- [OPTIONS](#options)
- [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
- [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
+- [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
- [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
- [FAQ](#faq)
- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
--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, as in -f 22/17/18 . Instead of format codes, you can select by
- extension for the extensions aac, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm. You can also use the special names "best", "bestvideo", "bestaudio",
- "worst". You can 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. 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.
+ -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
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 other 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`.
+
+Since the end of April 2015 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 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.
+
+If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (pre-April 2015), i.e. you want to download best available quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify your choice with `-f best`. You may want to add it to the [configuration file](#configuration) in order not to type it every time you run youtube-dl.
+
# VIDEO SELECTION
Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`, they accept dates in two formats:
projects / youtube-dl / blobdiff