YouTube Music Downloader

The Actor saves public YouTube and YouTube Music audio as MP3, M4A, or WebM and returns one compact track record with a retained file URL.

Audio saving is always enabled for this Actor. Each URL is resolved to its video ID, the best compatible audio stream is selected, and the completed file is stored in the run's key-value store. Optional transcript and subtitle data can be attached without turning the result into a full video-format record.

Accepted YouTube Music links

urls accepts regular YouTube watch URLs, YouTube Music watch URLs, shortened youtu.be links, Shorts, embed and live URLs, and bare 11-character video IDs.

YouTube Music links copied from an album or playlist are supported. For example:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Gef1KePPRoI&list=OLAK5uy_nq81InQBifozkEJvDr7L9K3kURX7BfMlo

The Actor extracts Gef1KePPRoI and downloads that track. The list parameter supplies browsing context only; it does not cause the whole album or playlist to be downloaded.

Input fields

Field	Type	Default	Behaviour
urls	array	required	Public YouTube Music or YouTube URLs, or bare video IDs. Duplicate entries are removed.
region	string	US	Required two-letter country code used to retrieve the audio, such as US, IN, or DE.
audioFormat	enum	mp3	Saved format: mp3, m4a, or webm.
includeTranscript	boolean	false	Adds timed transcript segments and combined text when available. This is not guaranteed song lyrics.
subtitleLanguage	string	empty	Adds one available VTT caption track matching the supplied language code.

{
  "urls": [
    {
      "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Gef1KePPRoI&list=OLAK5uy_nq81InQBifozkEJvDr7L9K3kURX7BfMlo"
    },
    { "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU" }
  ],
  "region": "US",
  "audioFormat": "mp3",
  "includeTranscript": false
}

Audio format behaviour

mp3 converts the strongest compatible source audio to 192 kbps MP3 and writes the video title and channel title as file metadata when present.

m4a preserves the best available MP4/AAC audio stream without re-encoding. webm preserves the best available WebM/Opus audio stream without re-encoding. Source-preserving formats avoid conversion, but availability depends on the streams returned for the track.

Track records

Each successful audio file produces one dataset row.

Field	Contents
id, url	Video ID and canonical YouTube watch URL.
title, description	Public track or video text.
accessCountry	Country used to retrieve the audio.
durationSeconds, viewCount, isLive	Duration, reported views, and live-content state.
channel	Channel ID, title, and canonical channel URL.
savedFile	Retained audio file identity, format, codecs, bitrate, size, billing size, and public URL.
transcript	Optional combined text and timed segments.
subtitle	Optional language metadata and VTT content.

{
  "id": "Gef1KePPRoI",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gef1KePPRoI",
  "accessCountry": "US",
  "isLive": false,
  "savedFile": {
    "key": "Gef1KePPRoI-audio.mp3",
    "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/...",
    "contentType": "audio/mpeg",
    "container": "mp3",
    "codecs": ["mp3"],
    "bitrate": 192000,
    "bytes": 4194304,
    "sizeMb": 4,
    "billedMb": 4
  }
}

The dataset deliberately omits thumbnail collections, expiring direct formats, and video-only streams. Those fields are not needed after the audio file has been retained.

Failure handling and billing

An input for which no public track is returned is skipped, and processing continues with the remaining URLs.

If no compatible audio stream can be saved, the track is omitted from the dataset. Failed audio saves are not billed. Billing follows successful work:

• one track result event after a completed track is added to the dataset;
• one saved-audio event per billed MB, rounded up to the next whole MB, only after storage succeeds;
• one transcript-or-subtitle event when a transcript, a subtitle, or both are successfully attached.

Transcript and subtitle lookups are optional. An unavailable transcript or a missing subtitle language leaves that field absent without preventing the saved audio result.

Choosing the related YouTube Actor

• YouTube Video Downloader returns normalized direct formats or saves a playable video with audio.
• YouTube Transcript Scraper returns transcript text and optional subtitle files without downloading audio.
• YouTube Video Scraper returns broader public video metadata and optional enrichments.
• YouTube Playlist Scraper expands a playlist into separate video records before selected tracks are downloaded.

Only public media that may lawfully be downloaded should be processed.