+[](https://travis-ci.org/rg3/youtube-dl)
+
youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
-# SYNOPSIS
-**youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
+- [INSTALLATION](#installation)
+- [DESCRIPTION](#description)
+- [OPTIONS](#options)
+- [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
+- [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
+- [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
+- [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
+- [FAQ](#faq)
+- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
+- [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
+- [BUGS](#bugs)
+- [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
# INSTALLATION
-To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
+To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, macOS, etc.), type:
- sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
- sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+ sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
- sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+
+Windows users can [download an .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in any location on their [PATH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29) except for `%SYSTEMROOT%\System32` (e.g. **do not** put in `C:\Windows\System32`).
+
+You can also use pip:
-Windows users can [download a .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in their home directory or any other location on their [PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29).
+ sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dl
+
+This command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it. See the [pypi page](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/youtube_dl) for more information.
-OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
+macOS users can install youtube-dl with [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/):
brew install youtube-dl
-You can also use pip:
+Or with [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/):
- sudo pip install youtube-dl
+ sudo port install youtube-dl
-Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions below for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html .
+Alternatively, refer to the [developer instructions](#developer-instructions) for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see the [youtube-dl Download Page](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html).
# DESCRIPTION
-**youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
-YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
-2.6, 2.7, or 3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
-your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
-which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
+**youtube-dl** is a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS. It is released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
+
+ youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
# OPTIONS
- -h, --help print this help text and exit
- --version print program version and exit
- -U, --update update this program to latest version. Make
+ -h, --help Print this help text and exit
+ --version Print program version and exit
+ -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
sure that you have sufficient permissions
(run with sudo if needed)
- -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors, for example to
+ -i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
skip unavailable videos in a playlist
--abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
playlist or the command line) if an error
occurs
- --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
- --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs
- they would handle
+ --dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
+ --list-extractors List all supported extractors
--extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
extractors
- --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
- an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
- connection
- --socket-timeout None Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
+ --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
+ extractor
--default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
- from google videos for youtube-dl "large
+ from google videos for youtube-dl "large
apple". Use the value "auto" to let
youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
warning when guessing). "error" just throws
repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
this is not possible instead of searching.
--ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
- in the global configuration file /etc
- /youtube-dl.conf: do not read the user
- configuration in ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf
- (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt on
- Windows)
+ in the global configuration file
+ /etc/youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
+ configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
+ dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
+ on Windows)
+ --config-location PATH Location of the configuration file; either
+ the path to the config or its containing
+ directory.
--flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
only list them.
+ --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
+ --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
+ --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
+
+## Network Options:
+ --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
+ To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
+ scheme. For example
+ socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
+ string (--proxy "") for direct connection
+ --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
+ --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
+ -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
+ -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
+
+## Geo Restriction:
+ --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
+ some geo-restricted sites. The default
+ proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
+ option is not present) is used for the
+ actual downloading.
+ --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
+ X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
+ --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
+ faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
+ --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
+ explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
+ country code
+ --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
+ explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
+ notation
## Video Selection:
- --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
- --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
- --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or
+ --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
+ --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
+ --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
+ indices of the videos in the playlist
+ separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
+ 1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
+ indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
+ specify range: "--playlist-items
+ 1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
+ at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
+ --match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
caseless sub-string)
- --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
+ --reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
caseless sub-string)
--max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
--max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
(e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
- --date DATE download only videos uploaded in this date
- --datebefore DATE download only videos uploaded on or before
+ --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date
+ --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
this date (i.e. inclusive)
- --dateafter DATE download only videos uploaded on or after
+ --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
this date (i.e. inclusive)
--min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
COUNT views
--max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
COUNT views
- --no-playlist download only the currently playing video
- --age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given
+ --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Specify any key (see
+ the "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a list of
+ available keys) to match if the key is
+ present, !key to check if the key is not
+ present, key > NUMBER (like "comment_count
+ > 12", also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to
+ compare against a number, key = 'LITERAL'
+ (like "uploader = 'Mike Smith'", also works
+ with !=) to match against a string literal
+ and & to require multiple matches. Values
+ which are not known are excluded unless you
+ put a question mark (?) after the operator.
+ For example, to only match videos that have
+ been liked more than 100 times and disliked
+ less than 50 times (or the dislike
+ functionality is not available at the given
+ service), but who also have a description,
+ use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
+ dislike_count <? 50 & description" .
+ --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
+ to a video and a playlist.
+ --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
+ a video and a playlist.
+ --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
age
--download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
archive file. Record the IDs of all
(experimental)
## Download Options:
- -r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
+ -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
(e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
- -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
- --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
+ -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
+ "infinite".
+ --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
+ is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
+ ISM)
+ --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments (DASH, hlsnative
+ and ISM)
+ --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading when some fragment is not
+ available
+ --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
+ downloading is finished; fragments are
+ erased by default
+ --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
(default is 1024)
- --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer
+ --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
size. By default, the buffer size is
automatically resized from an initial value
of SIZE.
+ --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
+ downloading (e.g. 10485760 or 10M) (default
+ is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
+ bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
+ (experimental)
+ --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
+ --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
+ --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
+ expected file size
+ --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
+ ffmpeg
+ --hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
+ downloader
+ --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
+ allowing to play the video while
+ downloading (some players may not be able
+ to play it)
+ --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
+ Currently supports
+ aria2c,avconv,axel,curl,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
+ --external-downloader-args ARGS Give these arguments to the external
+ downloader
## Filesystem Options:
- -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
- stdin)
- --id use only video ID in file name
- -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from 00000
- -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to
- get the title, %(uploader)s for the
- uploader name, %(uploader_id)s for the
- uploader nickname if different,
- %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
- incremented number, %(ext)s for the
- filename extension, %(format)s for the
- format description (like "22 - 1280x720" or
- "HD"), %(format_id)s for the unique id of
- the format (like Youtube's itags: "137"),
- %(upload_date)s for the upload date
- (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
- (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
- video id, %(playlist)s for the playlist the
- video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
- position in the playlist and %% for a
- literal percent. %(height)s and %(width)s
- for the width and height of the video
- format. %(resolution)s for a textual
- description of the resolution of the video
- format. Use - to output to stdout. Can also
- be used to download to a different
- directory, for example with -o '/my/downloa
- ds/%(uploader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
- --autonumber-size NUMBER Specifies the number of digits in
- %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
- filename template or --auto-number option
- is given
+ -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
+ stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
+ with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
+ comments and ignored.
+ --id Use only video ID in file name
+ -o, --output TEMPLATE Output filename template, see the "OUTPUT
+ TEMPLATE" for all the info
+ --autonumber-start NUMBER Specify the start value for %(autonumber)s
+ (default is 1)
--restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
filenames
- -t, --title [deprecated] use title in file name
- (default)
- -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
- -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
- -c, --continue force resume of partially downloaded files.
+ -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite files
+ -c, --continue Force resume of partially downloaded files.
By default, youtube-dl will resume
downloads if possible.
- --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files
+ --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded files
(restart from beginning)
- --no-part do not use .part files - write directly
+ --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
into output file
- --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set
+ --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
the file modification time
- --write-description write video description to a .description
+ --write-description Write video description to a .description
file
- --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
- --write-annotations write video annotations to a .annotation
- file
- --write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
- --load-info FILE json file containing the video information
- (created with the "--write-json" option)
- --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie
+ --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
+ --write-annotations Write video annotations to a
+ .annotations.xml file
+ --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
+ (created with the "--write-info-json"
+ option)
+ --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
jar in
--cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
can store some downloaded information
- permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
- /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
- moment, only YouTube player files (for
- videos with obfuscated signatures) are
- cached, but that may change.
+ permanently. By default
+ $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
+ ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
+ YouTube player files (for videos with
+ obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
+ may change.
--no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
+## Thumbnail images:
+ --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
+ --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
+ --list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
+ formats
+
## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
- -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
+ -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
--no-warnings Ignore warnings
- -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write
+ -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
anything to disk
- --skip-download do not download the video
- -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
- -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
- --get-id simulate, quiet but print id
- --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
- --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
- --get-duration simulate, quiet but print video length
- --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
- --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
- -j, --dump-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
- See --output for a description of available
- keys.
- -J, --dump-single-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information
+ --skip-download Do not download the video
+ -g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
+ -e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
+ --get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
+ --get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
+ --get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
+ --get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
+ --get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
+ --get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
+ -j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
+ See the "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a description
+ of available keys.
+ -J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
for each command-line argument. If the URL
refers to a playlist, dump the whole
playlist information in a single line.
- --newline output progress bar as new lines
- --no-progress do not print progress bar
- --console-title display progress in console titlebar
- -v, --verbose print various debugging information
- --dump-intermediate-pages print downloaded pages to debug problems
- (very verbose)
+ --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
+ JSON (video is still being downloaded).
+ --newline Output progress bar as new lines
+ --no-progress Do not print progress bar
+ --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
+ -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
+ --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
+ to debug problems (very verbose)
--write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
files in the current directory to debug
problems
--print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
+ -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
+ --no-call-home Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for
+ debugging
## Workarounds:
--encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
- --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
+ --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
information about the video. (Currently
supported only for YouTube)
- --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
- --referer URL specify a custom referer, use if the video
+ --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
+ --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
access is restricted to one domain
- --add-header FIELD:VALUE specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
+ --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
option multiple times
--bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
or fribidi executable in PATH
+ --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
+ download when used alone or a lower bound
+ of a range for randomized sleep before each
+ download (minimum possible number of
+ seconds to sleep) when used along with
+ --max-sleep-interval.
+ --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep
+ before each download (maximum possible
+ number of seconds to sleep). Must only be
+ used along with --min-sleep-interval.
## Video Format Options:
- -f, --format FORMAT video format code, specify the order of
- preference using slashes: -f 22/17/18 . -f
- mp4 , -f m4a and -f flv are also
- supported. You can also use the special
- names "best", "bestvideo", "bestaudio",
- "worst", "worstvideo" and "worstaudio". By
- default, youtube-dl will pick the best
- quality. Use commas to download multiple
- audio formats, such as -f
- 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio
- --all-formats download all available video formats
- --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific
+ -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see the "FORMAT
+ SELECTION" for all the info
+ --all-formats Download all available video formats
+ --prefer-free-formats Prefer free video formats unless a specific
one is requested
- --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
- -F, --list-formats list all available formats
- --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifest on
- YouTube videos
+ -F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
+ videos
+ --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
+ related data on YouTube videos
+ --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
+ bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
+ container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
+ webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
## Subtitle Options:
- --write-sub write subtitle file
- --write-auto-sub write automatic subtitle file (youtube
- only)
- --all-subs downloads all the available subtitles of
- the video
- --list-subs lists all available subtitles for the video
- --sub-format FORMAT subtitle format (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt]
- youtube only)
- --sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download
- (optional) separated by commas, use IETF
- language tags like 'en,pt'
+ --write-sub Write subtitle file
+ --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file
+ (YouTube only)
+ --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
+ video
+ --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
+ --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
+ preference, for example: "srt" or
+ "ass/srt/best"
+ --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
+ (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
+ subs for available language tags
## Authentication Options:
- -u, --username USERNAME login with this account ID
- -p, --password PASSWORD account password
- -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR two-factor auth code
- -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
- --video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo, smotri)
+ -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
+ -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
+ out, youtube-dl will ask interactively.
