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 -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
This command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it.
See the pypi page for more information.
-OS X users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew:
+macOS users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew:
brew install youtube-dl
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 Mac OS X. It is released to the public
-domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however
-you like.
+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...]
Network Options:
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
- To enable experimental SOCKS proxy, specify
- a proper scheme. For example
+ 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
--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
- options is not present) is used for the
+ option is not present) is used for the
actual downloading.
--geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
- X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (experimental)
+ X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
--no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
- (experimental)
--geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
- country code (experimental)
+ country code
+ --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
+ explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
+ notation
Video Selection:
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 (experimental)
+ expected file size
--hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
ffmpeg
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
Filesystem Options:
-a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
- stdin)
+ 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
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.
You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line
-option to a configuration file. On Linux and OS X, the system wide
+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
downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according
to python string formatting operations. 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:
+parentheses, followed by formatting operations. Allowed names along with
+sequence type are:
- id (string): Video identifier
- title (string): Video title
available
- upload_date (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
- uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
+- channel (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
+- channel_id (string): Id of the channel
- 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
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.
+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.
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
+>=, = (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), ^= (starts 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
+
+Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to
+produce an opposite comparison, e.g. !*= (does not contain).
Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be
present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular
# 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
+ # Download best format available but no better than 480p
$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'
# Download best video only format but no bigger than 50 MB
Afterwards, simply follow our manual installation instructions:
- sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
- sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+ sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
hash -r
Again, from then on you'll be able to update with sudo youtube-dl -U.
In order to extract cookies from browser use any conforming browser
extension for exporting cookies. For example, cookies.txt (for Chrome)
-or Export Cookies (for Firefox).
+or cookies.txt (for Firefox).
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
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, Mac OS, etc.). HTTP Error 400: Bad Request
-when using --cookies is a good sign of invalid newline format.
+Unix-like systems (Linux, macOS, etc.). HTTP Error 400: Bad Request when
+using --cookies is a good sign of invalid newline format.
Passing cookies to youtube-dl is a good way to workaround login when a
particular extractor does not implement it explicitly. Another use case
1. Fork this repository
2. Check out the source code with:
- git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git
+ 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
+ cd youtube-dl
+ git checkout -b yourextractor
4. Start with this simple template and save it to
youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py:
methods and a detailed description of what your extractor should and
may return. Add tests and code for as many as you want.
8. Make sure your code follows youtube-dl coding conventions and check
- the code with flake8. Also make sure your code works under all
- Python versions claimed supported by youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7,
- and 3.2+.
-9. When the tests pass, add the new files and commit them and push the
+ the code with flake8:
+
+ $ flake8 youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
+
+9. Make sure your code works under all Python versions claimed
+ supported by youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2+.
+10. When the tests pass, add the new files and commit them and push the
result, like this:
$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
$ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
$ git push origin yourextractor
-10. Finally, create a pull request. We'll then review and merge it.
+11. Finally, create a pull request. We'll then review and merge it.
In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
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
+Regular expressions
-When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy and flexible.
+Don't capture groups you don't use
+
+Capturing group must be an indication that it's used somewhere in the
+code. Any group that is not used must be non capturing.
+
+Example
+
+Don't capture id attribute name here since you can't use it for anything
+anyway.
+
+Correct:
+
+ r'(?:id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
+
+Incorrect:
+
+ r'(id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
+
+Make regular expressions relaxed and flexible
+
+When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy, relaxed and
+flexible, skipping insignificant parts that are more likely to change,
+allowing both single and double quotes for quoted values and so on.
Example
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
+Long lines policy
+
+There is a soft limit to keep lines of code under 80 characters long.
+This means it should be respected if possible and if it does not make
+readability and code maintenance worse.
+
+For example, you should NEVER split long string literals like URLs or
+some other often copied entities over multiple lines to fit this limit:
+
+Correct:
+
+ 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list=PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
+
+Incorrect:
+
+ 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list='
+ 'PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
+
+Inline values
+
+Extracting variables is acceptable for reducing code duplication and
+improving readability of complex expressions. However, you should avoid
+extracting variables used only once and moving them to opposite parts of
+the extractor file, which makes reading the linear flow difficult.
+
+Example
+
+Correct:
+
+ title = self._html_search_regex(r'<title>([^<]+)</title>', webpage, 'title')
+
+Incorrect:
+
+ TITLE_RE = r'<title>([^<]+)</title>'
+ # ...some lines of code...
+ title = self._html_search_regex(TITLE_RE, webpage, 'title')
+
+Collapse fallbacks
+
+Multiple fallback values can quickly become unwieldy. Collapse multiple
+fallback values into a single expression via a list of patterns.
+
+Example
+
+Good:
+
+ description = self._html_search_meta(
+ ['og:description', 'description', 'twitter:description'],
+ webpage, 'description', default=None)
+
+Unwieldy:
+
+ description = (
+ self._og_search_description(webpage, default=None)
+ or self._html_search_meta('description', webpage, default=None)
+ or self._html_search_meta('twitter:description', webpage, default=None))
+
+Methods supporting list of patterns are: _search_regex,
+_html_search_regex, _og_search_property, _html_search_meta.
+
+Trailing parentheses
+
+Always move trailing parentheses after the last argument.
+
+Example
+
+Correct:
+
+ lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
+ list)
+
+Incorrect:
+
+ lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
+ list,
+ )
+
+Use convenience conversion and parsing functions
+
+Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from
+youtube_dl/utils.py: int_or_none, float_or_none. Use them for string to
+number conversions as well.
+
+Use url_or_none for safe URL processing.
+
+Use try_get for safe metadata extraction from parsed JSON.
+
+Use unified_strdate for uniform upload_date or any YYYYMMDD meta field
+extraction, unified_timestamp for uniform timestamp extraction,
+parse_filesize for filesize extraction, parse_count for count meta
+fields extraction, parse_resolution, parse_duration for duration
+extraction, parse_age_limit for age_limit extraction.
+
+Explore youtube_dl/utils.py for more useful convenience functions.
+
+More examples
+
+Safely extract optional description from parsed JSON
+
+ description = try_get(response, lambda x: x['result']['video'][0]['summary'], compat_str)
+
+Safely extract more optional metadata
-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.
+ video = try_get(response, lambda x: x['result']['video'][0], dict) or {}
+ description = video.get('summary')
+ duration = float_or_none(video.get('durationMs'), scale=1000)
+ view_count = int_or_none(video.get('views'))
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
+https://github.com/ytdl-org/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 on freenode
(webchat).
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff