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[extractor/onenewsnz] Add extractor (#5088)
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ec2e44fc 1<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
b31fdeed 2<div align="center">
3
e980017a 4[![YT-DLP](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/master/.github/banner.svg)](#readme)
d9d045e2 5
2fa669f7 6[![Release version](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?color=brightgreen&label=Download&style=for-the-badge)](#installation "Installation")
ae6a1b95 7[![PyPi](https://img.shields.io/badge/-PyPi-blue.svg?logo=pypi&labelColor=555555&style=for-the-badge)](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp "PyPi")
fc5fa964 8[![Donate](https://img.shields.io/badge/_-Donate-red.svg?logo=githubsponsors&labelColor=555555&style=for-the-badge)](Collaborators.md#collaborators "Donate")
ae6a1b95 9[![Matrix](https://img.shields.io/matrix/yt-dlp:matrix.org?color=brightgreen&labelColor=555555&label=&logo=element&style=for-the-badge)](https://matrix.to/#/#yt-dlp:matrix.org "Matrix")
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fc5fa964 11[![Supported Sites](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Supported_Sites-brightgreen.svg?style=for-the-badge)](supportedsites.md "Supported Sites")
ae6a1b95 12[![License: Unlicense](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Unlicense-blue.svg?style=for-the-badge)](LICENSE "License")
fc5fa964 13[![CI Status](https://img.shields.io/github/workflow/status/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/Core%20Tests/master?label=Tests&style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/actions "CI Status")
fc5fa964 14[![Commits](https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/m/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?label=commits&style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
15[![Last Commit](https://img.shields.io/github/last-commit/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/master?label=&style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
c76eb41b 16
b31fdeed 17</div>
ec2e44fc 18<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
c76eb41b 19
b31fdeed 20yt-dlp is a [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) fork based on the now inactive [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc). The main focus of this project is adding new features and patches while also keeping up to date with the original project
5c0e5bc4 21
ec2e44fc 22<!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "USAGE AND OPTIONS" SECTION HERE -->
23
24<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
034b6215 25* [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
53ed7066 26 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
c76eb41b 27* [INSTALLATION](#installation)
deae7c17 28 * [Detailed instructions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation)
17fa3ee2 29 * [Update](#update)
0e5927ee 30 * [Release Files](#release-files)
cf59cd4d 31 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
17fa3ee2 32 * [Compile](#compile)
b31fdeed 33* [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
34 * [General Options](#general-options)
50865ca8 35 * [Network Options](#network-options)
b31fdeed 36 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
50865ca8 37 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
38 * [Download Options](#download-options)
39 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
b31fdeed 40 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
50865ca8 41 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
0744a815 42 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
50865ca8 43 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
44 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
45 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
46 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
50865ca8 47 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
7a340e0d 48 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
50865ca8 49 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
c76eb41b 50* [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
50865ca8 51 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
c76eb41b 52* [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
50865ca8 53 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
c76eb41b 54* [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
50865ca8 55 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
56 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
57 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
73cd218f 58* [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
59 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
5d3a0e79 60* [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
f74980cb 61* [PLUGINS](#plugins)
8c6f4daa 62* [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](#embedding-yt-dlp)
43cc91ad 63 * [Embedding examples](#embedding-examples)
e167860c 64* [DEPRECATED OPTIONS](#deprecated-options)
8c6f4daa 65* [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp)
