- [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
- [FAQ](#faq)
- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
+- [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
- [BUGS](#bugs)
- [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
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 https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html .
# DESCRIPTION
**youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
--playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
--xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with expected filesize (experimental)
--hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of ffmpeg (experimental)
- --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader. Currently supports aria2c,curl,httpie,wget
+ --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:
-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)
+ --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
## Post-processing Options:
-x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
# 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, system wide configuration file is located at `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and 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 configration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime and use proxy:
+```
+--extract-audio
+--no-mtime
+--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
+```
+
+You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
### Authentication with `.netrc` file ###
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 `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or to place it in [configuration file](#configuration).
+To activate authentication with `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in [configuration file](#configuration).
On Windows you may also need to setup `%HOME%` environment variable manually.
- `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`.
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`.
+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 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.
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.
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-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 cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and the first line of 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 cookies file and convert newlines if necessary to correspond 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 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.
```
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.
+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:
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#L117-L265). 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:
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.
-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/).
+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.
### 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?
projects / youtube-dl / blobdiff