+ -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
+ -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
+ --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
+
+## Adobe Pass Options:
+ --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
+ provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
+ a list of available MSOs
+ --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
+ --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
+ If this option is left out, youtube-dl will
+ ask interactively.
+ --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
+ operators
## Post-processing Options:
- -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files
+ -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
(requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
avprobe)
- --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a",
- "opus", or "wav"; "best" by default
- --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification,
- insert a value between 0 (better) and 9
- (worse) for VBR or a specific bitrate like
- 128K (default 5)
+ --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
+ "flac", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", "vorbis", or
+ "wav"; "best" by default; No effect without
+ -x
+ --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert
+ a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse)
+ for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
+ (default 5)
--recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
necessary (currently supported:
- mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv)
- -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the
- post-processing; the video is erased by
- default
- --no-post-overwrites do not overwrite post-processed files; the
+ mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
+ --postprocessor-args ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessor
+ -k, --keep-video Keep the video file on disk after the post-
+ processing; the video is erased by default
+ --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files; the
post-processed files are overwritten by
default
- --embed-subs embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
- videos)
- --embed-thumbnail embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
- --add-metadata write metadata to the video file
- --xattrs write metadata to the video file's xattrs
+ --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
+ webm and mkv videos)
+ --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
+ --add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
+ --metadata-from-title FORMAT Parse additional metadata like song title /
+ artist from the video title. The format
+ syntax is the same as --output. Regular
+ expression with named capture groups may
+ also be used. The parsed parameters replace
+ existing values. Example: --metadata-from-
+ title "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a
+ title like "Coldplay - Paradise". Example
+ (regex): --metadata-from-title
+ "(?P<artist>.+?) - (?P<title>.+)"
+ --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
(using dublin core and xdg standards)
+ --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
+ file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
+ emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
+ default; fix file if we can, warn
+ otherwise)
--prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
- postprocessors (default)
- --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
postprocessors
+ --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
+ postprocessors (default)
+ --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary;
+ either the path to the binary or its
+ containing directory.
--exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
downloading, similar to find's -exec
syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
/sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
+ --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
+ (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt|lrc)
# CONFIGURATION
-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 `~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the configuration file locations are `%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` and `C:\Users\<Yourname>\youtube-dl.conf`.
+You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux and macOS, the system wide configuration file is located at `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and the user wide configuration file at `~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the user wide configuration file locations are `%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` or `C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf`. Note that by default configuration file may not exist so you may need to create it yourself.
-# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
+For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under `Movies` directory in your home directory:
+```
+# Lines starting with # are comments
+
+# Always extract audio
+-x
+
+# Do not copy the mtime
+--no-mtime
+
+# Use this proxy
+--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
+
+# Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
+-o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s
+```
+
+Note that options in configuration file are just the same options aka switches used in regular command line calls thus there **must be no whitespace** after `-` or `--`, e.g. `-o` or `--proxy` but not `- o` or `-- proxy`.
+
+You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
+
+You can also use `--config-location` if you want to use custom configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
+
+### Authentication with `.netrc` file
+
+You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password with `--username` and `--password`) in order not to pass credentials as command line arguments on every youtube-dl execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a [`.netrc` file](https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on a per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a `.netrc` file in your `$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:
+```
+touch $HOME/.netrc
+chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
+```
+After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
+```
+machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
+```
+For example:
+```
+machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
+machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
+```
+To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
+
+On Windows you may also need to setup the `%HOME%` environment variable manually. For example:
+```
+set HOME=%USERPROFILE%
+```
-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:
+# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
- - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
- - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
- - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
- - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
- - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
- - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
- - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
- - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
- - `playlist`: The name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
- - `playlist_index`: The index of the video in the playlist, a five-digit number.
+The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names.
+
+**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
+
+The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to [python string formatting operations](https://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting). For example, `%(NAME)s` or `%(NAME)05d`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by a formatting operations. Allowed names along with sequence type are:
+
+ - `id` (string): Video identifier
+ - `title` (string): Video title
+ - `url` (string): Video URL
+ - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
+ - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
+ - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
+ - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
+ - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
+ - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
+ - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
+ - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
+ - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
+ - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
+ - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
+ - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
+ - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
+ - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
+ - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
+ - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
+ - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
+ - `comment_count` (numeric): Number of comments on the video
+ - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
+ - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
+ - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
+ - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
+ - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
+ - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by `--format`
+ - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
+ - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
+ - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
+ - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
+ - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
+ - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
+ - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
+ - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
+ - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
+ - `container` (string): Name of the container format
+ - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
+ - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
+ - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
+ - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
+ - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
+ - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
+ - `autonumber` (numeric): Five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero
+ - `playlist` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
+ - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
+ - `playlist_id` (string): Playlist identifier
+ - `playlist_title` (string): Playlist title
+ - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
+ - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
+
+Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
+
+ - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
+ - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
+ - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
+
+Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
+
+ - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
+ - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
+ - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
+ - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
+
+Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
+
+ - `track` (string): Title of the track
+ - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
+ - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
+ - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
+ - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
+ - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
+ - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
+ - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
+ - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
+ - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
+
+Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with `NA`.
