1 youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
3 - [INSTALLATION](#installation)
4 - [DESCRIPTION](#description)
6 - [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
7 - [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
8 - [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
9 - [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
11 - [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
12 - [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
14 - [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
18 To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
20 sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
21 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
23 If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
25 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
26 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
28 Windows users can [download an .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in any location on their [PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29) except for `%SYSTEMROOT%\System32` (e.g. **do not** put in `C:\Windows\System32`).
32 sudo pip install --upgrade youtube-dl
34 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.
36 OS X users can install youtube-dl with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/):
38 brew install youtube-dl
40 Or with [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/):
42 sudo port install youtube-dl
44 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).
47 **youtube-dl** is a command-line program to download videos from
48 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
49 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
50 your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
51 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
53 youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
56 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
57 --version Print program version and exit
58 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
59 sure that you have sufficient permissions
60 (run with sudo if needed)
61 -i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
62 skip unavailable videos in a playlist
63 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
64 playlist or the command line) if an error
66 --dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
67 --list-extractors List all supported extractors
68 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
70 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
72 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
73 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
74 from google videos for youtube-dl "large
75 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
76 youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
77 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
78 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
79 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
80 this is not possible instead of searching.
81 --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
82 in the global configuration file
83 /etc/youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
84 configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
85 dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
87 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
89 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
90 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
91 --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
92 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading when some fragment is not
96 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
97 To enable experimental SOCKS proxy, specify
98 a proper scheme. For example
99 socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
100 string (--proxy "") for direct connection
101 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
102 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
104 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
106 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
108 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
109 some geo-restricted sites. The default
110 proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
111 options is not present) is used for the
112 actual downloading. (experimental)
115 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
116 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
117 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
118 indices of the videos in the playlist
119 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
120 1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
121 indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
122 specify range: "--playlist-items
123 1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
124 at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
125 --match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
127 --reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
129 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
130 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
131 SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
132 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
134 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date
135 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
136 this date (i.e. inclusive)
137 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
138 this date (i.e. inclusive)
139 --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
141 --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
143 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter (experimental).
144 Specify any key (see help for -o for a list
145 of available keys) to match if the key is
146 present, !key to check if the key is not
147 present,key > NUMBER (like "comment_count >
148 12", also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to
149 compare against a number, and & to require
150 multiple matches. Values which are not
151 known are excluded unless you put a
152 question mark (?) after the operator.For
153 example, to only match videos that have
154 been liked more than 100 times and disliked
155 less than 50 times (or the dislike
156 functionality is not available at the given
157 service), but who also have a description,
158 use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
159 dislike_count <? 50 & description" .
160 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
161 to a video and a playlist.
162 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
163 a video and a playlist.
164 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
166 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
167 archive file. Record the IDs of all
168 downloaded videos in it.
169 --include-ads Download advertisements as well
173 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
175 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
177 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
178 is 10), or "infinite" (DASH and hlsnative
180 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments (DASH and
182 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
184 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
185 size. By default, the buffer size is
186 automatically resized from an initial value
188 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
189 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
190 expected filesize (experimental)
191 --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
193 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
195 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
196 allowing to play the video while
197 downloading (some players may not be able
199 --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
201 aria2c,avconv,axel,curl,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
202 --external-downloader-args ARGS Give these arguments to the external
205 ## Filesystem Options:
206 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
208 --id Use only video ID in file name
209 -o, --output TEMPLATE Output filename template, see the "OUTPUT
210 TEMPLATE" for all the info
211 --autonumber-size NUMBER Specify the number of digits in
212 %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
213 filename template or --auto-number option
215 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
216 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
218 -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
219 "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] Number
220 downloaded files starting from 00000
221 -t, --title [deprecated] Use title in file name
223 -l, --literal [deprecated] Alias of --title
224 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite files
225 -c, --continue Force resume of partially downloaded files.
226 By default, youtube-dl will resume
227 downloads if possible.
228 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded files
229 (restart from beginning)
230 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
232 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
233 the file modification time
234 --write-description Write video description to a .description
236 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
237 --write-annotations Write video annotations to a
238 .annotations.xml file
239 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
240 (created with the "--write-info-json"
242 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
244 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
245 can store some downloaded information
246 permanently. By default
247 $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
248 ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
249 YouTube player files (for videos with
250 obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
252 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
253 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
256 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
257 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
258 --list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
261 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
262 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
263 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
264 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
266 --skip-download Do not download the video
267 -g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
268 -e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
269 --get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
270 --get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
271 --get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
272 --get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
273 --get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
274 --get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
275 -j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
276 See --output for a description of available
278 -J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
279 for each command-line argument. If the URL
280 refers to a playlist, dump the whole
281 playlist information in a single line.
