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 curl -L https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /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+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).
+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`).
-OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
+You can also use pip:
+
+ sudo pip install --upgrade youtube-dl
+
+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.
+
+OS X users can install youtube-dl with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/):
brew install youtube-dl
-You can also use pip:
+Or with [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/):
- sudo pip install youtube-dl
+ sudo port install youtube-dl
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).
repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
this is not possible instead of searching.
--ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
- in the global configuration file /etc
- /youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
+ in the global configuration file
+ /etc/youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
on Windows)
--flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
only list them.
+ --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
+ --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
--no-color Do not emit color codes in output
## Network Options:
- --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
- an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
- connection
+ --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
+ To enable experimental SOCKS proxy, specify
+ a proper scheme. For example
+ socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
+ string (--proxy "") for direct connection
--socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
(experimental)
(experimental)
## Download Options:
- -r, --rate-limit LIMIT Maximum download rate in bytes per second
+ -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
(e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
-R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
"infinite".
+ --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
+ is 10), or "infinite" (DASH only)
--buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
(default is 1024)
--no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
--xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
expected filesize (experimental)
--hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
- ffmpeg (experimental)
+ ffmpeg
+ --hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
+ downloader
+ --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
+ allowing to play the video while
+ downloading (some players may not be able
+ to play it)
--external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
Currently supports
- aria2c,axel,curl,httpie,wget
+ aria2c,avconv,axel,curl,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
--external-downloader-args ARGS Give these arguments to the external
downloader
--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
+ --load-info-json 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
- permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
- /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
- moment, only YouTube player files (for
- videos with obfuscated signatures) are
- cached, but that may change.
+ permanently. By default
+ $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
+ ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
+ YouTube player files (for videos with
+ obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
+ may change.
--no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
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'
+ (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
+ subs for available language tags
## Authentication Options:
-u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
--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 mkv
- and mp4 videos)
+ --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
+ webm and mkv 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 /
# CONFIGURATION
-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:
+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`.
+
+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:
```
---extract-audio
+-x
--no-mtime
--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
+-o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s
```
+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`.
+
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:
+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
# 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 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.
- - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
- - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
- - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
- - `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 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 `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names.
+
+**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
+
+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`: Video identifier
+ - `title`: Video title
+ - `url`: Video URL
+ - `ext`: Video filename extension
+ - `alt_title`: A secondary title of the video
+ - `display_id`: An alternative identifier for the video
+ - `uploader`: Full name of the video uploader
+ - `license`: License name the video is licensed under
+ - `creator`: The creator of the video
+ - `release_date`: The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
+ - `timestamp`: UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
+ - `upload_date`: Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
+ - `uploader_id`: Nickname or id of the video uploader
+ - `location`: Physical location where the video was filmed
+ - `duration`: Length of the video in seconds
+ - `view_count`: How many users have watched the video on the platform
+ - `like_count`: Number of positive ratings of the video
+ - `dislike_count`: Number of negative ratings of the video
+ - `repost_count`: Number of reposts of the video
+ - `average_rating`: Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
+ - `comment_count`: Number of comments on the video
+ - `age_limit`: Age restriction for the video (years)
+ - `format`: A human-readable description of the format
+ - `format_id`: Format code specified by `--format`
+ - `format_note`: Additional info about the format
+ - `width`: Width of the video
+ - `height`: Height of the video
+ - `resolution`: Textual description of width and height
+ - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
+ - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
+ - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
+ - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `fps`: Frame rate
+ - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
+ - `container`: Name of the container format
+ - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
+ - `filesize_approx`: An estimate for the number of bytes
+ - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download
+ - `extractor`: Name of the extractor
+ - `extractor_key`: Key name of the extractor
+ - `epoch`: Unix epoch when creating the file
+ - `autonumber`: Five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero
+ - `playlist`: Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
+ - `playlist_index`: Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
+ - `playlist_id`: Playlist identifier
+ - `playlist_title`: Playlist title
+
+
+Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
+ - `chapter`: Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
+ - `chapter_number`: Number of the chapter the video belongs to
+ - `chapter_id`: Id of the chapter the video belongs to
+
+Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
+ - `series`: Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
+ - `season`: Title of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `season_number`: Number of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `season_id`: Id of the season the video episode belongs to
+ - `episode`: Title of the video episode
+ - `episode_number`: Number of the video episode within a season
+ - `episode_id`: Id of the video episode
+
+Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
+ - `track`: Title of the track
+ - `track_number`: Number of the track within an album or a disc
+ - `track_id`: Id of the track
+ - `artist`: Artist(s) of the track
+ - `genre`: Genre(s) of the track
+ - `album`: Title of the album the track belongs to
+ - `album_type`: Type of the album
+ - `album_artist`: List of all artists appeared on the album
+ - `disc_number`: Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
+ - `release_year`: Year (YYYY) when the album was released
+
+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`.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+To specify percent literal in output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
The current default template is `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
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:
+#### Output template examples
+
+Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
+
```bash
-$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
+$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
-$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
+
+$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
+
+# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
+$ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
+
+# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
+$ youtube-dl -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
+
+# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
+$ 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/
+
+# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
+$ 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
+
+# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
+$ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc
```
# 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`.
+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**.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+You can also use special names to select particular edge case format:
+ - `best`: Select best quality format represented by single file with video and audio
+ - `worst`: Select worst quality format represented by single file with video and audio
+ - `bestvideo`: Select best quality video only format (e.g. DASH video), may not be available
+ - `worstvideo`: Select worst quality video only format, may not be available
+ - `bestaudio`: Select best quality audio only format, may not be available
+ - `worstaudio`: Select worst quality audio only format, may not be available
+
+For example, to download worst quality video only format you can use `-f worstvideo`.
+
+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.
+
+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`.
-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]'`.
+You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
-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.
+The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
+ - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
+ - `width`: Width of the video, if known
+ - `height`: Height of the video, if known
+ - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
+ - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
+ - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
+ - `fps`: Frame rate
+
+Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals), `^=` (begins with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
+ - `ext`: File extension
+ - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
+ - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
+ - `container`: Name of the container format
+ - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case. `http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`
+ - `format_id`: A short description of the format
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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](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.
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.
+#### Format selection examples
+
+Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
+
+```bash
+# Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
+$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'
+
+# Download best format available but not better that 480p
+$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'
+
+# Download best video only format but no bigger that 50 MB
+$ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'
+
+# Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
+$ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'
+```
+
+
# VIDEO SELECTION
Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
+### youtube-dl is extremely slow to start on Windows
+
+Add a file exclusion for `youtube-dl.exe` in Windows Defender settings.
+
### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
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.
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.
+### I'm getting an error when trying to use output template: `error: using output template conflicts with using title, video ID or auto number`
+
+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.
+
### 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, the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
### 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/).
+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/).
### I extracted a video URL with `-g`, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
-Since June 2012 (#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`.
+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`.
-### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
+### The exe throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll`
-To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
+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).
### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
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.
+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).
### Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
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.
+# Why do I need to go through that much red tape when filing bugs?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
# DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
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.
If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
* python
-* make
+* make (both GNU make and BSD make are supported)
* pandoc
* zip
* nosetests
### Adding support for a new site
-If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
+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**.
+
+After you have ensured this site is distributing it's content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
2. Check out the source code with `git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
# 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).
+5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.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 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:
+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/58525c94d547be1c8167d16c298bdd75506db328/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L68-L226). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
+8. Keep in mind that the only mandatory fields in info dict for successful extraction process are `id`, `title` and either `url` or `formats`, i.e. these are the critical data the extraction does not make any sense without. This means that [any field](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/58525c94d547be1c8167d16c298bdd75506db328/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L138-L226) apart from aforementioned mandatory ones should be treated **as optional** and extraction should be **tolerate** to situations when sources for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if they always available at the moment) and **future-proof** in order not to break the extraction of general purpose mandatory fields. For example, if you have some intermediate dict `meta` that is a source of metadata and it has a key `summary` that you want to extract and put into resulting info dict as `description`, you should be ready that this key may be missing from the `meta` dict, i.e. you should extract it as `meta.get('summary')` and not `meta['summary']`. Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting data from a webpage with `_search_regex/_html_search_regex`.
+9. Check the code with [flake8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flake8).
+10. 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:
- $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
+ $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
$ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
$ git push origin yourextractor
-10. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
+11. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
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`**, 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:
+**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
+$ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
projects / youtube-dl / blobdiff