+
+For example for `-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and an mp4 video with title `youtube-dl test video` and id `BaW_jenozKcj`, this will result in a `youtube-dl test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4` file created in the current directory.
+
+For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for example, `%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in `00042`.
+
+Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. `-o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s'` which will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
+
+To use percent literals in an output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
The current default template is `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
In some cases, you don't want special characters such as äø, 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:
+#### Output template and Windows batch files
+
+If you are using an output template inside a Windows batch file then you must escape plain percent characters (`%`) by doubling, so that `-o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"` should become `-o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s"`. However you should not touch `%`'s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for expansion should stay intact: `-o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s"`.
+
+#### Output template examples
+
+Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
+
```bash
-$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
+$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_Ƥāš.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
-$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
+
+$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
+
+# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
+$ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
+
+# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
+$ youtube-dl -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
+
+# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
+$ youtube-dl -u user -p password -o '~/MyVideos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/
+
+# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
+$ youtube-dl -o "C:/MyVideos/%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617
+
+# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
+$ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc
+```
+
+# FORMAT SELECTION
+
+By default youtube-dl tries to download the best available quality, i.e. if you want the best quality you **don't need** to pass any special options, youtube-dl will guess it for you by **default**.
+
+But sometimes you may want to download in a different format, for example when you are on a slow or intermittent connection. The key mechanism for achieving this is so-called *format selection* based on which you can explicitly specify desired format, select formats based on some criterion or criteria, setup precedence and much more.
+
+The general syntax for format selection is `--format FORMAT` or shorter `-f FORMAT` where `FORMAT` is a *selector expression*, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
+
+**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
+
+The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with `-f 22` you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using `--list-formats` or `-F`. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.
+
+You can also use a file extension (currently `3gp`, `aac`, `flv`, `m4a`, `mp3`, `mp4`, `ogg`, `wav`, `webm` are supported) to download the best quality format of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. `-f webm` will download the best quality format with the `webm` extension served as a single file.
+
+You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
+ - `best`: Select the best quality format represented by a single file with video and audio.
+ - `worst`: Select the worst quality format represented by a single file with video and audio.
+ - `bestvideo`: Select the best quality video-only format (e.g. DASH video). May not be available.
+ - `worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. May not be available.
+ - `bestaudio`: Select the best quality audio only-format. May not be available.
+ - `worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio only-format. May not be available.
+
+For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use `-f worstvideo`.
+
+If you want to download multiple videos and they don't have the same formats available, you can specify the order of preference using slashes. Note that slash is left-associative, i.e. formats on the left hand side are preferred, for example `-f 22/17/18` will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.
+
+If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as a separator, e.g. `-f 22,17,18` will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example combined with the precedence feature: `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`.
+
+You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
+
+The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
+ - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
+ - `width`: Width of the video, if known
+ - `height`: Height of the video, if known
+ - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
+ - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
+ - `fps`: Frame rate
+
+Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals), `^=` (begins with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
+ - `ext`: File extension
+ - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
+ - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
+ - `container`: Name of the container format
+ - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (`http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `mms`, `f4m`, `ism`, `http_dash_segments`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`)
+ - `format_id`: A short description of the format
+
+Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the video hoster.
+
+Formats for which the value is not known are excluded unless you put a question mark (`?`) after the operator. You can combine format filters, so `-f "[height <=? 720][tbr>500]"` selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 KBit/s.
+
+You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file using `-f <video-format>+<audio-format>` (requires ffmpeg or avconv installed), for example `-f bestvideo+bestaudio` will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg/avconv.
+
+Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use `-f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'`.
+
+Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26, youtube-dl uses `-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best` as the default format selection (see [#5447](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/5447), [#5456](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/5456)). If ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading `bestvideo` and `bestaudio` separately and muxing them together into a single file giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to `best` and results in downloading the best available quality served as a single file. `best` is also needed for videos that don't come from YouTube because they don't provide the audio and video in two different files. If you want to only download some DASH formats (for example if you are not interested in getting videos with a resolution higher than 1080p), you can add `-f bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best` to your configuration file. Note that if you use youtube-dl to stream to `stdout` (and most likely to pipe it to your media player then), i.e. you explicitly specify output template as `-o -`, youtube-dl still uses `-f best` format selection in order to start content delivery immediately to your player and not to wait until `bestvideo` and `bestaudio` are downloaded and muxed.
+
+If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (prior to youtube-dl 2015.04.26), i.e. you want to download the best available quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify your choice with `-f best`. You may want to add it to the [configuration file](#configuration) in order not to type it every time you run youtube-dl.
+
+#### Format selection examples
+
+Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
+
+```bash
+# Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
+$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'
+
+# Download best format available but not better that 480p
+$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'
+
+# Download best video only format but no bigger than 50 MB
+$ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'
+
+# Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
+$ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'
+
+# Download the best video format and the best audio format without merging them
+$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
```
+Note that in the last example, an output template is recommended as bestvideo and bestaudio may have the same file name.
+
# VIDEO SELECTION
-Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`, they accept dates in two formats:
+Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
- Absolute dates: Dates in the format `YYYYMMDD`.
- Relative dates: Dates in the format `(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
$ youtube-dl --date 19700101
-$ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
+$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
$ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
```
### How do I update youtube-dl?
-If you've followed [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run `youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux, `sudo youtube-dl -U`).
+If you've followed [our manual installation instructions](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run `youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux, `sudo youtube-dl -U`).
If you have used pip, a simple `sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
-If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distributions serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
+If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to https://yt-dl.org to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distribution serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
-Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
+Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
```
sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
+### youtube-dl is extremely slow to start on Windows
+
+Add a file exclusion for `youtube-dl.exe` in Windows Defender settings.
+
### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
YouTube changed their playlist format in March 2014 and later on, so you'll need at least youtube-dl 2014.07.25 to download all YouTube videos.
-If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to report bugs to the Ubuntu packaging guys - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
+If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to [report bugs](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug) to the [Ubuntu packaging people](mailto:ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com?subject=outdated%20version%20of%20youtube-dl) - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
+
+### I'm getting an error when trying to use output template: `error: using output template conflicts with using title, video ID or auto number`
-### Do I always have to pass in `--max-quality FORMAT`, or `-citw`?
+Make sure you are not using `-o` with any of these options `-t`, `--title`, `--id`, `-A` or `--auto-number` set in command line or in a configuration file. Remove the latter if any.
-By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different, [please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular, `--max-quality` *limits* the video quality (so if you want the best quality, do NOT pass it in), and the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
+### Do I always have to pass `-citw`?
-### Can you please put the -b option back?
+By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different, [please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular, the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
+
+### Can you please put the `-b` option back?
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.
### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
-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.
+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 web browser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
+
+### Do I need any other programs?
+
+youtube-dl works fine on its own on most sites. However, if you want to convert video/audio, you'll need [avconv](https://libav.org/) or [ffmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/). On some sites - most notably YouTube - videos can be retrieved in a higher quality format without sound. youtube-dl will detect whether avconv/ffmpeg is present and automatically pick the best option.
+
+Videos or video formats streamed via RTMP protocol can only be downloaded when [rtmpdump](https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/) is installed. Downloading MMS and RTSP videos requires either [mplayer](https://mplayerhq.hu/) or [mpv](https://mpv.io/) to be installed.
### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
-Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
+Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [mpv](https://mpv.io/), [vlc](https://www.videolan.org/) or [mplayer](https://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
+
+### I extracted a video URL with `-g`, but it does not play on another machine / in my web browser.
-### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
+It depends a lot on the service. In many cases, requests for the video (to download/play it) must come from the same IP address and with the same cookies and/or HTTP headers. 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. You can also get necessary cookies and HTTP headers from JSON output obtained with `--dump-json`.
-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.
+It may be beneficial to use IPv6; in some cases, the restrictions are only applied to IPv4. Some services (sometimes only for a subset of videos) do not restrict the video URL by IP address, cookie, or user-agent, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
+
+Please bear in mind that some URL protocols are **not** supported by browsers out of the box, including RTMP. If you are using `-g`, your own downloader must support these as well.
+
+If you want to play the video on a machine that is not running youtube-dl, you can relay the video content from the machine that runs youtube-dl. You can use `-o -` to let youtube-dl stream a video to stdout, or simply allow the player to download the files written by youtube-dl in turn.
### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
-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`.
+YouTube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
+
+### ERROR: unable to download video
+
+YouTube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
+
+### Video URL contains an ampersand and I'm getting some strange output `[1] 2839` or `'v' is not recognized as an internal or external command`
+
+That's actually the output from your shell. Since ampersand is one of the special shell characters it's interpreted by the shell preventing you from passing the whole URL to youtube-dl. To disable your shell from interpreting the ampersands (or any other special characters) you have to either put the whole URL in quotes or escape them with a backslash (which approach will work depends on your shell).
+
+For example if your URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc you should end up with following command:
+
+```youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc'```
+
+or
+
+```youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4\&v=BaW_jenozKc```
+
+For Windows you have to use the double quotes:
+
+```youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc"```
+
+### ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u'OF'
+
+In February 2015, the new YouTube player contained a character sequence in a string that was misinterpreted by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
-### ERROR: unable to download video ###
+### HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
-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`.
+These two error codes indicate that the service is blocking your IP address because of overuse. Contact the service and ask them to unblock your IP address, or - if you have acquired a whitelisted IP address already - use the [`--proxy` or `--source-address` options](#network-options) to select another IP address.
-### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
+### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
The error
### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
-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`.
+Since June 2012 ([#342](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/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`.
+
+### The exe throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll`
+
+To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=5555).
+
+### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
+
+If you put youtube-dl and ffmpeg in the same directory that you're running the command from, it will work, but that's rather cumbersome.
+
+To make a different directory work - either for ffmpeg, or for youtube-dl, or for both - simply create the directory (say, `C:\bin`, or `C:\Users\<User name>\bin`), put all the executables directly in there, and then [set your PATH environment variable](https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml) to include that directory.
+
+From then on, after restarting your shell, you will be able to access both youtube-dl and ffmpeg (and youtube-dl will be able to find ffmpeg) by simply typing `youtube-dl` or `ffmpeg`, no matter what directory you're in.
+
+### How do I put downloads into a specific folder?
+
+Use the `-o` to specify an [output template](#output-template), for example `-o "/home/user/videos/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"`. If you want this for all of your downloads, put the option into your [configuration file](#configuration).
+
+### How do I download a video starting with a `-`?
+
+Either prepend `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=` or separate the ID from the options with `--`:
+
+ youtube-dl -- -wNyEUrxzFU
+ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNyEUrxzFU"
+
+### How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl?
+
+Use the `--cookies` option, for example `--cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt`.
+
+In order to extract cookies from browser use any conforming browser extension for exporting cookies. For example, [cookies.txt](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookiestxt/njabckikapfpffapmjgojcnbfjonfjfg) (for Chrome) or [cookies.txt](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookies-txt/) (for Firefox).
-### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
+Note that the cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and the first line of the cookies file must be either `# HTTP Cookie File` or `# Netscape HTTP Cookie File`. Make sure you have correct [newline format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline) in the cookies file and convert newlines if necessary to correspond with your OS, namely `CRLF` (`\r\n`) for Windows and `LF` (`\n`) for Unix and Unix-like systems (Linux, macOS, etc.). `HTTP Error 400: Bad Request` when using `--cookies` is a good sign of invalid newline format.
-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).
+Passing cookies to youtube-dl is a good way to workaround login when a particular extractor does not implement it explicitly. Another use case is working around [CAPTCHA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA) some websites require you to solve in particular cases in order to get access (e.g. YouTube, CloudFlare).
+
+### How do I stream directly to media player?
+
+You will first need to tell youtube-dl to stream media to stdout with `-o -`, and also tell your media player to read from stdin (it must be capable of this for streaming) and then pipe former to latter. For example, streaming to [vlc](https://www.videolan.org/) can be achieved with:
+
+ youtube-dl -o - "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj" | vlc -
+
+### How do I download only new videos from a playlist?
+
+Use download-archive feature. With this feature you should initially download the complete playlist with `--download-archive /path/to/download/archive/file.txt` that will record identifiers of all the videos in a special file. Each subsequent run with the same `--download-archive` will download only new videos and skip all videos that have been downloaded before. Note that only successful downloads are recorded in the file.
+
+For example, at first,
+
+ youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
+
+will download the complete `PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re` playlist and create a file `archive.txt`. Each subsequent run will only download new videos if any:
+
+ youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
+
+### Should I add `--hls-prefer-native` into my config?
+
+When youtube-dl detects an HLS video, it can download it either with the built-in downloader or ffmpeg. Since many HLS streams are slightly invalid and ffmpeg/youtube-dl each handle some invalid cases better than the other, there is an option to switch the downloader if needed.
+
+When youtube-dl knows that one particular downloader works better for a given website, that downloader will be picked. Otherwise, youtube-dl will pick the best downloader for general compatibility, which at the moment happens to be ffmpeg. This choice may change in future versions of youtube-dl, with improvements of the built-in downloader and/or ffmpeg.
+
+In particular, the generic extractor (used when your website is not in the [list of supported sites by youtube-dl](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html) cannot mandate one specific downloader.
+
+If you put either `--hls-prefer-native` or `--hls-prefer-ffmpeg` into your configuration, a different subset of videos will fail to download correctly. Instead, it is much better to [file an issue](https://yt-dl.org/bug) or a pull request which details why the native or the ffmpeg HLS downloader is a better choice for your use case.
+
+### Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
+
+As a matter of policy (as well as legality), youtube-dl does not include support for services that specialize in infringing copyright. As a rule of thumb, if you cannot easily find a video that the service is quite obviously allowed to distribute (i.e. that has been uploaded by the creator, the creator's distributor, or is published under a free license), the service is probably unfit for inclusion to youtube-dl.
+
+A note on the service that they don't host the infringing content, but just link to those who do, is evidence that the service should **not** be included into youtube-dl. The same goes for any DMCA note when the whole front page of the service is filled with videos they are not allowed to distribute. A "fair use" note is equally unconvincing if the service shows copyright-protected videos in full without authorization.
+
+Support requests for services that **do** purchase the rights to distribute their content are perfectly fine though. If in doubt, you can simply include a source that mentions the legitimate purchase of content.
+
+### How can I speed up work on my issue?
+
+(Also known as: Help, my important issue not being solved!) The youtube-dl core developer team is quite small. While we do our best to solve as many issues as possible, sometimes that can take quite a while. To speed up your issue, here's what you can do:
+
+First of all, please do report the issue [at our issue tracker](https://yt-dl.org/bugs). That allows us to coordinate all efforts by users and developers, and serves as a unified point. Unfortunately, the youtube-dl project has grown too large to use personal email as an effective communication channel.
+
+Please read the [bug reporting instructions](#bugs) below. A lot of bugs lack all the necessary information. If you can, offer proxy, VPN, or shell access to the youtube-dl developers. If you are able to, test the issue from multiple computers in multiple countries to exclude local censorship or misconfiguration issues.
+
+If nobody is interested in solving your issue, you are welcome to take matters into your own hands and submit a pull request (or coerce/pay somebody else to do so).
+
+Feel free to bump the issue from time to time by writing a small comment ("Issue is still present in youtube-dl version ...from France, but fixed from Belgium"), but please not more than once a month. Please do not declare your issue as `important` or `urgent`.
+
+### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
+
+For one, have a look at the [list of supported sites](docs/supportedsites.md). Note that it can sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from https://example.com/video/1234567 to https://example.com/v/1234567 ) and youtube-dl reports an URL of a service in that list as unsupported. In that case, simply report a bug.
+
+It is *not* possible to detect whether a URL is supported or not. That's because youtube-dl contains a generic extractor which matches **all** URLs. You may be tempted to disable, exclude, or remove the generic extractor, but the generic extractor not only allows users to extract videos from lots of websites that embed a video from another service, but may also be used to extract video from a service that it's hosting itself. Therefore, we neither recommend nor support disabling, excluding, or removing the generic extractor.
+
+If you want to find out whether a given URL is supported, simply call youtube-dl with it. If you get no videos back, chances are the URL is either not referring to a video or unsupported. You can find out which by examining the output (if you run youtube-dl on the console) or catching an `UnsupportedError` exception if you run it from a Python program.