282 --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
283 JSON (video is still being downloaded).
284 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
285 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
286 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
287 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
288 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
289 to debug problems (very verbose)
290 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
291 files in the current directory to debug
293 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
294 -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
295 --no-call-home Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for
299 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
300 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
301 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
302 information about the video. (Currently
303 supported only for YouTube)
304 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
305 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
306 access is restricted to one domain
307 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
308 separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
309 option multiple times
310 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
311 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
312 or fribidi executable in PATH
313 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
314 download when used alone or a lower bound
315 of a range for randomized sleep before each
316 download (minimum possible number of
317 seconds to sleep) when used along with
318 --max-sleep-interval.
319 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep
320 before each download (maximum possible
321 number of seconds to sleep). Must only be
322 used along with --min-sleep-interval.
324 ## Video Format Options:
325 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see the "FORMAT
326 SELECTION" for all the info
327 --all-formats Download all available video formats
328 --prefer-free-formats Prefer free video formats unless a specific
330 -F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
332 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
333 related data on YouTube videos
334 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
335 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
336 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
337 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
340 --write-sub Write subtitle file
341 --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file
343 --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
345 --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
346 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
347 preference, for example: "srt" or
349 --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
350 (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
351 subs for available language tags
353 ## Authentication Options:
354 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
355 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
356 out, youtube-dl will ask interactively.
357 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor auth code
358 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
359 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
361 ## Adobe Pass Options:
362 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
363 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
364 a list of available MSOs
365 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
366 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
367 If this option is left out, youtube-dl will
369 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
372 ## Post-processing Options:
373 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
374 (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
376 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
377 "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or "wav";
379 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert
380 a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse)
381 for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
383 --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
384 necessary (currently supported:
385 mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
386 --postprocessor-args ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessor
387 -k, --keep-video Keep the video file on disk after the post-
388 processing; the video is erased by default
389 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files; the
390 post-processed files are overwritten by
392 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
394 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
395 --add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
396 --metadata-from-title FORMAT Parse additional metadata like song title /
397 artist from the video title. The format
398 syntax is the same as --output, the parsed
399 parameters replace existing values.
400 Additional templates: %(album)s,
401 %(artist)s. Example: --metadata-from-title
402 "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a title
403 like "Coldplay - Paradise"
404 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
405 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
406 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
407 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
408 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
409 default; fix file if we can, warn
411 --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
412 postprocessors (default)
413 --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
415 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary;
416 either the path to the binary or its
417 containing directory.
418 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
419 downloading, similar to find's -exec
420 syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
421 /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
422 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
423 (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt)
427 You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux and OS X, 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.
429 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:
431 # Lines starting with # are comments
433 # Always extract audio
436 # Do not copy the mtime
440 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
442 # Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
443 -o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s
446 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`.
448 You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
450 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
452 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:
455 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
457 After that you can add credentials for extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of extractor in lowercase:
459 machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
463 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
464 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
466 To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
468 On Windows you may also need to setup the `%HOME%` environment variable manually.
472 The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names.
474 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
476 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:
478 - `id`: Video identifier
479 - `title`: Video title
481 - `ext`: Video filename extension
482 - `alt_title`: A secondary title of the video
483 - `display_id`: An alternative identifier for the video
484 - `uploader`: Full name of the video uploader
485 - `license`: License name the video is licensed under
486 - `creator`: The creator of the video
487 - `release_date`: The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
488 - `timestamp`: UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
489 - `upload_date`: Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
490 - `uploader_id`: Nickname or id of the video uploader
491 - `location`: Physical location where the video was filmed
492 - `duration`: Length of the video in seconds
493 - `view_count`: How many users have watched the video on the platform
494 - `like_count`: Number of positive ratings of the video
495 - `dislike_count`: Number of negative ratings of the video
496 - `repost_count`: Number of reposts of the video
497 - `average_rating`: Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
498 - `comment_count`: Number of comments on the video
499 - `age_limit`: Age restriction for the video (years)
500 - `format`: A human-readable description of the format
501 - `format_id`: Format code specified by `--format`
502 - `format_note`: Additional info about the format
503 - `width`: Width of the video
504 - `height`: Height of the video
505 - `resolution`: Textual description of width and height
506 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
507 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
508 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
509 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
510 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
512 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
513 - `container`: Name of the container format
514 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
515 - `filesize_approx`: An estimate for the number of bytes
516 - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download
517 - `extractor`: Name of the extractor
518 - `extractor_key`: Key name of the extractor
519 - `epoch`: Unix epoch when creating the file
520 - `autonumber`: Five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero
521 - `playlist`: Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
522 - `playlist_index`: Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
523 - `playlist_id`: Playlist identifier
524 - `playlist_title`: Playlist title
527 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
528 - `chapter`: Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
529 - `chapter_number`: Number of the chapter the video belongs to
530 - `chapter_id`: Id of the chapter the video belongs to
532 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
533 - `series`: Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
534 - `season`: Title of the season the video episode belongs to
535 - `season_number`: Number of the season the video episode belongs to
536 - `season_id`: Id of the season the video episode belongs to
537 - `episode`: Title of the video episode
538 - `episode_number`: Number of the video episode within a season
539 - `episode_id`: Id of the video episode
541 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
542 - `track`: Title of the track
543 - `track_number`: Number of the track within an album or a disc
544 - `track_id`: Id of the track
545 - `artist`: Artist(s) of the track
546 - `genre`: Genre(s) of the track
547 - `album`: Title of the album the track belongs to
548 - `album_type`: Type of the album
549 - `album_artist`: List of all artists appeared on the album
550 - `disc_number`: Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
551 - `release_year`: Year (YYYY) when the album was released
553 Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in 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 particular extractor, such sequences will be replaced with `NA`.
555 For example for `-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and 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.
557 Output template can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. `-o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s'` that will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
559 To specify percent literal in output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
561 The current default template is `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
563 In some cases, you don't want special characters such as 中, 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:
565 #### Output template and Windows batch files
567 If you are using 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"`.
569 #### Output template examples
571 Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
574 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
575 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
577 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
578 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
580 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
581 $ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
583 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
584 $ youtube-dl -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
586 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
587 $ 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/
589 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
590 $ youtube-dl -o "C:/MyVideos/%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" http://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617
592 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
593 $ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc
598 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**.
600 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.
602 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.
604 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
606 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.
608 You can also use a file extension (currently `3gp`, `aac`, `flv`, `m4a`, `mp3`, `mp4`, `ogg`, `wav`, `webm` are supported) to download best quality format of particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. `-f webm` will download best quality format with `webm` extension served as a single file.
610 You can also use special names to select particular edge case format:
611 - `best`: Select best quality format represented by single file with video and audio
612 - `worst`: Select worst quality format represented by single file with video and audio
613 - `bestvideo`: Select best quality video only format (e.g. DASH video), may not be available
614 - `worstvideo`: Select worst quality video only format, may not be available
615 - `bestaudio`: Select best quality audio only format, may not be available
616 - `worstaudio`: Select worst quality audio only format, may not be available
618 For example, to download worst quality video only format you can use `-f worstvideo`.
620 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.
622 If you want to download several formats of the same video use comma as a separator, e.g. `-f 22,17,18` will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or more sophisticated example combined with precedence feature `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`.
624 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
626 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
627 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
628 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
629 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
630 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
631 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
632 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
633 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
636 Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals), `^=` (begins with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
637 - `ext`: File extension
638 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
639 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
640 - `container`: Name of the container format
641 - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case. `http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`
642 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
644 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 video hoster.
646 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.
648 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 best video only format, best audio only format and mux them together with ffmpeg/avconv.
650 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]'`.
652 Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26 youtube-dl uses `-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best` as 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.
654 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.
656 #### Format selection examples
658 Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
661 # Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
662 $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'
664 # Download best format available but not better that 480p
665 $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'
667 # Download best video only format but no bigger that 50 MB
668 $ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'
670 # Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
671 $ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'
673 # Download the best video format and the best audio format without merging them
674 $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
676 Note that in the last example, an output template is recommended as bestvideo and bestaudio may have the same file name.
681 Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
683 - Absolute dates: Dates in the format `YYYYMMDD`.
684 - Relative dates: Dates in the format `(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
689 # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
690 $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
692 # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
693 $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
695 $ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
696 $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
701 ### How do I update youtube-dl?
