youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
-SYNOPSIS
-========
+- INSTALLATION
+- DESCRIPTION
+- OPTIONS
+- CONFIGURATION
+- OUTPUT TEMPLATE
+- FORMAT SELECTION
+- VIDEO SELECTION
+- FAQ
+- DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
+- EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
+- BUGS
+- COPYRIGHT
+
-youtube-dl OPTIONS URL [URL...]
INSTALLATION
-============
+
To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, 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 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 a .exe file and place it in their home
directory or any other location on their PATH.
-OS X users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew.
+OS X users can install YOUTUBE-DL with Homebrew.
brew install youtube-dl
sudo pip 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 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 .
+
+
DESCRIPTION
-===========
-youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from
+
+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
+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.
+ 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
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)
+ /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)
- --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 (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
--include-ads Download advertisements as well
(experimental)
+
Download Options:
------------------
- -r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
+ -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)
- --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
+ -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
+ --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
+ -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
+ --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,
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"),
+ 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
download to a different directory, for
example with -o '/my/downloads/%(uploader)s
/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
- --autonumber-size NUMBER Specifies the number of digits in
+ --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
- -t, --title [deprecated] use title in file name
+ -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.
+ -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
+ --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 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
--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.
+ --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
+ -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.
+
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.
- 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.
- --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
+ --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
+ --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
+ --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
- -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 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
+ -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",
+ "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)
- -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 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 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, 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 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.
+
+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
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
+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.
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.
+- 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.
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 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:
+--datebefore or --dateafter. They accept dates in two formats:
- Absolute dates: Dates in the format YYYYMMDD.
- Relative dates: Dates in the format
# 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
```
+
+
FAQ
-===
+
How do I update youtube-dl?
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
+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
+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.
Ubuntu packaging guys - 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 in --max-quality FORMAT, or -citw?
+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). 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.
+particular, the only option out of -citw that is regularly useful is -i.
Can you please put the -b option back?
Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as vlc or
mplayer.
-The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
+I extracted a video URL with -g, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
+
+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. 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.
-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.
+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 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. You can update youtube-dl
-with sudo youtube-dl --update.
+YouTube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is
+not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See above 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 for how to update youtube-dl.
+
+HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
+
+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 to select another
+IP address.
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
the code, you can run it by executing the __main__.py file. To recompile
the executable, run make youtube-dl.
-The exe throws a Runtime error from Visual C++
+The exe throws a _Runtime error from Visual C++_
To run the exe you need to install first the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008
Redistributable Package.
+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 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, 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.
+
+How do I download a video starting with a - ?
+
+Either prepend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= or separate the ID from
+the options with --:
+
+ youtube-dl -- -wNyEUrxzFU
+ youtube-dl "http://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. 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,
+LF (\n) for Linux and CR (\r) for Mac OS. 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.
+
+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. 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 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. Note that it can
+sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from
+http://example.com/video/1234567 to http://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.
+
+
+
DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
-======================
+
Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can download the builds
or get them from their distribution.
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.
6. Run python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor.
- This should fail at first, but you can continually re-run it until
+ 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,
+ will 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 for possible
- helper methods and a detailed description of what your extractor
- should return. Add tests and code for as many as you want.
-8. If you can, check the code with pyflakes (a good idea) and pep8
- (optional, ignore E501).
+7. Have a look at youtube_dl/extractor/common.py for possible helper
+ methods and a detailed description of what your extractor should and
+ may return. Add tests and code for as many as you want.
+8. If you can, check the code with flake8.
9. When the tests pass, add the new files and commit them and push the
result, like this:
In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
+
+
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
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(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
+ydl_opts = {}
+with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
+ ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
+```
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. 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
+
+ def error(self, msg):
+ print(msg)
+
+
+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(['http://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.
+bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email. For
+discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
+
+PLEASE INCLUDE THE FULL OUTPUT OF YOUTUBE-DL WHEN RUN WITH -v.
-Please include the full output of the command when run with --verbose.
-The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging
+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.
-For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
-
-When you submit a request, please re-read it once to avoid a couple of
+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?
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.
-Site support requests must contain an example URL. An example URL is a
+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.
+a video service (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/ ) is _not_ an example URL.
Are you using the latest version?
Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at the list of
supported 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
+report and detail how the existing similar options do _not_ solve your
problem.
Is there enough context in your bug report?
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?
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.
-
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff