-% YOUTUBE-DL(1)
-
-# NAME
youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
# SYNOPSIS
**youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
+# INSTALLATION
+
+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
+
+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
+
+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).
+
+OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
+
+ brew install youtube-dl
+
+You can also use pip:
+
+ 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 .
+
# DESCRIPTION
**youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
-2.6, 2.7, or 3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
+2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
playlist or the command line) if an error
occurs
--dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
- --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
- --referer REF 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,
- separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
- option multiple times
--list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs
they would handle
--extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
connection
- --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
- --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
- information about the video. (Currently
- supported only for YouTube)
- --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.
- --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--socket-timeout None Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
- --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
- bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
- or fribidi executable in PATH
--default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
from google videos for youtube-dl "large
- apple". By default (with value "auto")
- youtube-dl guesses.
+ apple". Use the value "auto" to let
+ youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
+ warning when guessing). "error" just throws
+ an error. The default value "fixup_error"
+ 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
configuration in ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf
(%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt on
Windows)
- --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
+ --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
+ only list them.
## Video Selection:
--playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
COUNT views
--max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
COUNT views
- --no-playlist download only the currently playing video
+ --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
age
--download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
downloaded videos in it.
--include-ads Download advertisements as well
(experimental)
- --youtube-include-dash-manifest Try to download the DASH manifest on
- YouTube videos (experimental)
## Download Options:
-r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
of SIZE.
## Filesystem Options:
- -t, --title use title in file name (default)
+ -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
+ stdin)
--id use only video ID in file name
- -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
-A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from 00000
-o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to
get the title, %(uploader)s for the
%(upload_date)s for the upload date
(YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
(youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
- video id, %(playlist)s for the playlist the
+ video id, %(playlist_title)s,
+ %(playlist_id)s, or %(playlist)s (=title if
+ present, ID otherwise) for the playlist the
video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
- position in the playlist and %% for a
- literal percent. %(height)s and %(width)s
- for the width and height of the video
- format. %(resolution)s for a textual
+ position in the playlist. %(height)s and
+ %(width)s for the width and height of the
+ video format. %(resolution)s for a textual
description of the resolution of the video
- format. Use - to output to stdout. Can also
- be used to download to a different
- directory, for example with -o '/my/downloa
- ds/%(uploader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
+ format. %% for a literal percent. Use - to
+ output to stdout. Can also be used to
+ 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)s when it is present in output
filename template or --auto-number option
--restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
filenames
- -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
- stdin)
- --load-info FILE json file containing the video information
- (created with the "--write-json" option)
+ -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.
By default, youtube-dl will resume
downloads if possible.
--no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files
(restart from beginning)
- --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie
- jar in
- --no-part do not use .part files
+ --no-part do not use .part files - write directly
+ into output file
--no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set
the file modification time
--write-description write video description to a .description
--write-annotations write video annotations to a .annotation
file
--write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
+ --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
+ 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.
+ --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
+ --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
-q, --quiet activates quiet mode
-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
+ for each command-line argument. If the URL
+ refers to a playlist, dump the whole
+ playlist information in a single line.
--newline output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress do not print progress bar
--console-title display progress in console titlebar
problems
--print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
+## Workarounds:
+ --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
+ --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
+ access is restricted to one domain
+ --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
+ bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
+ or fribidi executable in PATH
+
## Video Format Options:
-f, --format FORMAT video format code, specify the order of
- preference using slashes: "-f 22/17/18".
- "-f mp4" and "-f flv" are also supported.
- You can also use the special names "best",
- "bestvideo", "bestaudio", "worst",
- "worstvideo" and "worstaudio". By default,
- youtube-dl will pick the best quality.
+ preference using slashes: -f 22/17/18 . -f
+ mp4 , -f m4a and -f flv are also
+ supported. You can also use the special
+ names "best", "bestvideo", "bestaudio",
+ "worst", "worstvideo" and "worstaudio". 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
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
## Subtitle Options:
--write-sub write subtitle file
language tags like 'en,pt'
## Authentication Options:
- -u, --username USERNAME account username
+ -u, --username USERNAME login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD account password
+ -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR two-factor auth code
-n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
--video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo, smotri)
(requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
avprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a",
- "opus", or "wav"; best by default
+ "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)
--recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
necessary (currently supported:
- mp4|flv|ogg|webm)
+ mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv)
-k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the
post-processing; the video is erased by
default
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
(using dublin core and xdg standards)
postprocessors (default)
--prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
postprocessors
+ --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
+ downloading, similar to find's -exec
+ syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
+ /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
# CONFIGURATION
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:
- $ 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_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
+```bash
+$ 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_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
+```
# VIDEO SELECTION
Examples:
- # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
- $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
+```bash
+# Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
+$ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
- # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
- $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
+# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
+$ youtube-dl --date 19700101
- $ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
- $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
+$ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
+$ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
+```
# FAQ
+### How do I update youtube-dl?
+
+If you've followed [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run `youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux, `sudo youtube-dl -U`).
+
+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.
+
+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
+
+ sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
+
+Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
+
+```
+sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
+hash -r
+```
+
+Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
+
+### 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.
+
+### Do I always have to pass in `--max-quality FORMAT`, or `-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`.
+
### 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.
2. Check out the source code with `git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
3. Start a new git branch with `cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor`
4. Start with this simple template and save it to `youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
-
- # coding: utf-8
- from __future__ import unicode_literals
-
- import re
-
- from .common import InfoExtractor
-
-
- class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
- _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
- _TEST = {
- 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
- 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10KiB of the video file',
- 'info_dict': {
- 'id': '42',
- 'ext': 'mp4',
- 'title': 'Video title goes here',
- # TODO more properties, either as:
- # * A value
- # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
- # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
- # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
- }
+ ```python
+ # coding: utf-8
+ from __future__ import unicode_literals
+
+ from .common import InfoExtractor
+
+
+ class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
+ _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
+ _TEST = {
+ 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
+ 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
+ 'info_dict': {
+ 'id': '42',
+ 'ext': 'mp4',
+ 'title': 'Video title goes here',
+ 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
+ # TODO more properties, either as:
+ # * A value
+ # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
+ # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
+ # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
}
+ }
- def _real_extract(self, url):
- mobj = re.match(self._VALID_URL, url)
- video_id = mobj.group('id')
-
- # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
- webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
- title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
-
- return {
- 'id': video_id,
- 'title': title,
- # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
- }
+ def _real_extract(self, url):
+ video_id = self._match_id(url)
+ webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
+ # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
+ title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
+ return {
+ 'id': video_id,
+ 'title': title,
+ 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
+ # 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.
+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.
8. If you can, check the code with [pyflakes](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyflakes) (a good idea) and [pep8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8) (optional, ignore E501).
-9. When the tests pass, [add](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-add.html) the new files and [commit](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-commit.html) them and [push](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-push.html) the result, like this:
+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:
$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
+# EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
+
+youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter any problems parsing its output, feel free to [create a report](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/new).
+
+From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
+
+ import youtube_dl
+
+ ydl_opts = {}
+ with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
+ 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.
+
# 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 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.
-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?
projects / youtube-dl / blobdiff