+
+# Why do I need to go through that much red tape when filing bugs?
+
+Before we had the issue template, despite our extensive [bug reporting instructions](#bugs), about 80% of the issue reports we got were useless, for instance because people used ancient versions hundreds of releases old, because of simple syntactic errors (not in youtube-dl but in general shell usage), because the problem was already reported multiple times before, because people did not actually read an error message, even if it said "please install ffmpeg", because people did not mention the URL they were trying to download and many more simple, easy-to-avoid problems, many of whom were totally unrelated to youtube-dl.
+
+youtube-dl is an open-source project manned by too few volunteers, so we'd rather spend time fixing bugs where we are certain none of those simple problems apply, and where we can be reasonably confident to be able to reproduce the issue without asking the reporter repeatedly. As such, the output of `youtube-dl -v YOUR_URL_HERE` is really all that's required to file an issue. The issue template also guides you through some basic steps you can do, such as checking that your version of youtube-dl is current.
# DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
-Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can [download the builds](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.
+Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can [download the builds](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.
To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
python test/test_download.py
nosetests
+See item 6 of [new extractor tutorial](#adding-support-for-a-new-site) for how to run extractor specific test cases.
+
If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
* python
-* make
+* make (only GNU make is supported)
* pandoc
* zip
* nosetests
### Adding support for a new site
-If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
+If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure** this site is **not dedicated to [copyright infringement](README.md#can-you-add-support-for-this-anime-video-site-or-site-which-shows-current-movies-for-free)**. youtube-dl does **not support** such sites thus pull requests adding support for them **will be rejected**.
+
+After you have ensured this site is distributing its content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
-2. Check out the source code with `git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
-3. Start a new git branch with `cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor`
+2. Check out the source code with:
+
+ git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git
+
+3. Start a new git branch with
+
+ cd youtube-dl
+ git checkout -b yourextractor
+
4. Start with this simple template and save it to `youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
+
```python
# coding: utf-8
from __future__ import unicode_literals
class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
_VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
_TEST = {
- 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
+ 'url': 'https://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
'info_dict': {
'id': '42',
'ext': 'mp4',
'title': 'Video title goes here',
- 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
+ 'thumbnail': r're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
# TODO more properties, either as:
# * A value
# * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
def _real_extract(self, url):
video_id = self._match_id(url)
+ webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
# TODO more code goes here, for example ...
- webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
- title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
+ title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
return {
'id': video_id,
'title': title,
+ 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
+ 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
# TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
}
```
-5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py).
-6. Run `python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename ``_TEST`` to ``_TESTS`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests will be then be named `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
-7. Have a look at [`youtube_dl/common/extractor/common.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a [detailed description of what your extractor should return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L38). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
-8. If you can, check the code with [pyflakes](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyflakes) (a good idea) and [pep8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8) (optional, ignore E501).
-9. When the tests pass, [add](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-add.html) the new files and [commit](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-commit.html) them and [push](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-push.html) the result, like this:
+5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py).
+6. Run `python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename ``_TEST`` to ``_TESTS`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests will then be named `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc. Note that tests with `only_matching` key in test's dict are not counted in.
+7. Have a look at [`youtube_dl/extractor/common.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a [detailed description of what your extractor should and may return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L74-L252). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
+8. Make sure your code follows [youtube-dl coding conventions](#youtube-dl-coding-conventions) and check the code with [flake8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flake8). Also make sure your code works under all [Python](https://www.python.org/) versions claimed supported by youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2+.
+9. When the tests pass, [add](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add) the new files and [commit](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit) them and [push](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push) the result, like this:
- $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
+ $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
$ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
$ git push origin yourextractor
In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
+## youtube-dl coding conventions
+
+This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
+
+Extractors are very fragile by nature since they depend on the layout of the source data provided by 3rd party media hosters out of your control and this layout tends to change. As an extractor implementer your task is not only to write code that will extract media links and metadata correctly but also to minimize dependency on the source's layout and even to make the code foresee potential future changes and be ready for that. This is important because it will allow the extractor not to break on minor layout changes thus keeping old youtube-dl versions working. Even though this breakage issue is easily fixed by emitting a new version of youtube-dl with a fix incorporated, all the previous versions become broken in all repositories and distros' packages that may not be so prompt in fetching the update from us. Needless to say, some non rolling release distros may never receive an update at all.
+
+### Mandatory and optional metafields
+
+For extraction to work youtube-dl relies on metadata your extractor extracts and provides to youtube-dl expressed by an [information dictionary](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L75-L257) or simply *info dict*. Only the following meta fields in the *info dict* are considered mandatory for a successful extraction process by youtube-dl:
+
+ - `id` (media identifier)
+ - `title` (media title)
+ - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
+
+In fact only the last option is technically mandatory (i.e. if you can't figure out the download location of the media the extraction does not make any sense). But by convention youtube-dl also treats `id` and `title` as mandatory. Thus the aforementioned metafields are the critical data that the extraction does not make any sense without and if any of them fail to be extracted then the extractor is considered completely broken.
+
+[Any field](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L149-L257) apart from the aforementioned ones are considered **optional**. That means that extraction should be **tolerant** to situations when sources for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if they are always available at the moment) and **future-proof** in order not to break the extraction of general purpose mandatory fields.
+
+#### Example
+
+Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
+
+```python
+meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
+```
+
+Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
+
+```python
+{
+ ...
+ "summary": "some fancy summary text",
+ ...
