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This is not about downloading YouTube videos.

I used to record YouTube videos as WAV while they were playing in my browser and then convert to MP3 on my laptop with jetAudio. But now I have an old PC which doesn't let me do that. I tried jetAudio but no luck, I guess it's because of the built-in sound card.

Any other programs you know that may let you do that? And doing so I think it's legal since I'm not downloading them.

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  • Why did you do the hard way? You can download the .mp3 version of the video instead. Application/program like that exists out there.
    – meisyal
    Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 2:37
  • But it's illegal, youtube was designed as an online experience and downloading videos is illegal, I know there are services that convert YT videos into mp3, but I don't know how legal is that, I'm pretty sure it's illegal.
    – Marina Dunst
    Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 4:08
  • an old PC How about specifying that? Please edit your question and include OS, price you are willing to pay, etc. meta.softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/336/…
    – user416
    Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 9:46
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    And if you are sure converting YT video to mp3 it is illegal, why do your method is legal?
    – user416
    Commented Aug 16, 2015 at 9:47
  • 1
    Could you give your sound card specs? If it has an audio input, you could try connecting it to the speaker output via such a cable
    – Tymric
    Commented Aug 20, 2015 at 9:30

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There is a marvellous command line program/python library called youtube-dl which will let you download and convert to audio only from youtube & other sites.

Available for multiple platforms as written in python but there is a windows executable that includes python. You may also need to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package and FFMPEG and have FFMPEG on your path or in the same directory as the youtube-dl executable.

For audio only simply call as: youtube-dl -x --audio-format MP3 url_of_item

e.g.: 

youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otXGqU4LBEI

Would download and convert leaving you with: "I would walk 500 miles - The Proclaimers-otXGqU4LBEI.mp3"

The question of the legality of keeping such material is subject to the original material, the country you are in, the use the you make of it, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

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