SponsorBlock
YouTube to MP3 without the sponsor segments
Podcasts and long videos on YouTube carry sponsor reads. AudioFetcher can use the community SponsorBlock database to remove those sponsor sections from the audio you download, or mark them as chapters so you can skip them in your player.
How SponsorBlock conversion works
SponsorBlock is a crowd-sourced database of timestamps that volunteers submit for sponsored segments. AudioFetcher asks that database for the video you paste and applies the sponsor segments during conversion.
- 1Paste the video link
Any single public video. Choose MP3, M4A, Opus, FLAC or MP4.
- 2Open Prepare files and set SponsorBlock
Pick Remove sections to cut them out, or Mark sections to keep the audio but add chapter markers at each segment.
- 3Fetch
The server downloads the source, applies the segments with yt-dlp's SponsorBlock post-processor, and encodes once.
- 4Check the result
Removed segments shorten the file. Marked segments appear as chapters in players that show them.
Coverage depends on volunteers: popular channels are usually well covered, small or brand-new uploads may have no segments yet, and then the file is unchanged. Turn SponsorBlock off when you use My chapter markers, since removing audio would shift your timestamps. Free conversions cover single videos up to 60 minutes. Use only videos you own or have permission to download.
Questions
Why did nothing get removed?
No SponsorBlock segments exist for that video yet, or the submitted segments are still pending community votes. The conversion still succeeds.
Which segment types are handled?
The sponsor category only: paid promotions and sponsor reads. Intros, outros and self-promotion segments are left in place, so the file matches what most listeners want to skip without cutting real content.
Is this the same as the browser extension?
The SponsorBlock browser extension skips segments while you watch. AudioFetcher applies the same data to the downloaded audio, so the file you keep is already clean.
Does removing segments re-encode the audio?
The source is decoded and encoded once to your chosen format either way. Removing segments happens in that same pass, so there is no extra generation loss.