703 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`).
705 If you have used pip, a simple `sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
707 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.
709 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
711 sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
713 Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
716 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
717 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
721 Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
723 ### youtube-dl is extremely slow to start on Windows
725 Add a file exclusion for `youtube-dl.exe` in Windows Defender settings.
727 ### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
729 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.
731 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.
733 ### I'm getting an error when trying to use output template: `error: using output template conflicts with using title, video ID or auto number`
735 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.
737 ### Do I always have to pass `-citw`?
739 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`.
741 ### Can you please put the `-b` option back?
743 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.
745 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
747 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.
749 ### Do I need any other programs?
751 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.
753 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](http://mplayerhq.hu/) or [mpv](https://mpv.io/) to be installed.
755 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
757 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [mpv](https://mpv.io/), [vlc](http://www.videolan.org/) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
759 ### I extracted a video URL with `-g`, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
761 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.
763 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.
765 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.
767 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.
769 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
771 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.
773 ### ERROR: unable to download video
775 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.
777 ### 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`
779 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).
781 For example if your URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc you should end up with following command:
783 ```youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc'```
787 ```youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4\&v=BaW_jenozKc```
789 For Windows you have to use the double quotes:
791 ```youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc"```
793 ### ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u'OF'
795 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.
797 ### HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
799 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.
801 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
805 File "youtube-dl", line 2
806 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
808 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
810 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
812 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`.
814 ### The exe throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll`
816 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).
818 ### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
820 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.
822 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.
824 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.
826 ### How do I put downloads into a specific folder?
828 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).
830 ### How do I download a video starting with a `-`?
832 Either prepend `http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=` or separate the ID from the options with `--`:
834 youtube-dl -- -wNyEUrxzFU
835 youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNyEUrxzFU"
837 ### How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl?
839 Use the `--cookies` option, for example `--cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt`.
841 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 [Export Cookies](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/export-cookies/) (for Firefox).
843 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, `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.
845 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).
847 ### How do I stream directly to media player?
849 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](http://www.videolan.org/) can be achieved with:
851 youtube-dl -o - "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj" | vlc -
853 ### How do I download only new videos from a playlist?
855 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.
857 For example, at first,
859 youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
861 will download the complete `PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re` playlist and create a file `archive.txt`. Each subsequent run will only download new videos if any:
863 youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
865 ### Should I add `--hls-prefer-native` into my config?
867 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.
869 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.
871 In particular, the generic extractor (used when your website is not in the [list of supported sites by youtube-dl](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html) cannot mandate one specific downloader.
873 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.
875 ### Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
877 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.
879 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.
881 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.
883 ### How can I speed up work on my issue?
885 (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:
887 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.
889 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.
891 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).
893 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`.
895 ### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
897 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 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.
899 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.
901 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.
903 # Why do I need to go through that much red tape when filing bugs?
905 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 alrady 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.
907 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.
909 # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
911 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.
913 To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
917 To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
919 python -m unittest discover
920 python test/test_download.py
923 If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
926 * make (both GNU make and BSD make are supported)
931 ### Adding support for a new site
933 If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure** this site is **not dedicated to [copyright infringement](#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**.
935 After you have ensured this site is distributing it's content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
937 1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
938 2. Check out the source code with:
940 git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git
942 3. Start a new git branch with
945 git checkout -b yourextractor
947 4. Start with this simple template and save it to `youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
951 from __future__ import unicode_literals
953 from .common import InfoExtractor
956 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
957 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
959 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
960 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
964 'title': 'Video title goes here',
965 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
966 # TODO more properties, either as:
968 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
969 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
970 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
974 def _real_extract(self, url):
975 video_id = self._match_id(url)
976 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
978 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
979 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
984 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
985 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
986 # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
989 5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py).
990 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.
991 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.
992 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](http://www.python.org/) versions claimed supported by youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2+.
993 9. When the tests pass, [add](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-add) the new files and [commit](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit) them and [push](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-push) the result, like this:
995 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
996 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
997 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
998 $ git push origin yourextractor
1000 10. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
1002 In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
1004 ## youtube-dl coding conventions
1006 This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
1008 Extractors are very fragile by nature since they depend on the layout of the source data provided by 3rd party media hoster out of your control and this layout tend 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 code dependency on source's layout changes and even to make the code foresee potential future changes and be ready for that. This is important because it will allow 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 fix incorporated all the previous version become broken in all repositories and distros' packages that may not be so prompt in fetching the update from us. Needless to say some may never receive an update at all that is possible for non rolling release distros.
