- [OPTIONS](#options)
- [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
- [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
+- [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
- [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
- [FAQ](#faq)
- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
+- [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
- [BUGS](#bugs)
- [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
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](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in their home directory or any other location on their [PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29).
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](#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).
# DESCRIPTION
**youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
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
+ --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
on Windows)
--flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
only list them.
- --no-color Do not emit color codes in output.
+ --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
## Network Options:
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
(experimental)
-6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
(experimental)
+ --cn-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
+ some Chinese sites. The default proxy
+ specified by --proxy (or none, if the
+ options is not present) is used for the
+ actual downloading. (experimental)
## Video Selection:
- --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
- --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
- --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC playlist video items to download. Specify
+ --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
- seperated by commas like: "--playlist-items
+ 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
+ --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
- --match-filter FILTER (Experimental) Generic video filter.
+ --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
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 &
+ use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
dislike_count <? 50 & description" .
- --no-playlist If the URL refers to a video and a
- playlist, download only the video.
- --age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given
+ --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
(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), or
+ -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
"infinite".
- --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
+ --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 (experimental) set file xattribute
- ytdl.filesize with expected filesize
- --hls-prefer-native (experimental) Use the native HLS
- downloader instead of ffmpeg.
- --external-downloader COMMAND (experimental) Use the specified external
- downloader. Currently supports
- aria2c,curl,wget
+ --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
- -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
- -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
- "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] number
+ -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
+ -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
- --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
--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
+ --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.
--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-intermediate-pages print downloaded pages to debug problems
- (very verbose)
+ --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.
+ -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
--no-call-home Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for
- debugging.
+ 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
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.
- --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 of requested
+ videos
+ --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
+ webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
## Subtitle Options:
- --write-sub write subtitle file
- --write-auto-sub write automatic subtitle file (youtube
- only)
- --all-subs downloads all the available subtitles of
- the video
- --list-subs lists all available subtitles for the video
- --sub-format FORMAT subtitle format, accepts formats
- preference, for example: "ass/srt/best"
- --sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download
+ --write-sub Write subtitle file
+ --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file
+ (YouTube only)
+ --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
+ video
+ --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
+ --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
+ preference, for example: "srt" or
+ "ass/srt/best"
+ --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
(optional) separated by commas, use IETF
language tags like 'en,pt'
## Authentication Options:
- -u, --username USERNAME login with this account ID
- -p, --password PASSWORD account password. If this option is left
+ -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)
+ -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
+ emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
default; fix file if we can, warn
otherwise)
--prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
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\<user name>\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](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a`.netrc` file in your `$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by you only:
+```
+touch $HOME/.netrc
+chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
+```
+After that you can add credentials for extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of extractor in lowercase:
+```
+machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
+```
+For example:
+```
+machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
+machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
+```
+To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
+
+On Windows you may also need to setup the `%HOME%` environment variable manually.
# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
-The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format `%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
+The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format `%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
- `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
- `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
- `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
- `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
- `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
- - `playlist`: The 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](#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:
+Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
- Absolute dates: Dates in the format `YYYYMMDD`.
- Relative dates: Dates in the format `(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
# 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
```
If you have used pip, a simple `sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
-If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distributions serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
+If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distribution serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to [report bugs](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug) to the [Ubuntu packaging guys](mailto:ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com?subject=outdated%20version%20of%20youtube-dl) - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
-### Do I always have to pass 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](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). 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`.
+By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different, [please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular, the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
-### Can you please put the -b option back?
+### Can you please put the `-b` option back?
Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the `-b` option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the `-f` option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
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.
+### Do I need any other programs?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
-### I extracted a video URL with -g, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
+### 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.
+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.
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.
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.
-### ERROR: unable to download video ###
+### ERROR: unable to download video
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.
+### 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](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
-### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
+### 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](#network-options) to select another IP address.
+
+### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
The error
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).
-### How do I download a video starting with a `-` ?
+### 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](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.
+
+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.
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](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.
+
+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.
+
+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](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.
webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
# TODO more code goes here, for example ...
- 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`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/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 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`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
-7. Have a look at [`youtube_dl/common/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 return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L38). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
+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.
+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#L62-L200). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
8. If you can, check the code with [flake8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flake8).
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:
From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
```python
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
import youtube_dl
ydl_opts = {}
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](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L69). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
+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`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L121-L269). 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
# 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. For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
+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)).
-**Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with `-v`**.
+**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:
+```
+$ youtube-dl -v http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj
+[debug] System config: []
+[debug] User config: []
+[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
+[debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
+[debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
+[debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
+[debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
+[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
+[debug] Proxy map: {}
+...
+```
+**Do not post screenshots of verbose log only plain text is acceptable.**
-The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
+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.
Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
- How it could be fixed
- How your proposed solution would look like
-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 commiter 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.
+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.
+
+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](https://gist.github.com/).
-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.
+**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.
### Are you using the latest version?
-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.
+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.
### Is the issue already documented?
-Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or at https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . 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.
+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.
### Why are existing options not enough?
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.
+This README file was originally written by [Daniel Bolton](https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.
projects / youtube-dl / blobdiff