% YOUTUBE-DL(1)
youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
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 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.
-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 to
skip unavailable videos in a playlist
--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
--list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs they
would handle
--extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported extractors
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy
--no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
--cache-dir None Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl can
store downloaded information permanently. By
default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or ~/.cache
/youtube-dl .
--no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
--playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
--match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or caseless
sub-string)
--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 before this date
--dateafter DATE download only videos uploaded after this date
--no-playlist download only the currently playing video
--age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given age
--download-archive FILE Download only videos not present in the archive
file. Record all downloaded videos in it.
-r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
-R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
--buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16k)
(default is 1024)
--no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer size. By
default, the buffer size is automatically resized
from an initial value of SIZE.
-t, --title use title in file name (default)
--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 uploader name,
%(uploader_id)s for the uploader nickname if
different, %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
incremented number, %(ext)s for the filename
extension, %(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 is in,
%(playlist_index)s for the position in the
playlist and %% for a literal percent. Use - to
output to stdout. Can also be used to download to
a different directory, for example with -o '/my/d
ownloads/%(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
--autonumber option is given
--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)
-w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
-c, --continue resume partially downloaded files
--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-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set the
file modification time
--write-description write video description to a .description file
--write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
--write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
-q, --quiet activates quiet mode
-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-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
--get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
--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)
-f, --format FORMAT video format code, specifiy the order of
preference using slashes: "-f 22/17/18". "-f mp4"
and "-f flv" are also supported
--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 (currently youtube
only)
--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 (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt] youtube
only)
--sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download (optional)
separated by commas, use IETF language tags like
'en,pt'
-u, --username USERNAME account username
-p, --password PASSWORD account password
-n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
--video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo only)
-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)
--recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if necessary
(currently supported: mp4|flv|ogg|webm)
-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 post-
processed files are overwritten by default
--embed-subs embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
videos)
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.conf.
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:
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 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.
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:
$ 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
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)?
Examples:
$ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months #will only download the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
$ youtube-dl --date 19700101 #will only download the videos uploaded in January 1, 1970
$ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20100101 #will only download the videos uploaded between 2000 and 2010
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, but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as vlc or mplayer.
The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct 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.
youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl --update.
youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl --update.
The error
File "youtube-dl", line 2
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
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.
To run the exe you need to install first the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package.
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.
Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues
Please include:
- Your exact command line, like
youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title". A common mistake is not to escape the&. Putting URLs in quotes should solve this problem. - If possible re-run the command with
--verbose, and include the full output, it is really helpful to us. - The output of
youtube-dl --version - The output of
python --version - The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu 11.04 x64" or "Windows 7 x64" is usually enough).
For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.