AudioTube

Listen to YouTube as audio only, with a queue, playlists and a side panel player.

Listen to YouTube the way you listen to a podcast. AudioTube turns YouTube into an audio player. Switch on Audio only and the video disappears while the sound keeps playing. Line up what comes next in a queue, keep favourites in playlists, and control it all from Chrome's side panel while you work, read or browse in other tabs. Lectures, interviews, talk shows, audiobooks, music mixes, language lessons, sermons, sleep sounds: a lot of YouTube is meant to be heard, not watched. AudioTube is made for exactly that. ▶ AUDIO ONLY, WITH ONE SWITCH • Hide the video and keep the sound. One switch in the side panel, or Ctrl+Shift+Y. • Save bandwidth: while you listen, AudioTube asks YouTube for its lowest video quality, so you spend less data on pictures you are not looking at. Turn it off in Settings if you prefer. • Audio only is one setting for the whole browser. Turn it on once and it stays on, for every video. • Keep listening with the YouTube tab in the background. You never need to go back to it. ▶ A PLAYER IN THE SIDE PANEL Open AudioTube from Chrome's toolbar and the player sits beside whatever you are doing: • Play, pause, previous and next • A progress bar you can drag to seek, with elapsed and total time • Volume and mute • Speed from 0.5× to 2×, for slow listening or quick catch-ups • Sleep timer: stop after 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, or at the end of the current video • Loop one video, or loop the whole queue • The title, channel, thumbnail, views and age of what is playing • Stop, to pause and set a video aside without losing your queue If Chrome unloads the YouTube tab to save memory, AudioTube remembers where you were. Press Resume and it picks up from the same moment. ▶ A QUEUE THAT KEEPS GOING Build a list of what to hear next, from wherever you find it: • From YouTube thumbnails and watch pages, with AudioTube's own button • From any YouTube link on any website: right-click it and choose "Add to AudioTube queue" or "Play next in AudioTube" • By pasting one or many YouTube links into the side panel • With a keyboard shortcut for the video you are watching Then arrange it your way: • Drag to reorder, or use the keyboard (Alt and the arrow keys) • Play now, play next, move to top or bottom, remove, shuffle or clear • Undo for the last change, in case you remove the wrong video • When the queue runs out, keep playing what YouTube suggests, or stop. Your choice, in Settings. • Videos that have become unavailable are skipped for you, with a short note saying so Your queue is kept even after you restart the browser. ▶ PLAYLISTS OF YOUR OWN • Up to 10 playlists, with up to 1000 videos each • "Listen later" is ready from the start, for anything you want to come back to • Save a video to a playlist from a thumbnail, a watch page or the player • Play a playlist, play it shuffled, or add all of it to the queue • Rename a playlist, reorder its videos, filter them by title or channel, and remove the ones you are done with • Export a playlist to a file to keep a copy or move it to another computer, and import it again later ▶ LIGHT OR DARK, YOUR COLOUR • Light, dark, or follow your computer's setting • Choose an accent colour for the switches, buttons and progress bar: red, orange, teal, or any colour you pick ▶ KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS • Ctrl+Shift+Y: audio only on or off • Ctrl+Shift+U: play or pause • Ctrl+Shift+→: next • Ctrl+Shift+←: previous • Add the current video to the queue: choose your own key Change any of them on Chrome's shortcuts page. The buttons in the side panel show their shortcut when you hover over them. ▶ PRIVATE BY DESIGN AudioTube has no account, no server, no analytics and no advertising of its own. • Your queue, playlists and settings are stored only in your browser, on your device. • Nothing about what you watch or listen to is ever sent anywhere. • The only things that leave your device are a playlist you choose to export to a file, and a feedback message you choose to send from Settings. To show a video's title and thumbnail, AudioTube loads them from YouTube itself, just as YouTube's own pages do. ▶ GOOD TO KNOW • AudioTube works on youtube.com in Google Chrome (version 116 or later). • It plays YouTube's own player, so YouTube's ads, if any, still play as YouTube shows them. AudioTube does not block or skip ads. • If YouTube stays at its lowest quality after you remove AudioTube, open the gear menu on a YouTube video, choose Quality, then Auto. ▶ FEEDBACK Found a problem or have an idea? Send it from Settings → Send feedback. If AudioTube makes your listening easier, a rating on this page helps others find it. ▶ CHANGELOG 2.0.1 (October 2026) - Fixed: when a video ends and nothing plays next, AudioTube now shows "Nothing playing" instead of holding the finished video. The next video you add starts playing straight away. - Fixed: with YouTube's own autoplay off, AudioTube no longer waits on a video that has ended. 2.0.0 (October 2026) - Rebuilt from the ground up, with a new side panel: player, queue and playlists. - Playlists: up to 10, with play, shuffle, export and import. - A queue you can drag to reorder, with Play next, shuffle and Undo, and videos added from thumbnails, watch pages, any YouTube link or a keyboard shortcut. - Keep playing or stop when the queue ends; loop one video or the whole queue; sleep timer. - Light and dark themes with your own accent colour. - Keyboard shortcuts, and Send feedback in Settings. - Bookmarks and listening stats from 1.0.0 are not in this version yet; they're planned to return. ▶ NOTE AudioTube is an independent extension and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google. YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC.