How to download an entire YouTube playlist as a single mp3 file?

Question

What are recommended solutions to download an entire YouTube playlist as a single .mp3 file? I open to solutions other than youtube-dl.

Dear @Ev1l0rd, I am open to solutions other than youtube-dl. — orschiro, Mar 04 '16 at 21:05
What works, that works. There is no reason youtube-dl isn't a good solution. The reason there aren't any other solutions is that they are unnecessary because a perfectly usable tool already exists. — Durandal, Mar 04 '16 at 21:34
Another interesting option to look at is alltomp3-cli. It aims to provide deb packages for easier installation in the near future. — orschiro, Mar 05 '16 at 13:16
To reopen reviewer: This question is not the same as and requires at least one additional step compared to the supposed duplicate link. See my answer for an example. — David Foerster, May 01 '21 at 00:37
So, a combination of the current dupe and https://askubuntu.com/q/20507? Can someone edit the dupe list here? — muru, May 01 '21 at 06:08

David Foerster · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-05T16:41:01.853

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You can download playlists with youtube-dl in MP3 format as described in how to download playlist from youtube-dl?, e. g.:

youtube-dl -cix --audio-format mp3 -o '%(playlist_title)-%(playlist_id) - %(playlist_index) - %(title)-%(id).%(ext)' -- 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLttJ4RON7sleuL8wDpxbKHbSJ7BH4vvCk'

You can then use FFmpeg to concatenate those files:

printf "file '%s'\n" *.mp3 | ffmpeg -f concat -i - -codec copy all.mp3

It's a little more difficult with Avconv since it doesn't support the concat format:

avconv -i "concat:$(printf '%s|' *.mp3 | head -c -1)" -codec copy all.mp3

edited Mar 05 '16 at 16:41

answered Mar 04 '16 at 17:03

David Foerster

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Isn't it necessary to use --yes-playlist option? – Mostafa Ahangarha Mar 04 '16 at 17:21
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I tried those commands while writing the answer and they work as expected – David Foerster Mar 04 '16 at 18:30
Is it worthwhile to add --audio-quality xx to the youtube-dl commandline? – andrew.46 Mar 04 '16 at 23:34
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youtube-dl downloads the best quality by default. It is up to you if you want to specify the quality – Mostafa Ahangarha Mar 05 '16 at 14:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 16:52

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If you download each individual video as an .mp3 you can just run this command to combine them:

cat 1.mp3 2.mp3 3.mp3 4.mp3 [and so on] > combined.mp3

answered Mar 04 '16 at 16:52

Daniel

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Have you ever done this before and were you able to then play the combined.mp3 without issue? – earthmeLon Mar 04 '16 at 17:21
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Yes, I do this all the time. – Daniel Mar 04 '16 at 17:30

How to download an entire YouTube playlist as a single mp3 file?

2 Answers2