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How can I download a video without it's audio track, ideally with the ability to choose what level of quality the video will be downloaded in.

Edit: I realize that selecting the quality may be the same as in other questions, but my main question is how to get a video without it's audio.

anonymous2
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Glass Wizzard
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    Run youtube-dl -F URL to get a list of available formats for video/audio, then choose the one you want and get it using youtube-dl -f [format-number] URL like: youtube-dl -f 43 URL. – Ravexina Mar 30 '19 at 11:01
  • When you list the formats using -F you will see a list and some of the formats listed will say "audio only" and some will say "video only". Just choose the format number listed on the left of the one that says "audio only". – mchid Jun 17 '19 at 03:34
  • ANSWER: Step 1: youtube-dl -F URL_TO_YOUR_VIDEO (shows list of numbered options, some of which say "video only" next to the video size on the far right ) 2. Download video only: youtube-dl -f [option you want, e.g. 136] – Nic Scozzaro Jul 07 '20 at 01:30

2 Answers2

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youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and other sites that don't provide direct links to the videos served. To install youtrube-dl in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu run the following command:

sudo apt install youtube-dl

In addition to serving normally formatted videos with an embedded audio track, YouTube also serves videos with the audio and video tracks separated into two separate files. To download the video only without the audio run the following command to list all available video formats. 

youtube-dl -F <video-URL>

Replace <video-URL> with the URL of the video that you want to download. Select a video format that says video only after it. In the following example I use the format code 160 which downloads mp4 video only, no audio.

youtube-dl -f 160 <video-URL>

Format code 160 is a low quality video, but there are usually several higher quality formats available for YouTube videos.

karel
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The level of quality has been covered in the question linked; however, I do not believe that this is entirely duplicate, as the other question does not cover downloading without sound.

There are plenty of online tools which will allow you to do such tasks, such as savefrom; just paste the link to the youtube video and select one of the options with the red audio symbol in the dropdown next to download. You should be set to go.

anonymous2
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  • Wait for it to be closed and then we'll reopen it. If they can get 5 close voters to degrade the quality of answers at Ask Ubuntu, then we can get 3 more reopen voters to elevate it. – karel Mar 30 '19 at 15:55
  • Yes... Really, not sure why it would be closed as a dupe of that question... it would have been far better to simply edit out the duplicate part of the question, especially as that was not the OP's original question. Also, great answer; I was trying to find a way with youtube-dl but ran out of time. Also unsure why it's got a downvote on it... – anonymous2 Mar 30 '19 at 17:47
  • The question didn't get one downvote, it got two downvotes. – karel Mar 30 '19 at 22:48