Primarily known as a video platform, YouTube also hosts the world’s largest music catalog with over 100 million songs and music videos. Listening to YouTube music online is convenient, but sometimes we want to save our favorite songs and playlists for offline, ad-free listening. While YouTube doesn’t allow music downloads on Mac, this article provides 4 solutions to help you easily download music from YouTube to your Mac. You’ll be able to save YouTube songs to your own library for offline playback on Mac, or transfer to other devices and enjoy anywhere.
iFunia YouTube Downloader is a reliable and versatile software designed to download online videos and music from YouTube and similar sites. Whether you want to download high-definition music videos or an entire playlist and full albums, it can easily do it for you.
Main features of the best YouTube music downloader for Mac:
Free Download macOS 10.11 or later
Step 1. Download and launch iFunia YouTube Downloader on your Mac.
Step 2. Copy and paste the URL of a YouTube music video into the box and press Enter. You can add unlimited clips by repeating this step.
Step 3. Click the “Format” drop-down list to choose your preferred output format. To download only audio, select M4A with the highest sound quality from the list.
Step 4. Click the Download 
button to initiate the YouTube music download to Mac.
Tips:
1. After the download is completed, quickly locate the downloaded files by clicking the Check icon.
2. You can directly add the downloaded YouTube music files to iTunes/Apple Music library. So you can seamlessly transfer YouTube music to iPhone and other portable devices for enjoyment on the go.
Free Download macOS 10.11 or later There are some free websites options for downloading YouTube videos and audio without installing any program on your Mac. This section introduces two capable YouTube music download sites, each with their own advantages and limitations.
Y2down is a web-based service that can download video and music from YouTube. It allows you to download a music video as 1080P MP4, and also download audio to MP3, M4A files. The downside is that you can only download one song at a time. And beware of the ad pop ups each time you click Download button.
To download with Y2down:
As its name suggests, Savemp3.net is a website to convert YouTube music and videos to MP3 files. This free YouTube music downloader allows you to download an entire YouTube playlist or album with a single URL. It also offers selecting MP3 bitrates of 128, 256 or 320kbps. The extra feature is trimming the video by moving the markers or inserting number of seconds.
To download YouTube music to MP3 on Mac:
Addoncrop YouTube Video Downloader is a free browser extension that combines the features of a YouTube videos downloader and a YouTube to MP3 converter. It allows you to download music from YouTube to Mac in either MP4 or MP3 formats. You can use this extension tool in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and here is a guide for Chrome users:
Terminal is a command-line interface included in your macOS system. With the help of a command-line program called yt-dlp, you can download YouTube music with a simple Terminal command on Mac. yt-dlp, a widely used fork of the now inactive project youtube-dl, lets you download YouTube music videos, playlists and extracting audio with simple terminal commands.
To get started: (the italicized lines are commands that you can copy and paste)
Step 1. Install yt-dlp through Homebrew, a software that can easily install command line utilities you need on macOS.
Open Terminal, paste this command line and press Enter to install Homebew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Once it’s done, install yt-dlp via Homebrew: brew install yt-dlp
Step 2. Use yt-dlp to download music from YouTube to Mac.
First, navigate to the folder where you want to save the downloads (e.g. desktop) with cd desktop.
Then you can download music from YouTube with the following basic commands:
Tip: To extract audio, install FFmpeg via brew install ffmpeg. And more advanced usages of yt-dlp can be found online.
| iFunia YouTube Downloader | Y2down.cc | Savemp3.net | Browser extension | yt-dlp | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download YouTube music audio |
✔ (original quality) |
✔ (128 kbps) |
✔ (MP3) |
✔ (MP3) |
✔ (with FFmpeg) |
| Download YouTube music video | ✔ | ✔ | × | ✔ | ✔ |
| Download playlists in one go | ✔ | × | ✔ | × | ✔ |
| Multi-thread download | ✔ | × | × | × | × |
| Support for many websites | ✔ | × | ✔ | × | ✔ |
While YouTube itself doesn’t provide desktop music downloads, this guide has demonstrated 4 methods for easily downloading music from YouTube to Mac. Web-based converters work well for individual songs, but a dedicated download program offers more advanced features for playlists and bulk downloads.
Now you can go browse YouTube for your favorite tunes and start filling your library via one of these tools!
1. Why can’t I download YouTube music on Mac with YouTube Music Premium?
First, there is no desktop YouTube Music app for Mac. YouTube Music Premium only allows downloading songs for offline play on mobile devices. Also, since you don’t really own the downloaded music files, they can’t be transferred to desktop either. A a third-party downloader is need to download music tracks from YouTube to Mac.
2. Which method is the fastest for downloading music from YouTube?
The fastest option is determined by your network speed and program features. Online converters are handy for single songs, while dedicated download software like iFunia YT Downloader can be more efficient for downloading playlists in bulk.
3. Can the music quality be affected during the download?
Yes, the music sound quality can diminish slightly - especially when you’re converting a video to a lossy audio format like MP3. Most tools recommended above offer options to select your desired audio quality. To preserve a best quality, just choose the highest available option when downloading music.
Chloe LEE is good at explaining and solving complex technology problems to her readers. Since joining iFunia Studio, she has focused on writing articles about video and DVD software, and how-to tutorials.
