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The headliner

Paste a link. Keep the song.

Drop in one link or a hundred. Videos, Shorts and full playlists all work. MacAMP pulls the audio, converts it to the format you like and, if you want, adds it to your library the moment it's done.

Download for Mac Full guide
The MacAMP Downloads queue with three synthwave tracks converting to M4A in parallel and a long list of tracks waiting below.

How it works

  1. Open Downloads in the sidebar and press +, or choose File › Add Download.
  2. Paste your links, one per line. Single videos, Shorts and playlist links can be mixed in the same paste.
  3. Press Add. Tracks show up in the queue right away. Titles, channel names and thumbnails fill in a moment later.
The Add YouTube Links sheet with a playlist link and a single video link pasted in.

MacAMP cleans up the paste for you. Duplicates are dropped, links it can’t read are skipped, and the same video showing up in two playlists only downloads once. If you’ve grabbed something before, you’ll get a gentle “you already downloaded 2 of these”. It’s a heads-up, not a block.

Whole playlists, no surprises

Paste a playlist and MacAMP counts what’s actually in it before anything is queued. You’ll see the real number and decide: add them all, or skip the playlist and keep the rest of your paste.

A sheet explaining that the pasted link is a playlist holding 195 videos, with Skip Playlist and Add 195 Videos buttons.
195 videos? MacAMP tells you before it starts.

Playlists are capped at 500 tracks. If one is longer, MacAMP offers the first 500 and says so plainly. It never trims a list behind your back.

downloads running at once
1–4
tracks per playlist link
500
output formats
4

The queue

Active downloads run side by side, three by default, with a real progress bar for both the download and the conversion step. Waiting tracks sit underneath. Drag them to reorder, right-click to remove one, or pause the whole queue and come back later. Each active row has its own cancel button, so stopping one doesn’t stop the rest.

The History tab keeps every finished download with its format and quality. Reveal the file in Finder, re-download it, or clear the list. Clearing history never touches the files.

Format and quality

Format Quality Good to know
M4A (AAC) Best, High, Medium The default. Plays everywhere.
MP3 Best, High, Medium For older players and car stereos.
Opus Best, High, Medium When YouTube already serves Opus, MacAMP copies it as-is with no re-encode.
FLAC Lossless Always lossless, so there’s nothing to pick.

Changing the format only affects downloads you add afterwards. Anything already queued finishes the way it started.

Settings › Downloads with the save folder, Add finished downloads to my library, format, quality and simultaneous downloads.

Where the files go

Downloads land in ~/Music/MacAMP Downloads unless you pick another folder. That folder stays yours: MacAMP won’t scan it on its own.

To have new downloads show up in your library straight away, turn on Add finished downloads to my library. Each file is imported the moment it’s saved. Prefer to keep them separate? Leave it off and add the folder to your library whenever you like.

Engine updates

The download engine updates itself. Every update is checked against a SHA-256 checksum and rolled back automatically if anything looks off. Updates wait politely until no downloads are running.

A word on fair use

Only download audio you have the right to download, and respect the terms of the sites you use. MacAMP is a tool. What you point it at is up to you.