66 * [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue)
67 * [Developer Instructions](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
17ffed18 68* [WIKI](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki)
deae7c17 69 * [FAQ](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ)
ec2e44fc 70<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
50865ca8 71
72
034b6215 73# NEW FEATURES
91f071af 74
1ac7f461 75* Merged with **youtube-dl v2021.12.17+ [commit/ed5c44e](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/ed5c44e7b74ac77f87ca5ed6cb5e964a0c6a0678)**<!--([exceptions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21))--> and **youtube-dlc v2020.11.11-3+ [commit/f9401f2](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/commit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee)**: You get all the features and patches of [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) in addition to the latest [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
034b6215 76
7a340e0d 77* **[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
034b6215 78
7581d246 79* **[Format Sorting](#sorting-formats)**: The default format sorting options have been changed so that higher resolution and better codecs will be now preferred instead of simply using larger bitrate. Furthermore, you can now specify the sort order using `-S`. This allows for much easier format selection than what is possible by simply using `--format` ([examples](#format-selection-examples))
034b6215 80
ae6a1b95 81* **Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl**: You get most of the features and improvements from [animelover1984/youtube-dl](https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including `--write-comments`, `BiliBiliSearch`, `BilibiliChannel`, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that the NicoNico livestreams are not available. See [#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
29b6000e 82
ae61d108 83* **YouTube improvements**:
84 * Supports Clips, Stories (`ytstories:<channel UCID>`), Search (including filters)**\***, YouTube Music Search, Channel-specific search, Search prefixes (`ytsearch:`, `ytsearchdate:`)**\***, Mixes, YouTube Music Albums/Channels ([except self-uploaded music](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723)), and Feeds (`:ytfav`, `:ytwatchlater`, `:ytsubs`, `:ythistory`, `:ytrec`, `:ytnotif`)
85 * Fix for [n-sig based throttling](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326) **\***
86 * Supports some (but not all) age-gated content without cookies
87 * Download livestreams from the start using `--live-from-start` (*experimental*)
88 * `255kbps` audio is extracted (if available) from YouTube Music when premium cookies are given
f20f5fe5 89 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to `/video` to preserve the old behaviour
90
f59f5ef8 91* **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using `--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]`
245524e6 92
5ec1b6b7 93* **Download time range**: Videos can be downloaded partially based on either timestamps or chapters using `--download-sections`
94
597c1866 95* **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using `--split-chapters`
96
b31fdeed 97* **Multi-threaded fragment downloads**: Download multiple fragments of m3u8/mpd videos in parallel. Use `--concurrent-fragments` (`-N`) option to set the number of threads used
8d801631 98
b31fdeed 99* **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use `aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
f20f5fe5 100
e75bb0d6 101* **New and fixed extractors**: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the [changelog](Changelog.md) or the [list of supported sites](supportedsites.md)
86c1a8aa 102
56ba69e4 103* **New MSOs**: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN etc.
fac98805 104
3de7c2ce 105* **Subtitle extraction from manifests**: Subtitles can be extracted from streaming media manifests. See [commit/be6202f](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/be6202f12b97858b9d716e608394b51065d0419f) for details
034b6215 106
597c1866 107* **Multiple paths and output templates**: You can give different [output templates](#output-template) and download paths for different types of files. You can also set a temporary path where intermediary files are downloaded to using `--paths` (`-P`)
0bc0a322 108
d4ada357 109* **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [CONFIGURATION](#configuration) for details
0bc0a322 110
418964fa 111* **Output template improvements**: Output templates can now have date-time formatting, numeric offsets, object traversal etc. See [output template](#output-template) for details. Even more advanced operations can also be done with the help of `--parse-metadata` and `--replace-in-metadata`
fac98805 112
8a82af35 113* **Other new options**: Many new options have been added such as `--alias`, `--print`, `--concat-playlist`, `--wait-for-video`, `--retry-sleep`, `--sleep-requests`, `--convert-thumbnails`, `--force-download-archive`, `--force-overwrites`, `--break-on-reject` etc
0bc0a322 114
08d30158 115* **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in `--format`/`--match-filter`, multiple `--postprocessor-args` and `--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection), merge multi-video/audio, multiple `--config-locations`, `--exec` at different stages, etc
c69911e4 116
86c1a8aa 117* **Plugins**: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
b31fdeed 118
7a5c1cfe 119* **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using `yt-dlp -U`
aa837ddf 120
7a5c1cfe 121See [changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
a26c99ac 122
ae61d108 123Features marked with a **\*** have been back-ported to youtube-dl
124
53ed7066 125### Differences in default behavior
126
0930b11f 127Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
53ed7066 128
96565c7e 129* The options `--auto-number` (`-A`), `--title` (`-t`) and `--literal` (`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
b69fd25c 130* `avconv` is not supported as an alternative to `ffmpeg`
d4ada357 131* yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See [CONFIGURATION](#configuration) for a list of correct locations
96565c7e 132* The default [output template](#output-template) is `%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`. There is no real reason for this change. This was changed before yt-dlp was ever made public and now there are no plans to change it back to `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`. Instead, you may use `--compat-options filename`
e4f02757 133* The default [format sorting](#sorting-formats) is different from youtube-dl and prefers higher resolution and better codecs rather than higher bitrates. You can use the `--format-sort` option to change this to any order you prefer, or use `--compat-options format-sort` to use youtube-dl's sorting order
e75bb0d6 134* The default format selector is `bv*+ba/b`. This means that if a combined video + audio format that is better than the best video-only format is found, the former will be preferred. Use `-f bv+ba/b` or `--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
28b0eb0f 135* Unlike youtube-dlc, yt-dlp does not allow merging multiple audio/video streams into one file by default (since this conflicts with the use of `-f bv*+ba`). If needed, this feature must be enabled using `--audio-multistreams` and `--video-multistreams`. You can also use `--compat-options multistreams` to enable both
08d30158 136* `--no-abort-on-error` is enabled by default. Use `--abort-on-error` or `--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
28b0eb0f 137* When writing metadata files such as thumbnails, description or infojson, the same information (if available) is also written for playlists. Use `--no-write-playlist-metafiles` or `--compat-options no-playlist-metafiles` to not write these files
9222c381 138* `--add-metadata` attaches the `infojson` to `mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with `--write-info-json`. Use `--no-embed-info-json` or `--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
9e907ebd 139* Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using `--add-metadata` as compared to youtube-dl. Most notably, `comment` field contains the `webpage_url` and `synopsis` contains the `description`. You can [use `--parse-metadata`](#modifying-metadata) to modify this to your liking or use `--compat-options embed-metadata` to revert this
28b0eb0f 140* `playlist_index` behaves differently when used with options like `--playlist-reverse` and `--playlist-items`. See [#302](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/302) for details. You can use `--compat-options playlist-index` if you want to keep the earlier behavior
141* The output of `-F` is listed in a new format. Use `--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
b79f9e30 142* Live chats (if available) are considered as subtitles. Use `--sub-langs all,-live_chat` to download all subtitles except live chat. You can also use `--compat-options no-live-chat` to prevent any live chat/danmaku from downloading
64f36541 143* Youtube channel URLs are automatically redirected to `/video`. Append a `/featured` to the URL to download only the videos in the home page. If the channel does not have a videos tab, we try to download the equivalent `UU` playlist instead. For all other tabs, if the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised. Also, `/live` URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use `--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect` to revert all these redirections
28b0eb0f 144* Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use `--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
1ff88b7a 145* The upload dates extracted from YouTube are in UTC [when available](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/89e4d86171c7b7c997c77d4714542e0383bf0db0/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L3898-L3900). Use `--compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date` to prefer the non-UTC upload date.
