How to copy free music from Youtube using Xubuntu Operating System. Part 1 of 3.

[Kurt7]

18 July 2025, at 3:25 P.M.

What I'm trying to accomplish. ...
I want to listen to music at work. I have purchased a GOgroove Portable Speaker with USB flash drive (MP3) music player.
I'm using the latest version of Xubuntu (64 Bit) Operating System.
I would like to copy some music from YouTube.com.
I have also purchased four 32 GB flash drives.
I would like to copy this music onto these four flash drives.

... What software (free or pay versions) do you recommend I use on my computer?
I need to download this music from the internet to my hard drive. ...
... Then, copy this music onto the four flash drives.
... What do you recommend?

I have done some research on this subject. ...
A. Flvto software, B. Clipgrab software. C. Offliberty software. D. Zamzar software. and finally, E. FRE:AC software.
Which on of these would you recommend? Or, do you have a sixth option?

 

[GatorsFan]

I use yt-dlp to grab music off of you tube the use audacity to convert it to mp3

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

 

[bob466]

You can use Video Downloader...

Or ytDownloader...

Both do audio and video.

 

[theLegionWithin]

I've had success using Parabolic - https://github.com/NickvisionApps/Parabolic - to rip astronomy podcasts off of youtube into mp3's - I then copy them to my radio and listen to them while falling asleep.

 

[KGIII]

You can also find a bunch of websites that will let you download .mp3 files with varied bit rates.

The problem with that is that they're manual, though I believe some do entire playlists. It'd be a labor of love and you'd really need to want the music to go through all of that.

 

[Kurt7]

I use yt-dlp to grab music off of you tube the use audacity to convert it to mp3

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

18 July 2025, at 11:08 P.M.

I tried to download yt - dip / yt - dip directly from the website.
I had trouble trying to download the software.

... Using the Operating Systems Terminal. ...
What do I need to type into the command line?

 

[Kurt7]

You can use Video Downloader...

View attachment 27059

Or ytDownloader...

View attachment 27060

Both do audio and video. View attachment 27061

18 July 2025, at 11:09 P.M.

I downloaded the software you recommended.
I will be playing with it over the weekend.
Thank You for your advice.

 

[Kurt7]

I've had success using Parabolic - https://github.com/NickvisionApps/Parabolic - to rip astronomy podcasts off of youtube into mp3's - I then copy them to my radio and listen to them while falling asleep.

18 July 2025, at 11:10 P.M.

I downloaded the software you recommended.
I will be playing with it over the weekend.
Thank You for your advice.

 

[coyotl]

Youtube-Downloader works, this is a gui for yt-dlp and should draw in an updated copy of yt-dlp and use that for backend automagically. IDK but maybe all or most of these gui downloaders use yt-dlp now? It kinda works until YT makes some change that blocks it. Then I use 4K downloader for windoze etc

 

[GatorsFan]

18 July 2025, at 11:08 P.M.

I tried to download yt - dip / yt - dip directly from the website.
I had trouble trying to download the software.

... Using the Operating Systems Terminal. ...
What do I need to type into the command line?
In the terminal type in

yt-dlp -F then copy and paste in website

this will display all the available formats then it is a matter of picking one
here is sample from You Tube The Scorpions and their song The Zoo

You want Audio Only and on the very left side you will see a set of numbers in green so in this instance we want 140 audio only m4a format - so that syntax will be
yt-dlp -f 140 then paste in website
and it will only take a couple of minutes to download - next is to open that file up in Audacity and convert it to mp3

 

[theLegionWithin]

18 July 2025, at 11:10 P.M.

I downloaded the software you recommended.
I will be playing with it over the weekend.
Thank You for your advice.

FYI - occasionally youtube will change something and block downloads. Parabolic is in active development so just give it a few days when that happens.

 

[KGIII]

I've been playing with Stacher over the past couple of days. It's a yt-dlp front-end and does quite well.

You can even download a whole playlist in flac.