Audacity Record from YouTube with Explicit Guidance

Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application, available for Windows, macOS, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Thanks to its popularity and high performance, it’s considered as the best audio-recording software to capture audio from YouTube. As a newbie to the recording filed, it’s common that you don’t know more Audacity and let alone how to use it. That’s why we write this post to talk about this topic – Audacity record from YouTube.

How to Record YouTube with Audacity

Step 1: First and foremost you need to have Audacity running on your personal computer. Download the installation package from its official website and follow the wizard to finish the process. Audacity is used by many users as a YouTube recorder to extract audio from YouTube video.

Step 2: Open audacity and start with configuring the program to record audio from YouTube. Hit Edit option on the top menu and click on the preferences section. Thanks to its utility and features, it is still the go-to choice for quick-and-dirty audio work.

Step 3: It will turn to a new window with a number of options for configuring your sound settings. Now switch to the Recording section where you’ll find options for setting interface, playback and recording. Here you are advised to select stereo mix and set the channel to stereo by selecting the 2 (stereo) from the menu drop.

Step 4: It is suggested that you load the video fully before beginning the recording process. Open the page of the video you’re interested in, click on the play button to make sure the connection is fast enough to play video without interruption. Now it’s time to record YouTube videos on your PC by hitting Record button.

Step 5: When everything is down, press the stop button on Audacity program. Then this file can be exported and saved to a device with the MP3 file format.

● Problems and solutions for audacity troubleshooting

1. I cannot find the option for stereo mix under devices.

You might find the stereo mix section is missing on your devices section of audacity. No worries! You can enable stereo mix on your Windows 10 by following steps as below. Go to the control panel of your computer >>Hardware and Sound section >> switch to Sound section. Now go the Recording tab and right click with the mouse on the blank space of the screen. From the drop-down menu, choose Show Disabled Devices option. You will find Stereo Mix Device option on the screen and right click on this device to hit Enable option.

Since Microsoft intentionally removes Stereo Mix from its drivers, you may fail to bring it back even after following the enabling procedure above or reinstalling driver/system. If you still want to leverage this function, you will have to download another Stereo-Mix-available version of sound driver card or contact the support from the PC manufacturer like Dell, HP, Lenove, Acer and Toshiba to download and install the right driver having Stereo Mix. Another workable way is to change the Devices as Windows WASAPI/ Windows DirectSound for audio capture.

2. What format can I use to save YouTube videos?

You can record your YouTube videos as MP3/WAV/OGG by exporting. Audacity is only accessible to extract audio file. Therefore, if you want to download YouTube videos as other format like MP4, you should look for the other way.

● Record YouTube with Audacity alternative

If you can’t enjoy the benefit of Audacity or find it’s tedious to use Audacity, one handy audacity alternative is RecMaster which you can use to record either YouTube live streaming video, music audio or other available contents. As the easiest YouTube screen recorder, it embraces a number of features that audacity doesn’t offer. Here you can download it to have a try.

1. How to record audio from YouTube using Audacity alternative

Step 1: Download and install RecMaster. After that open this application and there are five options for you (four for Mac): Full screen, Game mode, Custom area, Audio only and webcam. Here you need to select Audio only as your choice.

Step 2: Start to make configuration. RecMaster provides different audio formats for different system version. For Windows user, you can save YouTube audio as MP3/WAV format. For Mac user, CAF and M4A are two options RecMaster supported. If you want to capture your voiceover along the recording, directly turn on the microphone button.

Step 3: Right click REC button to capture audio recording. If you don’t want to sit in front of the computer during the whole process, you can preset an audio recording by using the task schedule tool.

Step 4: When everything is captured, press Stop icon to end the recording process.

Now you’ve got the YouTube audio file on your computer.

2. How to record video from YouTube using Audacity alternative

RecMaster also processes the characteristic to record YouTube video as MP4 without security problem on your computer. Whether full screen or custom area recording is available with RecMaster and you can make any adjustment to your recording with the built-in editor.

Step 1: Make sure that RecMaster is already running on your computer. If not download the installation package and complete the whole process.

Step 2: Full screen is our suggestion to record YouTube video for better viewing. If you want to record any particular region, set Custom area at the one-go option.

Step 3: Select the format for your recording like MP4/FLV/AVI (for Windows), MP4/MOV/M4V (for Mac). To get rid of the noise impact, remember to turn off the microphone button for YouTube video recording.

Step 4: Hit the REC button instantly or use the keyboard combination Alt+1/Command+1 to start. As soon as the recording task is complete, click the Stop menu and your recorded file is saved in the Recording list where you can edit the file for further processing.

Conclusion

Recording YouTube with audacity is a good choice if you don’t want to take a penny from your pocket. However, we sincerely recommend RecMaster to perform YouTube recording activities for higher utility.

See also:
How to Record Discord Audio on Computer
Explicit Guide About Audacity Record Computer Audio