18e674b4 146* If `ffmpeg` is used as the downloader, the downloading and merging of formats happen in a single step when possible. Use `--compat-options no-direct-merge` to revert this
e858a9d6 147* Thumbnail embedding in `mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use `--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
e4f02757 148* Some private fields such as filenames are removed by default from the infojson. Use `--no-clean-infojson` or `--compat-options no-clean-infojson` to revert this
e75bb0d6 149* When `--embed-subs` and `--write-subs` are used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use just `--embed-subs` to embed the subs and automatically delete the separate file. See [#630 (comment)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460) for more info. `--compat-options no-keep-subs` can be used to revert this
168bbc4f 150* `certifi` will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use system certificates (e.g. self-signed), use `--compat-options no-certifi`
1e4fca9a 151* yt-dlp's sanitization of invalid characters in filenames is different/smarter than in youtube-dl. You can use `--compat-options filename-sanitization` to revert to youtube-dl's behavior
53ed7066 152
153For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
3d3bb168 154
8a82af35 155* `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options (Do NOT use)
28b0eb0f 156* `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as `--compat-options all,-multistreams`
157* `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as `--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect`
53ed7066 158
f20f5fe5 159
d19bb9c0 160# INSTALLATION
50865ca8 161
fc5fa964 162<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
163[![Windows](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Windows_x64-blue.svg?style=for-the-badge&logo=windows)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)
17ffed18 164[![Unix](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Linux/BSD-red.svg?style=for-the-badge&logo=linux)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)
24146491 165[![MacOS](https://img.shields.io/badge/-MacOS-lightblue.svg?style=for-the-badge&logo=apple)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)
17ffed18 166[![PyPi](https://img.shields.io/badge/-PyPi-blue.svg?logo=pypi&labelColor=555555&style=for-the-badge)](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp)
fc5fa964 167[![Source Tarball](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Source_tar-green.svg?style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
168[![Other variants](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Other-grey.svg?style=for-the-badge)](#release-files)
3d3bb168 169[![All versions](https://img.shields.io/badge/-All_Versions-lightgrey.svg?style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases)
fc5fa964 170<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
171
17ffed18 172You can install yt-dlp using [the binaries](#release-files), [PIP](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) or one using a third-party package manager. See [the wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation) for detailed instructions
0930b11f 173
b8773e63 174
a4211baf 175## UPDATE
17ffed18 176You can use `yt-dlp -U` to update if you are [using the release binaries](#release-files)
177
178If you [installed with PIP](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation#with-pip), simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
0930b11f 179
17ffed18 180For other third-party package managers, see [the wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation) or refer their documentation
0930b11f 181
cf59cd4d 182
ec2e44fc 183<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
a4211baf 184## RELEASE FILES
0e5927ee 185
733d8e8f 186#### Recommended
187
188File|Description
189:---|:---
962ffcf8 190[yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)|Platform-independent [zipimport](https://docs.python.org/3/library/zipimport.html) binary. Needs Python (recommended for **Linux/BSD**)
0930b11f 191[yt-dlp.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for **Windows**)
f2df4071 192[yt-dlp_macos](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)|Universal MacOS (10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for **MacOS**)
733d8e8f 193
194#### Alternatives
195
0e5927ee
R
196File|Description
197:---|:---
0930b11f 198[yt-dlp_x86.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86.exe)|Windows (Vista SP2+) standalone x86 (32-bit) binary
8aa0e7cd 199[yt-dlp_min.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_min.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary built with `py2exe`<br/> ([Not recommended](#standalone-py2exe-builds-windows))
f2df4071 200[yt-dlp_linux](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux)|Linux standalone x64 binary
201[yt-dlp_linux.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux.zip)|Unpackaged Linux executable (no auto-update)
0930b11f 202[yt-dlp_win.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_win.zip)|Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update)
203[yt-dlp_macos.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos.zip)|Unpackaged MacOS (10.15+) executable (no auto-update)
6d916fe7 204[yt-dlp_macos_legacy](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos_legacy)|MacOS (10.9+) standalone x64 executable
733d8e8f 205
206#### Misc
207
208File|Description
209:---|:---
17ffed18 210[yt-dlp.tar.gz](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)|Source tarball
0e5927ee
R
211[SHA2-512SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-512SUMS)|GNU-style SHA512 sums
212[SHA2-256SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-256SUMS)|GNU-style SHA256 sums
ec2e44fc 213<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
0e5927ee 214
17ffed18 215
216Note: The manpages, shell completion files etc. are available in the [source tarball](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
217
a4211baf 218## DEPENDENCIES
eff42759 219Python versions 3.7+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
b31fdeed 220
c9652aa4 221<!-- Python 3.5+ uses VC++14 and it is already embedded in the binary created
222<!x-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26999 --x>
cf59cd4d 223On windows, [Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)](https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/5/165255E7-1014-4D0A-B094-B6A430A6BFFC/vcredist_x86.exe) is also necessary to run yt-dlp. You probably already have this, but if the executable throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll` you need to install it manually.
c9652aa4 224-->
fac98805 225
e75bb0d6 226While all the other dependencies are optional, `ffmpeg` and `ffprobe` are highly recommended
ec2e44fc 227
8aa0e7cd 228### Strongly recommended
229
b69fd25c 230* [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for [merging separate video and audio files](#format-selection) as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. License [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
8aa0e7cd 231
232 <!-- TODO: ffmpeg has merged this patch. Remove this note once there is new release -->
233 **Note**: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide [custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) with patches for these issues at [yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds). See [the readme](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specific issues solved by these builds
234
235### Networking
d5820461 236* [**certifi**](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)\* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under [MPLv2](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
8aa0e7cd 237* [**brotli**](https://github.com/google/brotli)\* or [**brotlicffi**](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) - [Brotli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT <sup>[1](https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) [2](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE) </sup>
238* [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)\* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
239
240### Metadata
241
242* [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)\* - For `--embed-thumbnail` in certain formats. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
243* [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For `--embed-thumbnail` in `mp4`/`m4a` files when `mutagen`/`ffmpeg` cannot. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
244* [**xattr**](https://github.com/xattr/xattr), [**pyxattr**](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or [**setfattr**](http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr metadata (`--xattr`) on **Linux**. Licensed under [MIT](https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt), [LGPL2.1](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and [GPLv2+](http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING) respectively
245
246### Misc
247
248* [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)\* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under [BSD-2-Clause](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
5d0aeac0 249* [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
8aa0e7cd 250* [**secretstorage**](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage) - For `--cookies-from-browser` to access the **Gnome** keyring while decrypting cookies of **Chromium**-based browsers on **Linux**. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
cf59cd4d 251* Any external downloader that you want to use with `--downloader`
b31fdeed 252
deae7c17 253### Deprecated
8aa0e7cd 254
255* [**avconv** and **avprobe**](https://www.libav.org) - Now **deprecated** alternative to ffmpeg. License [depends on the build](https://libav.org/legal)
256* [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated** [sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licensed under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
998a3cae 257* [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading `rtmp` streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with `--downloader ffmpeg`. Licensed under [GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
258* [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or [**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading `rstp`/`mms` streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with `--downloader ffmpeg`. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
8aa0e7cd 259
cf59cd4d 260To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
261
f2df4071 262The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with **\*** included.
d710cc6d 263
8aa0e7cd 264If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are attempting, yt-dlp will warn you. All the currently available dependencies are visible at the top of the `--verbose` output
d710cc6d 265
5f326cf5 266
a4211baf 267## COMPILE
5f326cf5 268
8aa0e7cd 269### Standalone PyInstaller Builds
115add43 270To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and `pyinstaller` (plus any of yt-dlp's [optional dependencies](#dependencies) if needed). Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, simply run `pyinst.py`. The executable will be built for the same architecture (x86/ARM, 32/64 bit) as the Python used.
e38df8f9 271
8aa0e7cd 272 python3 -m pip install -U pyinstaller -r requirements.txt
273 python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
274 python3 pyinst.py
275
276On some systems, you may need to use `py` or `python` instead of `python3`.
277
d2c8aadf 278Note that pyinstaller with versions below 4.4 [do not support](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-tested-platforms) Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment.
8aa0e7cd 279
280**Important**: Running `pyinstaller` directly **without** using `pyinst.py` is **not** officially supported. This may or may not work correctly.
7581d246 281
8aa0e7cd 282### Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
deae7c17 283You will need the build tools `python` (3.7+), `zip`, `make` (GNU), `pandoc`\* and `pytest`\*.
b96a939b 284
8aa0e7cd 285After installing these, simply run `make`.
5f326cf5 286
a831c2ea 287You can also run `make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files. (The build tools marked with **\*** are not needed for this)
d19bb9c0 288
8aa0e7cd 289### Standalone Py2Exe Builds (Windows)
290
291While we provide the option to build with [py2exe](https://www.py2exe.org), it is recommended to build [using PyInstaller](#standalone-pyinstaller-builds) instead since the py2exe builds **cannot contain `pycryptodomex`/`certifi` and needs VC++14** on the target computer to run.