+}
+```
+
+Assume you want to extract `summary` and put it into the resulting info dict as `description`. Since `description` is an optional meta field you should be ready that this key may be missing from the `meta` dict, so that you should extract it like:
+
+```python
+description = meta.get('summary') # correct
+```
+
+and not like:
+
+```python
+description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
+```
+
+The latter will break extraction process with `KeyError` if `summary` disappears from `meta` at some later time but with the former approach extraction will just go ahead with `description` set to `None` which is perfectly fine (remember `None` is equivalent to the absence of data).
+
+Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
+
+```python
+description = self._search_regex(
+ r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
+ webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
+```
+
+With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
+
+You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
+
+```python
+description = self._search_regex(
+ r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
+ webpage, 'description', default=None)
+```
+
+On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with `description` set to `None`. That is useful for metafields that may or may not be present.
+
+### Provide fallbacks
+
+When extracting metadata try to do so from multiple sources. For example if `title` is present in several places, try extracting from at least some of them. This makes it more future-proof in case some of the sources become unavailable.
+
+#### Example
+
+Say `meta` from the previous example has a `title` and you are about to extract it. Since `title` is a mandatory meta field you should end up with something like:
+
+```python
+title = meta['title']
+```
+
+If `title` disappears from `meta` in future due to some changes on the hoster's side the extraction would fail since `title` is mandatory. That's expected.
+
+Assume that you have some another source you can extract `title` from, for example `og:title` HTML meta of a `webpage`. In this case you can provide a fallback scenario:
+
+```python
+title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
+```
+
+This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`.
+
+### Make regular expressions flexible
+
+When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy and flexible.
+
+#### Example
+
+Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
+
+```html
+<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
+```
+
+The code for that task should look similar to:
+
+```python
+title = self._search_regex(
+ r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
+```
+
+Or even better:
+
+```python
+title = self._search_regex(
+ r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
+ webpage, 'title', group='title')
+```
+
+Note how you tolerate potential changes in the `style` attribute's value or switch from using double quotes to single for `class` attribute:
+
+The code definitely should not look like:
+
+```python
+title = self._search_regex(
+ r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
+ webpage, 'title', group='title')
+```
+
+### Use safe conversion functions
+
+Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from `utils`: `int_or_none`, `float_or_none`. Use them for string to number conversions as well.
+
# EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter any problems parsing its output, feel free to [create a report](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/new).
From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
- import youtube_dl
+```python
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+import youtube_dl
+
+ydl_opts = {}
+with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
+ ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
+```
+
+Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at [`youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/3e4cedf9e8cd3157df2457df7274d0c842421945/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L137-L312). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
+
+Here's a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors (and a short message after the download is finished), and downloads/converts the video to an mp3 file:
+
+```python
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
+import youtube_dl
+
+
+class MyLogger(object):
+ def debug(self, msg):
+ pass
+
+ def warning(self, msg):
+ pass
- ydl_opts = {}
- with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
- ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
+ def error(self, msg):
+ print(msg)
-Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of what can be done, have a look at [youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L69). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
+
+def my_hook(d):
+ if d['status'] == 'finished':
+ print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
+
+
+ydl_opts = {
+ 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
+ 'postprocessors': [{
+ 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
+ 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
+ 'preferredquality': '192',
+ }],
+ 'logger': MyLogger(),
+ 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
+}
+with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
+ ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
+```
# BUGS
-Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues> . Unless you were prompted so or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email.
+Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>. Unless you were prompted to or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email. For discussions, join us in the IRC channel [#youtube-dl](irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl) on freenode ([webchat](https://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl)).
-Please include the full output of the command when run with `--verbose`. The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
+**Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with `-v`**, i.e. **add** `-v` flag to **your command line**, copy the **whole** output and post it in the issue body wrapped in \`\`\` for better formatting. It should look similar to this:
+```
+$ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
+[debug] System config: []
+[debug] User config: []
+[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
+[debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
+[debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
+[debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
+[debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
+[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
+[debug] Proxy map: {}
+...
+```
+**Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is acceptable.**
-For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
+The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
-When you submit a request, please re-read it once to avoid a couple of mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
+Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
- How it could be fixed
- How your proposed solution would look like
-If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a commiter myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
+If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a committer myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
+
+For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the *complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the `-v` flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
-For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the *complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the -v flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
+If your server has multiple IPs or you suspect censorship, adding `--call-home` may be a good idea to get more diagnostics. If the error is `ERROR: Unable to extract ...` and you cannot reproduce it from multiple countries, add `--dump-pages` (warning: this will yield a rather large output, redirect it to the file `log.txt` by adding `>log.txt 2>&1` to your command-line) or upload the `.dump` files you get when you add `--write-pages` [somewhere](https://gist.github.com/).
-Site support requests **must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc . There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/ ) is *not* an example URL.
+**Site support requests must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc`. There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. `https://www.youtube.com/`) is *not* an example URL.
### Are you using the latest version?
-Before reporting any issue, type youtube-dl -U. This should report that you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.
+Before reporting any issue, type `youtube-dl -U`. This should report that you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.
### Is the issue already documented?
-Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or at https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
+Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or browse the [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues) of this repository. If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
### Why are existing options not enough?
-Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at [the list of supported options](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#synopsis). Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.
+Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at [the list of supported options](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#options). Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.
### Is there enough context in your bug report?
Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.
-In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.
+In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, White house podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.
### Is anyone going to need the feature?
-Only post features that you (or an incapicated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.
+Only post features that you (or an incapacitated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.
### Is your question about youtube-dl?
-It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's own application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
+It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different, or even the reporter's own, application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
# COPYRIGHT
youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
-This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.
+This README file was originally written by [Daniel Bolton](https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff