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1 % YOUTUBE-DL(1)
2
3 # NAME
4 youtube-dl
5
6 # SYNOPSIS
7 **youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
8
9 # DESCRIPTION
10 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
11 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
12 2.x (x being at least 6), and it is not platform specific. It should work in
13 your Unix box, in Windows or in Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
14 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
15
16 # OPTIONS
17 -h, --help print this help text and exit
18 --version print program version and exit
19 -U, --update update this program to latest version
20 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors
21 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT download rate limit (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
22 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
23 --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16k) (default
24 is 1024)
25 --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer size. By
26 default, the buffer size is automatically resized
27 from an initial value of SIZE.
28 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
29 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
30 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs they
31 would handle
32
33 ## Video Selection:
34 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
35 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
36 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or caseless
37 sub-string)
38 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
39 caseless sub-string)
40 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
41
42 ## Filesystem Options:
43 -t, --title use title in file name
44 --id use video ID in file name
45 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
46 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from 00000
47 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to get the
48 title, %(uploader)s for the uploader name,
49 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically incremented
50 number, %(ext)s for the filename extension,
51 %(upload_date)s for the upload date (YYYYMMDD),
52 %(extractor)s for the provider (youtube, metacafe,
53 etc), %(id)s for the video id and %% for a literal
54 percent. Use - to output to stdout. Can also be
55 used to download to a different directory, for
56 example with -o '/my/downloads/%(uploader)s/%(title
57 )s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
58 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and
59 avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
60 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for stdin)
61 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
62 -c, --continue resume partially downloaded files
63 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files (restart
64 from beginning)
65 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
66 --no-part do not use .part files
67 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set the file
68 modification time
69 --write-description write video description to a .description file
70 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
71
72 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
73 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
74 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write anything
75 to disk
76 --skip-download do not download the video
77 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
78 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
79 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
80 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
81 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
82 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
83 --no-progress do not print progress bar
84 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
85 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
86
87 ## Video Format Options:
88 -f, --format FORMAT video format code
89 --all-formats download all available video formats
90 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific one is
91 requested
92 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
93 -F, --list-formats list all available formats (currently youtube only)
94 --write-srt write video closed captions to a .srt file
95 (currently youtube only)
96 --srt-lang LANG language of the closed captions to download
97 (optional) use IETF language tags like 'en'
98
99 ## Authentication Options:
100 -u, --username USERNAME account username
101 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
102 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
103
104 ## Post-processing Options:
105 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files (requires
106 ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
107 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", or "wav";
108 best by default
109 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification, insert a
110 value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for VBR or a
111 specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
112 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the post-
113 processing; the video is erased by default
114
115 # CONFIGURATION
116
117 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as `--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or `~/.local/config/youtube-dl.conf`.
118
119 # OUTPUT TEMPLATE
120
121 The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format `%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
122
123 - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
124 - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
125 - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
126 - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
127 - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
128 - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
129 - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
130 - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
131
132 The current default template is `%(id)s.%(ext)s`, but that will be switchted to `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` (which can be requested with `-t` at the moment).
133
134 In some cases, you don't want special characters such as 中, spaces, or &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the `--restrict-filenames` flag to get a shorter title:
135
136 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
137 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
138 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
139 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
140
141 # FAQ
142
143 ### Can you please put the -b option back?
144
145 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you''re interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
146
147 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
148
149 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We''re [considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
150
151 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
152
153 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
154
155 ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
156
157 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the `--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use `--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
158
159 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
160
161 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
162
163 ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
164
165 youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
166
167 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
168
169 The error
170
171 File "youtube-dl", line 2
172 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
173
174 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
175
176 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
177
178 Since June 2012 (#342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to `youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the `__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run `make youtube-dl`.
179
180 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
181
182 To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
183
184 # COPYRIGHT
185
186 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
187
188 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.
189
190 # BUGS
191
192 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>
193
194 Please include:
195
196 * Your exact command line, like `youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title"`. A common mistake is not to escape the `&`. Putting URLs in quotes should solve this problem.
197 * The output of `youtube-dl --version`
198 * The output of `python --version`
199 * The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu 11.04 x64" or "Windows 7 x64" is usually enough).
200
201 For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.