292
293If you wish to build it anyway, install Python and py2exe, and then simply run `setup.py py2exe`
294
295 py -m pip install -U py2exe -r requirements.txt
296 py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
297 py setup.py py2exe
298
299### Related scripts
300
70b23409 301* **`devscripts/update-version.py [revision]`** - Update the version number based on current date
302* **`devscripts/set-variant.py variant [-M update_message]`** - Set the build variant of the executable
8aa0e7cd 303* **`devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py`** - Create lazy extractors. Running this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the environment variable `YTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS=1` if you wish to forcefully disable lazy extractor loading.
304
305You can also fork the project on github and run your fork's [build workflow](.github/workflows/build.yml) to automatically build a full release
59a7a13e 306
b31fdeed 307# USAGE AND OPTIONS
6bcd846b 308
ec2e44fc 309<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
7a5c1cfe 310 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
b50e3bc6 311
c2b5f311 312`Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
ec2e44fc 313<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
c2b5f311 314
ec2e44fc 315<!-- Auto generated -->
c76eb41b 316## General Options:
2dd5a2e3 317 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
318 --version Print program version and exit
70b23409 319 -U, --update Update this program to the latest version
320 --no-update Do not check for updates (default)
2dd5a2e3 321 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
322 The download will be considered successful
323 even if the postprocessing fails
324 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download errors;
325 e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a
326 playlist (default)
327 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
328 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
329 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
330 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
331 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
332 extractors and exit
2516cafb 333 --use-extractors NAMES Extractor names to use separated by commas.
fe7866d0 334 You can also use regexes, "all", "default"
335 and "end" (end URL matching); e.g. --ies
336 "holodex.*,end,youtube". Prefix the name
337 with a "-" to exclude it, e.g. --ies
338 default,-generic. Use --list-extractors for
2516cafb 339 a list of extractor names. (Alias: --ies)
62b58c09 340 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g.
2dd5a2e3 341 "gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from
342 google videos for the search term "python".
343 Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
344 ("auto_warning" to emit a warning when
345 guessing). "error" just throws an error. The
346 default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
347 URLs, but emits an error if this is not
348 possible instead of searching
349 --ignore-config Don't load any more configuration files
350 except those given by --config-locations.
351 For backward compatibility, if this option
352 is found inside the system configuration
353 file, the user configuration is not loaded.
354 (Alias: --no-config)
355 --no-config-locations Do not load any custom configuration files
356 (default). When given inside a configuration
357 file, ignore all previous --config-locations
358 defined in the current file
359 --config-locations PATH Location of the main configuration file;
360 either the path to the config or its
6b9e832d 361 containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be
362 used multiple times and inside other
363 configuration files
2dd5a2e3 364 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
365 only list them
366 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
367 --live-from-start Download livestreams from the start.
368 Currently only supported for YouTube
369 (Experimental)
370 --no-live-from-start Download livestreams from the current time
371 (default)
372 --wait-for-video MIN[-MAX] Wait for scheduled streams to become
373 available. Pass the minimum number of
374 seconds (or range) to wait between retries
375 --no-wait-for-video Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
376 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
377 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
f2df4071 378 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output (Alias:
379 --no-colours)
2dd5a2e3 380 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
381 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
382 configurations by reverting some of the
383 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
384 default behavior" for details
385 --alias ALIASES OPTIONS Create aliases for an option string. Unless
386 an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
387 prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
388 according to the Python string formatting
62b58c09 389 mini-language. E.g. --alias get-audio,-X
2dd5a2e3 390 "-S=aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}"
391 creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that
392 takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
393 "-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
394 All defined aliases are listed in the --help
395 output. Alias options can trigger more
962ffcf8 396 aliases; so be careful to avoid defining
2dd5a2e3 397 recursive options. As a safety measure, each
398 alias may be triggered a maximum of 100
64fa820c 399 times. This option can be used multiple times
08c1d0d3 400
149f05c7 401## Network Options:
2dd5a2e3 402 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To
62b58c09
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403 enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme,
404 e.g. socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/.
