+ 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
+ sure that you have sufficient permissions
+ (run with sudo if needed)
+ -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
+ --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
+ extractors
+ --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
+ apple". Use the value "auto" to let
+ youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
+ warning when guessing). "error" just throws
+ an error. The default value "fixup_error"
+ 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/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
+ on Windows)
+ --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
+ only list them.
+ --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
+
+## Network Options:
+ --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. 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
+ (experimental)
+ -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
+ (experimental)
+ -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
+ (experimental)
+ --cn-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
+ some Chinese sites. The default proxy
+ specified by --proxy (or none, if the
+ options is not present) is used for the
+ actual downloading. (experimental)
+
+## Video Selection:
+ --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
+ 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
+ this date (i.e. inclusive)
+ --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
+ --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter (experimental).
+ Specify any key (see help for -o 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, 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
+ downloaded videos in it.
+ --include-ads Download advertisements as well
+ (experimental)
+
+## Download Options:
+ -r, --rate-limit LIMIT Maximum download rate in bytes per second
+ (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
+ -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
+ "infinite".
+ --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
+ (default is 1024)
+ --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
+ size. By default, the buffer size is
+ automatically resized from an initial value
+ of SIZE.
+ --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
+ --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
+ expected filesize (experimental)
+ --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
+ ffmpeg (experimental)
+ --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
+ Currently supports
+ aria2c,axel,curl,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
+ -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_title)s,
+ %(playlist_id)s, or %(playlist)s (=title if
+ present, ID otherwise) for the playlist the
+ video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
+ position in the playlist. %(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. %% for a literal percent. Use - to
+ output to stdout. Can also be used to
+ download to a different directory, for
+ example with -o '/my/downloads/%(uploader)s
+ /%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
+ --autonumber-size NUMBER Specify the number of digits in
+ %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
+ filename template or --auto-number option
+ is given
+ --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
+ characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
+ filenames
+ -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
+ "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] Number
+ downloaded files starting from 00000
+ -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.
+ By default, youtube-dl will resume
+ downloads if possible.
+ --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded files
+ (restart from beginning)
+ --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
+ into output file
+ --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
+ the file modification time
+ --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
+ .annotations.xml file
+ --load-info 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.
+ --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 Activate quiet mode
+ --no-warnings Ignore warnings
+ -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
+ for each command-line argument. If the URL
+ refers to a playlist, dump the whole
+ playlist information in a single line.
+ --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
+ --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
+ access is restricted to one domain
+ --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.
+
+## Video Format Options:
+ -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
+ -F, --list-formats List all available formats
+ --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 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 IETF
+ language tags like 'en,pt'
+
+## Authentication Options:
+ -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 auth code
+ -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
+ --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
+
+## Post-processing Options:
+ -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
+ (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
+ avprobe)
+ --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
+ "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or "wav";
+ "best" by default
+ --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|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 mkv
+ and mp4 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, the parsed
+ parameters replace existing values.
+ Additional templates: %(album)s,
+ %(artist)s. Example: --metadata-from-title
+ "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a title
+ like "Coldplay - Paradise"
+ --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
+ --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-subtitles FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
+ (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt)
+
+# CONFIGURATION
+
+You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux, 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`. For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime and use a proxy:
+```
+--extract-audio
+--no-mtime
+--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
+```
+
+You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable the 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](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a`.netrc` file in your `$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by you only:
+```
+touch $HOME/.netrc
+chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
+```
+After that you can add credentials for extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of 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.
+
+# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
+
+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 parentheses, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
+
+ - `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 sequence will be replaced by the name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
+ - `playlist_index`: The sequence will be replaced by the index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist.
+ - `format_id`: The sequence will be replaced by the format code specified by `--format`.
+ - `duration`: The sequence will be replaced by the length of the video in seconds.
+
+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:
+
+```bash
+$ 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_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
+```
+
+# FORMAT SELECTION
+
+By default youtube-dl tries to download the best quality, but sometimes you may want to download in a different format.
+The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example `-f 22`. You can get the list of available formats using `--list-formats`, you can also use a file extension (currently it supports aac, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm) or the special names `best`, `bestvideo`, `bestaudio` and `worst`.
+
+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, as in `-f 22/17/18`. You can also filter the video results by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`). This works for filesize, height, width, tbr, abr, vbr, asr, and fps and the comparisons <, <=, >, >=, =, != and for ext, acodec, vcodec, container, and protocol and the comparisons =, != . 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. Use commas to download multiple formats, such as `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`. You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file using `-f <video-format>+<audio-format>` (requires ffmpeg or avconv), for example `-f bestvideo+bestaudio`. 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 default format selection (see #5447, #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.
+
+# VIDEO SELECTION
+
+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)?`
+
+Examples:
+
+```bash
+# Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
+$ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
+
+# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
+$ youtube-dl --date 19700101
+
+$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
+$ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
+```
+
+# FAQ
+
+### 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 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 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):
+
+```
+sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+hash -r
+```
+
+Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
+
+### 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](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug) to the [Ubuntu packaging guys](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.
+
+### Do I always have to pass `-citw`?
+
+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.
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff