Despite being a video hosting site, the most searched topic on YouTube is actually music. Even if we exclude all the official music videos, YouTube is still home to millions of audio-only uploads. YouTube pretty much doubles as a music streaming service these days.

But the downside is that the music is still in video form, so streaming can end up wasting a lot of bandwidth. (Painful if you have monthly data caps.) Which is why you should convert YouTube videos into MP3 files.

By converting and downloading YouTube videos as MP3 files, you can listen as often as you want without wasting any data. Here are the best online YouTube to MP3 converters for music.

1. YouTube Premium

Before you jump into using an online YouTube to MP3 converter---which is legally gray---consider paying for a YouTube Premium account.

It comes with many useful benefits, such as unlimited streaming access to Google Play Music, but the one we're interested in is the ability to download YouTube videos for offline playback.

And with a YouTube Premium account, you can actually choose to listen to only audio streams for YouTube videos as long as you do so through the YouTube Music app. And yes, you can download music and playlists for offline playback in YouTube Music.

The one downside is that downloaded videos and music only last for 30 days. You can always download them again, but it can be something of a hassle. See our article on what you should know about YouTube Premium.

2. Peggo

Peggo is our favorite tool on this list because it offers unique features: once you paste in a YouTube video URL, you're taken to an editing page where you can customize what you want to capture.

Meaning, you can select the start and end points in the video and Peggo's resulting MP3 will only be for the selected section. You can also set a title and artist for the MP3, plus toggle whether you want to remove silence, normalize the volume, and automatically fill in the rest of the metadata (e.g. album name, album art, etc).

Instead of using an MP3 splitter tool to cut your MP3s down to size, you can do it right from the start with Peggo.

3. Vubey

Vubey is a strong runner-up to Peggo because it isn't just easy to use, but gives you a choice in what quality the resulting MP3 should be: Low (64kbps), Medium (128kbps), Good (192kbps), High (256kbps), and Highest (320kbps).

Paste the URL of the YouTube video, select a quality, and click Convert to MP3. Give it a few seconds to execute the conversion (if there's a queue, you'll have to wait longer), then click the download link.

Vubey supports over 400 sites, with the main ones being YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo, DailyMotion, and Facebook.

4. YoutubeMp3HQ [No Longer Available]

There's one thing that YoutubeMp3HQ offers that no other converter on this list does, and that's the option to download the converted audio file in AAC, M4A, and WAV formats in addition to the ubiquitous MP3 format.

Just paste in the video URL, click Convert, and let it work its magic. It will attempt to download the audio in the highest possible quality, and it works pretty well most of the time.

5. Flvto

With Flvto, simply copy and paste the YouTube video URL into the box and mark the checkbox agreeing to the terms and conditions. Then, select the kind of conversion you want: MP3, MP4, MP4 HD, AVI, or AVI HD.

Yes, Flvto can download the videos as they are, even if they're high-quality. When you're ready, click Convert To to start the conversion process.

When it's finished, you can download the MP3 directly, send it over to your Dropbox account, or send a download link to someone else through email.

6. Vid2Mp3

Vid2Mp3 is short on features but reigns in convenience. Just copy and paste any YouTube video's URL into the box and click Go. But first make sure you enable the checkbox agreeing to the site's terms and conditions.

Once the conversion is complete, you'll be given a link that leads to a preview of the MP3 plus a giant Download MP3 button. Click it and you're done!

Unfortunately, while Vid2Mp3 tries its best, the audio quality can vary from video to video---even if the videos themselves are HQ.

7. ytmp3.cc

Like Vid2Mp3, ytmp3.cc is as simple as they come. Paste in the video URL and click Convert. No options to fiddle with. No decisions that need to be made. It's one click and ready to go. It supports both MP3 (audio) and MP4 (video) conversions.

When it's done, you can download the file directly or have it sent over to your Dropbox account. Note that while there aren't many scenarios where you'll hit this restriction, ytmp3.cc only supports videos up to 2 hours long. For anything longer, you'll need to use one of these other sites.

Tools for Managing Your MP3 Music Library

Once you've downloaded all of the MP3s you want, consider using these awesome music management tools to handle tasks like ID3 tagging and mass renaming of files.

You should also look into Windows music players, Mac music players, Android music apps, and iOS music apps. After all, what good is having a massive collection of MP3s if you don't have a good way to play them?