405 Pass in an empty string (--proxy "") for
406 direct connection
2dd5a2e3 407 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
408 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
409 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
410 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
8c6c88c7 411
b31fdeed 412## Geo-restriction:
2dd5a2e3 413 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
414 some geo-restricted sites. The default proxy
415 specified by --proxy (or none, if the option
416 is not present) is used for the actual
417 downloading
418 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
419 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (default)
420 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
421 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
422 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
423 explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
424 country code
425 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
64fa820c 426 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR notation
149f05c7 427
cfcec693 428## Video Selection:
962ffcf8 429 -I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Comma separated playlist_index of the videos
7e88d7d7 430 to download. You can specify a range using
431 "[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward
432 compatibility, START-STOP is also supported.
433 Use negative indices to count from the right
434 and negative STEP to download in reverse
62b58c09 435 order. E.g. "-I 1:3,7,-5::2" used on a
7e88d7d7 436 playlist of size 15 will download the videos
437 at index 1,2,3,7,11,13,15
62b58c09
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438 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
439 SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
440 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE,
441 e.g. 50k or 44.6M
2dd5a2e3 442 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded on this date.
443 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
444 [now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]].
62b58c09 445 E.g. --date today-2weeks
2dd5a2e3 446 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
447 this date. The date formats accepted is the
448 same as --date
449 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
450 this date. The date formats accepted is the
451 same as --date
452 --match-filters FILTER Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE"
453 field can be compared with a number or a
454 string using the operators defined in
d4ada357 455 "Filtering Formats". You can also simply
2dd5a2e3 456 specify a field to match if the field is
457 present, use "!field" to check if the field
458 is not present, and "&" to check multiple
459 conditions. Use a "\" to escape "&" or
460 quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
461 the filter matches if atleast one of the
62b58c09 462 conditions are met. E.g. --match-filter
2dd5a2e3 463 !is_live --match-filter "like_count>?100 &
464 description~='(?i)\bcats \& dogs\b'" matches
465 only videos that are not live OR those that
466 have a like count more than 100 (or the like
467 field is not available) and also has a
468 description that contains the phrase "cats &
469 dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filter -" to
470 interactively ask whether to download each
471 video
472 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
473 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
474 to a video and a playlist
475 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
476 a video and a playlist
477 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
478 age
479 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
480 archive file. Record the IDs of all
481 downloaded videos in it
482 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
483 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
484 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
485 a file that is in the archive
486 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
487 a file that has been filtered out
d2c8aadf 488 --break-per-input --break-on-existing, --break-on-reject,
489 --max-downloads, and autonumber resets per
2dd5a2e3 490 input URL
491 --no-break-per-input --break-on-existing and similar options
492 terminates the entire download queue
493 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest of
494 the playlist is skipped
6bcd846b 495
d5a62e4f 496## Download Options:
2dd5a2e3 497 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
498 video that should be downloaded concurrently
499 (default is 1)
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500 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second,
501 e.g. 50K or 4.2M
2dd5a2e3 502 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
503 below which throttling is assumed and the
62b58c09 504 video data is re-extracted, e.g. 100K
2dd5a2e3 505 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
506 "infinite"
507 --file-access-retries RETRIES Number of times to retry on file access
508 error (default is 3), or "infinite"
509 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default is
510 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
be5c1ae8 511 --retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR Time to sleep between retries in seconds
512 (optionally) prefixed by the type of retry
513 (http (default), fragment, file_access,
514 extractor) to apply the sleep to. EXPR can
515 be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=1]] or
516 exp=START[:END[:BASE=2]]. This option can be
517 used multiple times to set the sleep for the
62b58c09 518 different retry types, e.g. --retry-sleep
2dd5a2e3 519 linear=1::2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=1:20
520 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
521 hlsnative and ISM downloads (default)
522 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
523 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment
524 Abort download if a fragment is unavailable
525 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
526 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
527 downloading is finished
528 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
529 downloading is finished (default)
62b58c09 530 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer, e.g. 1024 or 16K
2dd5a2e3 531 (default is 1024)
532 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
533 from an initial value of --buffer-size
534 (default)
535 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
536 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
62b58c09 537 downloading, e.g. 10485760 or 10M (default
2dd5a2e3 538 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
539 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
540 (experimental)
2dd5a2e3 541 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
7e9a6125 542 --lazy-playlist Process entries in the playlist as they are
543 received. This disables n_entries,
544 --playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
545 --no-lazy-playlist Process videos in the playlist only after
546 the entire playlist is parsed (default)
2dd5a2e3 547 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
548 expected file size
549 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
550 allowing some players to play the video
551 while downloading, and reducing the chance
552 of file corruption if download is
553 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
554 live streams
555 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
556 videos. This is default when not downloading
557 live streams
5ec1b6b7 558 --download-sections REGEX Download only chapters whose title matches
559 the given regular expression. Time ranges
560 prefixed by a "*" can also be used in place
561 of chapters to download the specified range.
