for a utility that has a free version you can try before committing to it.
In case your limited data plan is not the problem and you merely want to download a video from YouTube, just launch VLC media player, press Ctrl+N to Open Network Stream from the Media tab. Paste the desired link and play it. While it’s doing this, select Tool > Codec Information and copy everything that appears in the ‘Location’ box. Now paste this temporary link in your browser (works in Chrome, but not in Firefox currently). It will give you an option to download the file in up to 1080p resolution onto your device.
Is It Legal To Download YouTube Videos?
Before you go, there’s probably one question still on your mind. Is it illegal to download YouTube videos? If anyone tells you that it’s not legal at all, they’re wrong. It’s true that content creators earn money by the ads they place in their videos. This is why YouTube’s terms of service state that users cannot download videos from the site. But this applies to copyright-protected content.
Just search for public domain, royalty free or non-copyrighted videos and music on YouTube. You will see that the site hosts a rich cache of content that you may download and use. Additionally, a lot of contributors take the trouble to explicitly state whether or not the videos they upload can be downloaded, converted, modified or reused in any way by other users.
Some folks argue that it is not wrong to download and convert YouTube videos to MP3 or other formats as long as it’s for their personal use and the content is not being shared or distributed for profit. But that’s strictly a gray area and it is definitely more preferable to ask the owner for permission to download their content.