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.
43 Update this program to the latest stable version.
45 =item -i, --ignore-errors
47 Ignore errors during download and continue processing.
49 =item -r B<L>, --rate-limit=B<L>
51 Limit the download speed to the specified maximum B<L> (e.g., 50k or 44.6m).
53 =item -R B<R>, --retries=B<R>
55 Number B<R> of retries for a given download (default is 10).
57 =item -u B<UN>, --username=B<UN>
59 Specify the youtube account username B<UN>. Some videos require an
60 account to be downloaded, mostly because they're flagged as mature
63 =item -p B<PW>, --password=B<PW>
65 Like the username, specifies the account password to be B<PW>.
69 Get authentication data from the standard unix .netrc file on the user's
70 home directory. The machine name is youtube regarding this usage.
72 =item -f B<FMT>, --format=B<FMT>
74 Specify the video format (quality) in which to download the video. Note
75 that not all videos are available in all formats.
77 =item -b, --best-quality
79 This option is deprecated, does nothing currently, and is expected to be
80 removed in a next release, as it is the current behavior of youtube-dl.
82 =item -m, --mobile-version
84 Synonymous to the option "-f 17", to download videos playable on some
89 Downloads all formats for which a video may be available.
91 =item --max-quality=B<FMT>
93 Limit the maximum quality of the videos to downloads to B<FMT>.
97 Activates quiet mode, avoiding many messages being written to the
102 Simulate the operation, but do not download the video. Useful for
107 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the URL that would be
108 used to download the video. Can be used with other download tools like
111 =item -e, --get-title
113 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the title of the video
114 that would be downloaded.
116 =item --get-thumbnail
118 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but print the URL of of the video's
121 =item --get-description
123 Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but print the description of the
128 Do not print the progress bar during downloads.
132 Use the title of the video in the file name used to download the video.
136 Use the literal title of the video in file name used to download the
137 video. Can contain "weird" characters that are not filtered like with
140 =item -o B<TPL>, --output=B<TPL>
142 Specify a template B<TPL> for the names of the files to be created when
143 they are downloaded. The default filename is video_id.flv. But you can
144 also use the video title in the filename with the C<-t> or C<--title>
145 option, or preserve the literal title in the filename with the C<-l> or
148 =item -a B<F>, --batch-file=B<F>
150 Specify the name of a file containing URLs of videos to download from
151 youtube in batch mode. The file must contain one URL per line.
153 =item -w, --no-overwrites
155 Do no overwrite already existing files.
159 Resume partially downloaded files.
163 =head1 OUTPUT TEMPLATE
165 The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file
166 names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when
167 downloading a single file, like in youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv
168 "http://some/video". However, it may contain special sequences that will
169 be replaced when downloading each video.
171 The special sequences have the format C<%(NAME)s>. To clarify, that's a
172 percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a
173 lowercase S. Allowed names are:
179 The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
183 The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
187 The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded
192 The sequence will be replaced by the literal video title.
196 The sequence will be replaced by a simplified video title, restricted to
197 alphanumeric characters and dashes.
201 The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like C<flv>
206 The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
210 As you may have guessed, the default template is C<%(id)s.%(ext)s>. When
211 some command line options are used, it's replaced by other templates
212 like C<%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s>. You can specify your own.
216 youtube-dl was written by Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez and many contributors
217 from all around the internet. This manpage was written by Rogerio Brito
218 <rbrito@users.sf.net>.