🎵 YouTube Audio Splitter

Transform YouTube videos into perfectly split audio tracks with just a timestamp file!

🚀 Features

• 🎯 Single Download - Downloads the YouTube video only once, saving bandwidth and time
• ✂️ Precise Splitting - Split audio at exact timestamps with millisecond precision
• 📝 Simple Format - Use a plain text file with timestamps and track names
• 🎨 Customizable Quality - Choose from 128, 192, 256, or 320 kbps MP3
• 📁 Organized Output - Automatically numbers tracks and creates output directories
• 🌍 Unicode Support - Handles international characters in track names
• ⚡ Efficient - Uses pydub for fast audio processing

📋 Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• FFmpeg
• yt-dlp
• pydub

🛠️ Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/youtube-audio-splitter.git
   cd youtube-audio-splitter

2. Install Python dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Install FFmpeg:

• Windows: Download from FFmpeg website or use Chocolatey to install: choco install ffmpeg
• macOS: brew install ffmpeg
• Linux: sudo apt install ffmpeg

📖 Usage

Basic Usage

1. Create a tracklist file (tracks.txt):

   0:00:00 - Opening Theme
   0:03:45 - Epic Battle
   0:07:30 - Victory Celebration
   0:11:15 - Closing Credits
   

2. Run the splitter:

   python youtube_audio_splitter.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" tracks.txt

Advanced Options

# Custom output directory
python youtube_audio_splitter.py "URL" tracks.txt -o "Album Name"

# Different quality settings
python youtube_audio_splitter.py "URL" tracks.txt -q 192

# Keep the original downloaded file
python youtube_audio_splitter.py "URL" tracks.txt -k

Command Line Options

Option	Description	Default
url	YouTube video URL	Required
tracklist	Text file with timestamps	Required
-o, --output-dir	Output directory name	output
-q, --quality	MP3 bitrate (128/192/256/320)	320
-k, --keep-original	Keep the complete audio file	False

⚠️ Important Notes

1. 320kbps is the maximum quality for MP3
2. Not all YouTube videos have audio quality sufficient to justify 320kbps
3. yt-dlp will always download the best available quality and convert to the specified bitrate
4. For music, 320kbps is ideal; for podcasts or narration, 192kbps may be sufficient

📝 Tracklist Format

The tracklist file supports various formats:

# Comments start with #
# Format: TIMESTAMP - TRACK NAME

0:00:00 - First Track
03:45 - Second Track       # HH:MM:SS or MM:SS
7:30 | Third Track         # Various separators supported
11:15 : Fourth Track
1:23:45 - Long Track       # Supports hours

🎯 Use Cases

• 📀 Album Splits - Split full album uploads into individual tracks
• 🎙️ Podcast Chapters - Extract specific segments from long podcasts
• 🎼 Music Mixes - Split DJ sets or compilation videos
• 📚 Audiobook Chapters - Divide audiobooks into chapters
• 🎓 Educational Content - Extract specific lessons from long tutorials

💡 Pro Tips

Quality Guidelines:

• 320 kbps: Best for music (2.4 MB/min)
• 192 kbps: Good balance (1.4 MB/min)
• 128 kbps: Fine for speech (1 MB/min)

Practical example:

A 60-minute album will result in approximately:

• 128 kbps: ~60 MB
• 192 kbps: ~84 MB
• 256 kbps: ~114 MB
• 320 kbps: ~144 MB

Timestamp Accuracy

YouTube's audio might have slight variations, so add 1-2 seconds padding if needed

Batch Processing

Create a shell script to process multiple videos:

#!/bin/bash
python youtube_audio_splitter.py "URL1" album1.txt -o "Album 1"
python youtube_audio_splitter.py "URL2" album2.txt -o "Album 2"

File organization

Recommended structure:

project/
├── youtube_audio_splitter.py
├── tracklists/
│   ├── album1.txt
│   ├── album2.txt
│   ├── audiobook.txt
│   └── podcast.txt
└── output/
    ├── album1/
    ├── album2/
    ├── audiobook/
    └── podcast/

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This tool is for personal use only. Please respect copyright laws and YouTube's Terms of Service. Only download content you have permission to use.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• yt-dlp - YouTube downloading backend
• pydub - Audio processing
• FFmpeg - Audio conversion

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Made with ❤️ by Vitor R. Di Toro"

If you find this tool useful, please consider giving it a ⭐!