4 Quick Ways to Convert YouTube to FLAC (Online Free Included)

There are plenty of entertaining or informative videos released on YouTube. Watching YouTube videos is wonderful, but sometimes you need to convert these YouTube videos to audio formats, like FLAC. If you want to figure out how to download and convert YouTube to FLAC with high quality, here are 4 YouTube to FLAC converters picked for you.

The Best YouTube to FLAC Converter for Mac

For a Mac user, there are both online and offline solutions available to convert a YouTube video to FLAC format. However, according to most of the users, desktop standalone YouTube to FLAC programs are always the best way out, like Cisdem Video Converter, it just simplifies the process while getting you the best result.

Cisdem Video Converter is an all-in-one and straightforward video application with the ability to download, convert, edit and merge videos on Mac. It’s capable of downloading videos from most popular streaming websites like YouTube, Twitch, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Instagram, Twitter, Crunchyroll, etc. Plus, it supports virtually all common audio and video formats, also it can highly maintain the original video quality during conversion.

Benefits of the app:

• Download YouTube and other online videos from 1000+ websites
• Download 720p, 1080p, 4K, or even 8K videos from YouTube
• Download YouTube playlist videos in batches-
• Convert online YouTube to M4A, MP3, FLAC, MP4, MOV, iTunes, etc.
• Convert YouTube to optimized preset for almost all of the devices like iPhone, Android phones.
• Rip DVDs from both homemade videos and copy-protected videos
• Batch download & convert & compress videos as well as batch rip DVDs & Blu-rays
• Edit videos easily (crop, rotate, watermark, subtitles, effects, etc.)

Update: Cisdem Video Converter is now also available on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Free Download   Free Download

How to Download YouTube Videos on Mac:

Download and install Cisdem Video Converter onto your Mac, and then run it.

Head over to YouTube.com and grab the URL of the YouTube video you want to download from the address bar.

Return to Cisdem Video Converter and go to the 3rd interface with the icon.

Paste the URL you copied from YouTube, parse it and choose the format. Click the icon to start downloading YouTube video.

Note: You can go to "File > Input URLs" to add multiple YouTube videos to the download list and cope with them in batches.

How to Convert YouTube to FLAC on Mac:

After the download is complete, click the icon to open the folder where the downloaded YouTube videos are stored.

Switch to the 1st interface, and drag-n-drop the downloaded videos into the Cisdem Video Converter .

• Convert individual YouTube video to FLAC: click the “Output Format” icon next to the video thumbnail > choose “General Audio” > “FLAC Audio”.
• Export all videos as FLAC at once: click on the format menu at the left bottom of the interface > select “General Audio” > “FLAC Audio”.

Note: Batch conversion is available, so you have the ability to process more than one YouTube video. If you need to combine all files into one for better enjoyment, please enable the "Merge " option at the bottom.

Click the gear icon next to the FLAC format to bring up the “Setting” window. Now, you can begin to adjust the audio parameters, such as Quality, Encoder, etc.

Finally, click on the button to change YouTube videos to FLAC on Mac. The whole process takes the shortest time possible depending on file size.

If you want to do simple editings for you video, you can use the built-in edit function to trim videos into several clips, customize the video brightness, contrast, saturation, and more.

Get the free trial of Cisdem Video Converter.

Free Download   Free Download

 

The Best YouTube to FLAC Converter for Windows

With one of the greatest video converters for Windows- Wonderfox HD Video Converter Factory Pro, you will realize that YouTube video to FLAC converting process can be finished within such a short time. Besides converting YouTube to FLAC, it offers 300 formats, codec and devices to be chosen as well.

Main Features of Wonderfox HD Video Converter Factory Pro:

• Download videos from YouTube and other mainstream video sharing sites;
• Convert YouTube and other videos to 300 formats;
• Support 4K videos;
• Allow basic editing: remove parts, create clips, merge files, add effects;
• Fast and high-quality conversion;

How to Convert YouTube to FLAC on Windows PC:

1. Download and install the HD Video Converter Factory Pro on your Windows computer.
2. Run the software and select the “Downloader” option.
3. Click on "+ New Download", and it will pop up a small dialog box.
4. Add the YouTube URL you want to download to the “Paste URL” box and start to analyze.
5. Once the analysis finished, you can begin to download by clicking “Ok” > “Download All”.
6. Get back to software main interface. Choose the “Converter” option.
7. Click the “Add Files” button, and import the downloaded YouTube videos.
8. Head to the output format section. From the open list, select FLAC as a target audio format.
9. Click the “Run” button in the lower right corner and wait for the complement of the conversion.

 

The Best YouTube to FLAC Converter Online Free (2 Tools)

Before going to the 2 top free tools to convert YouTube to FLAC online, here are some basic things you need to know about online converters, you will notice that it is not easy to find and use such a web-based service.

Part One. Things You Need to Know about Online Free YouTube to FLAC Converter

For sure, everyone wants to find and utilize an online tool to get their tasks done. However, after studying and testing dozens of online free tools, we come to the following conclusions.

1. Available YouTube to FLAC free online converters are quite small in quantity

I spent hours online to find appropriate tools for YouTube video to FLAC conversion, but only 2 of them allow users to directly download and convert a YouTube video to FLAC. Others don’t support exporting the YouTube videos as FLAC format, most of them just support exporting as MP4, MP3, and WEBM.

2. Convert2mp3 fails to convert YouTube video to FLAC

Convert2mp3 is an online video converter and it does allow users to convert an online YouTube video to FLAC, however, it doesn’t work at all, no matter which output format you choose for the YouTube, it just allows users to save as MP3.

As you can find in the following screenshot, I input the YouTube URL and choose output as FLAC. After clicking the Convert button, the program just indicated that the MP3 file was ready for download. It doesn’t work out at all.

3. Onlinevideoconverter fails to convert YouTube to FLAC

Onlinevideoconverter is another online free tool claiming to convert YouTube file to FLAC format directly. Yet, in all my tests, it failed to convert my YouTube videos.

As you can see, I follow the on-page instructions to input YouTube URL and choose output as FLAC.

However, no matter how many times I tried or which YouTube URL I input, it just failed to convert the videos. Anyway, you can have a try, maybe the failure is only caused by specific YouTube videos.

4. There are still good YouTube to FLAC converters…

Though Convert2mp3 and Onlinevideoconverter fail to work, there are still good online tools to save YouTube file to FLAC format, but you will need 2 online free tools, an online free YouTube downloader to get the videos first, and an online free video converter to save the file as FLAC then. To convert YouTube to FLAC online free, please keep reading the following part.

Part Two. 2 Best YouTube to FLAC Converter Online Free

#1 Y2mate+Zamzar

Y2mate is an online YouTube downloader to save YouTube videos as MP4 or MP3 format, while Zamzar offers free services to convert all kinds of files, including MP3 to FLAC.

• Step 1. Navigate to y2mate;
• Step 2. Input the YouTube video URL, click “Start”
• Step 3. Choose format as MP3 and download the MP3 format;
• Step 4. Go to Zamzar;
• Step 5. Import the MP3 file, choose output as FLAC, then click “Convert”;
• Step 6. Then download the FLAC file once the conversion finishes.

#2 Flvto+ Zamzar

Flvto is another popular website to download YouTube videos fast and well, it supports exporting YouTube as MP4, MP3, and AVI. Once you have downloaded the YouTube as MP3 using flvto, you still need to utilize Zamzar to convert the MP3 file to FLAC format.

• Step 1. Go to flvto;
• Step 2. Input the YouTube video URL, choose output as MP3;
• Step 3. Click “Convert to” to save YouTube video as MP3 format;
• Step 4. Then go to Zamzar;
• Step 5. Add the MP3 file and select output as FLAC, then click “Convert Now”.

Disadvantages of Online YouTube to FLAC Converter

• Can't directly convert YouTube video to FLAC format
• Unable to make conversions in batch
• The Converting speed would be slow if you are going to convert large files
• The potential risk of losing the quality of the FLAC audios

 

Extended Knowledge: FLAC VS MP3

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer-3) both work as a popular audio format to play music on different devices. But they are different in 4 ways:

1. FLAC uses lossless compression to keep all the audio information of the original file, nothing is sacrificed; while MP3 uses lossy compression to shave off some parts of the music to make it smaller;
2. FLAC is relatively large in size since it needs to store all the information as the original, while MP3 is smaller in size;
3. FLAC is a perfect format for CDs, to contain all the details for a professional and pleasant music playing, while MP3 is a standard format to be played on all kinds of players;
4. Virtually all media players support MP3 file, but not all of them can support playing FLAC files;

So, it is hard to tell if FLAC is better than MP3, it depends on what’s your priority and which device you are using to play the audios.

 

Does YouTube support lossless audio? What is the highest audio quality on YouTube?

The short answer is No. When you upload video to YouTube, it will automatically compress the audio, and quality will reduced during the peocess. often they will compress the audio to 192kbps. in other words, lossy. If you convert the lossy YouTube audio to FLAC, the audio quality will not be improved. and converting to FLAC is not worthy, it will just get a larger size file with the same lossy quality.

As for the highest YouTube audio quality, AAC is the default audio format for streaming services like YouTube. The best quality will come it you save the video as AAC.

 

Conclusion

Although free YouTube to FLAC converters can bring some conveniences to us, its limitation can’t be erased. To solve the issue once and for all, you’d better use a professional software- Cisdem Video Converter for Mac. With this all-in-one Mac YouTube to FLAC converter, everything will get brighter and easier. and it is the only app that also supports downloading YouTube videos in it's origianl format and quality. For more supplementary content, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.