4 youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com
8 youtube-dl [options] url ...
12 youtube-dl is a script to download videos from youtube.com.
14 Once it is installed in your system, you should be able to call it from
15 the command line. Usage instructions are easy. Use youtube-dl followed
16 by a video URL or identifier. As an example, consider:
18 youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar"
20 The video will be saved to the file C<foobar.flv> in that example. Many
21 YouTube.com videos are in Flash Video format and their extension would
22 be C<flv>. Other videos are encoded in H.264 and these usually have the
23 extension C<mp4>. In Linux and other unices, video players using a
24 recent version of ffmpeg can play them. That includes MPlayer, VLC,
29 B<youtube-dl> accepts options in the following categories
35 Print help text and exit.
39 Print program version and exit.
41 =item -i, --ignore-errors
43 Ignore errors during download and continue processing.
45 =item -r B<L>, --rate-limit=B<L>
47 Limit the download speed to the specified maximum B<L> (e.g., 50k or 44.6m).
49 =item -u B<UN>, --username=B<UN>
51 Specify the youtube account username B<UN>. Some videos require an
52 account to be downloaded, mostly because they're flagged as mature
55 =item -p B<PW>, --password=B<PW>
57 Like the username, specifies the account password to be B<PW>.
61 Get authentication data from the standard unix .netrc file on the user's
62 home directory. The machine name is youtube in regarding this usage.
64 =item -f FMT, --format=FMT
66 Specify the video format (quality) in which to download the video. Note
67 that not all videos are available in all formats.
69 =item -b, --best-quality
71 Download the best video quality available for the video(s) specified by
74 =item -m, --mobile-version
76 Synonymous to the option "-f 17", to download videos playable on some
81 Synonymous to the option "-f 37", to download videos in HD quality
86 Activates quiet mode, avoiding many messages being written to the
91 Simulate the operation, but do not download the video. Useful for
96 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the URL that would be
97 used to download the video. Can be used with other download tools like
100 =item -e, --get-title
102 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the title of the video
103 that would be downloaded.
107 Use the title of the video in the file name used to download the video.
111 Use the literal title of the video in file name used to download the
112 video. Can contain "weird" characters that are not filtered like with
115 =item -o B<TPL>, --output=B<TPL>
117 Specify a template B<TPL> for the names of the files to be created when
118 they are downloaded. The default filename is video_id.flv. But you can
119 also use the video title in the filename with the C<-t> or C<--title>
120 option, or preserve the literal title in the filename with the C<-l> or
123 =item -a B<F>, --batch-file=B<F>
125 Specify the name of a file containing URLs of videos to download from
126 youtube in batch mode. The file must contain one URL per line.
128 =item -w, --no-overwrites
130 Do no overwrite already existing files.
134 Resume partially downloaded files.
138 =head1 OUTPUT TEMPLATE
140 The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file
141 names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when
142 downloading a single file, like in youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv
143 "http://some/video". However, it may contain special sequences that will
144 be replaced when downloading each video.
146 The special sequences have the format C<%(NAME)s>. To clarify, that's a
147 percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a
148 lowercase S. Allowed names are:
154 The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
158 The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
162 The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded
167 The sequence will be replaced by the literal video title.
171 The sequence will be replaced by a simplified video title, restricted to
172 alphanumeric characters and dashes.
176 The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like C<flv>
181 The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
185 As you may have guessed, the default template is C<%(id)s.%(ext)s>. When
186 some command line options are used, it's replaced by other templates
187 like C<%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s>. You can specify your own.
191 youtube-dl was written by Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez and many contributors
192 from all around the internet. This manpage was written by Rogério Brito
193 <rbrito@users.sf.net>.