1010 ### Mandatory and optional metafields
1012 For extraction to work youtube-dl relies on metadata your extractor extracts and provides to youtube-dl expressed by [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 *info dict* are considered mandatory for successful extraction process by youtube-dl:
1014 - `id` (media identifier)
1015 - `title` (media title)
1016 - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
1018 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` to be mandatory. Thus aforementioned metafields are the critical data the extraction does not make any sense without and if any of them fail to be extracted then extractor is considered completely broken.
1020 [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 **tolerate** 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.
1024 Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
1027 meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
1030 Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
1035 "summary": "some fancy summary text",
1040 Assume you want to extract `summary` and put into resulting info dict as `description`. Since `description` is optional metafield you should be ready that this key may be missing from the `meta` dict, so that you should extract it like:
1043 description = meta.get('summary') # correct
1049 description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
1052 The latter will break extraction process with `KeyError` if `summary` disappears from `meta` at some time later but with former approach extraction will just go ahead with `description` set to `None` that is perfectly fine (remember `None` is equivalent for absence of data).
1054 Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
1057 description = self._search_regex(
1058 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
1059 webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
1062 With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
1064 You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
1067 description = self._search_regex(
1068 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
1069 webpage, 'description', default=None)
1072 On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with `description` set to `None`. That is useful for metafields that are known to may or may not be present.
1074 ### Provide fallbacks
1076 When extracting metadata try to provide several scenarios for that. For example if `title` is present in several places/sources try extracting from at least some of them. This would make it more future-proof in case some of the sources became unavailable.
1080 Say `meta` from previous example has a `title` and you are about to extract it. Since `title` is mandatory meta field you should end up with something like:
1083 title = meta['title']
1086 If `title` disappeares from `meta` in future due to some changes on hoster's side the extraction would fail since `title` is mandatory. That's expected.
1088 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:
1091 title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
1094 This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`.
1096 ### Make regular expressions flexible
1098 When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy and flexible.
1102 Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
1105 <span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
1108 The code for that task should look similar to:
1111 title = self._search_regex(
1112 r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
1118 title = self._search_regex(
1119 r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
1120 webpage, 'title', group='title')
1123 Note how you tolerate potential changes in `style` attribute's value or switch from using double quotes to single for `class` attribute:
1125 The code definitely should not look like:
1128 title = self._search_regex(
1129 r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
1130 webpage, 'title', group='title')
1133 ### Use safe conversion functions
1135 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.
1137 # EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
1139 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).
1141 From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1144 from __future__ import unicode_literals
1148 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1149 ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
1152 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/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L128-L278). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
1154 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:
1157 from __future__ import unicode_literals
1161 class MyLogger(object):
1162 def debug(self, msg):
1165 def warning(self, msg):
1168 def error(self, msg):
1173 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1174 print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
1178 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
1179 'postprocessors': [{
1180 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1181 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
1182 'preferredquality': '192',
1184 'logger': MyLogger(),
1185 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1187 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1188 ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
1193 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. For discussions, join us in the IRC channel [#youtube-dl](irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl) on freenode ([webchat](http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl)).
1195 **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:
1197 $ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
1198 [debug] System config: []
1199 [debug] User config: []
1200 [debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
1201 [debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
1202 [debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
1203 [debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
1204 [debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
1205 [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
1206 [debug] Proxy map: {}
1209 **Do not post screenshots of verbose log only plain text is acceptable.**
1211 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.
1213 Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
1215 ### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
1217 We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most cases we eventually get the required information after asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may misread some parts.
1219 So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
1221 - What the problem is
1222 - How it could be fixed
1223 - How your proposed solution would look like
1225 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.
1227 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.
1229 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/).
1231 **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.
1233 ### Are you using the latest version?
1235 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.
1237 ### Is the issue already documented?
1239 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.
1241 ### Why are existing options not enough?
1243 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.
1245 ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
1247 People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
1249 We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing feature would be useful.
1251 ### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
1253 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.
1255 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.
1257 ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
1259 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.
1261 ### Is your question about youtube-dl?
1263 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.
1267 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
1269 This README file was originally written by [Daniel Bolton](https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.
projects / youtube-dl / blob