Extract Music from a YouTube Video

Brian writes, "I want to download just the music from YouTube. How do you separate the video from the music?"

There's no easy way to strip the audio out of a YouTube video while it's still on the Web. It's far easier to first download the video to your computer and then strip the audio once the video is on your computer. Since the new version of RealPlayer integrated video downloading the download process is remarkably easy. Once the video is downloaded, you then strip the audio and convert it to MP3, WMA or your favorite audio format.

To make this as easy as possible you need two software applications:
The free version of RealPlayer and a freeware app called WinFF.

Setting Up RealPlayer for YouTube Downloads

After downloading RealPlayer you need to install the application. During the install process you will be prompted to enable the browser download button. You must turn this on for the video downloading to work.

Once you install RealPlayer, open the YouTube page with the video you want to get music from. Hover your mouse over the video you want to download and a little link will pop-up over the video offering to download the video like the one pictured below. Click this link to download the video.

After the download completes the video will be in your My Videos folder (or Videos in Vista) in a folder called RealPlayer Downloads.

Removing Audio from a Video with WinFF

Open WinFF to remove the audio from your video. If you are using Windows Vista, you need to right-click the WinFF icon in the Programs list and choose Run as Administrator.

Browse to the RealPlayer Downloads folder and add the video you want to remove audio from. After adding the video file, choose MP3 (audio only) from the Choose Format to Convert to list. Pick a destination folder for the MP3 (your desktop is a good choice because it's easy to find). Click the Start converting button. When the conversion finishes, you'll have an MP3 of the audio from the YouTube video.