62b58c09
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562 Needs ffmpeg. This option can be used
563 multiple times to download multiple
564 sections, e.g. --download-sections
2fa669f7 565 "*10:15-inf" --download-sections "intro"
2dd5a2e3 566 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
567 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
568 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
569 use it for. Currently supports native,
570 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
571 wget. You can use this option multiple times
572 to set different downloaders for different
62b58c09 573 protocols. E.g. --downloader aria2c
2dd5a2e3 574 --downloader "dash,m3u8:native" will use
575 aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and the
576 native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
577 (Alias: --external-downloader)
578 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
579 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
580 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
581 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different
582 positions using the same syntax as
583 --postprocessor-args. You can use this
584 option multiple times to give different
585 arguments to different downloaders (Alias:
586 --external-downloader-args)
d5a62e4f 587
cfcec693 588## Filesystem Options:
2dd5a2e3 589 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ("-" for
590 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
591 with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
592 comments and ignored
593 --no-batch-file Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
594 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
595 downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
596 path separated by a colon ":". All the same
597 TYPES as --output are supported.
598 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
599 (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
600 files are first downloaded to the temp path
601 and then the final files are moved over to
602 the home path after download is finished.
603 This option is ignored if --output is an
604 absolute path
605 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
606 TEMPLATE" for details
607 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder for unavailable fields in
608 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" (default: "NA")
609 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
610 and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
611 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
612 filenames (default)
613 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
614 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
615 using Windows (default)
616 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
617 extension) to the specified number of
618 characters
619 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
620 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
621 option includes --no-continue
622 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
623 related files (default)
624 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
625 (default)
626 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
627 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
628 restart download of the entire file
629 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
630 into output file (default)
631 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly into
632 output file
633 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the file
634 modification time (default)
635 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
636 the file modification time
64fa820c 637 --write-description Write video description to a .description file
2dd5a2e3 638 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
639 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
640 (this may contain personal information)
641 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
642 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
643 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
644 --write-description etc. (default)
645 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
646 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
647 --clean-info-json Remove some private fields such as filenames
648 from the infojson. Note that it could still
649 contain some personal information (default)
650 --no-clean-info-json Write all fields to the infojson
651 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
652 infojson. The comments are fetched even
653 without this option if the extraction is
654 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
655 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
656 extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
657 --no-get-comments)
658 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
64fa820c 659 (created with the "--write-info-json" option)
2dd5a2e3 660 --cookies FILE Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
661 and dump cookie jar in
662 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
663 (default)
825d3ce3 664 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
665 The name of the browser to load cookies
666 from. Currently supported browsers are:
667 brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox,
668 opera, safari, vivaldi. Optionally, the
669 KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium cookies
670 on Linux, the name/path of the PROFILE to
671 load cookies from, and the CONTAINER name
672 (if Firefox) ("none" for no container) can
673 be given with their respective seperators.
674 By default, all containers of the most
675 recently accessed profile are used.
676 Currently supported keyrings are: basictext,
677 gnomekeyring, kwallet
2dd5a2e3 678 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
17ffed18 679 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can
680 store some downloaded information (such as
681 client ids and signatures) permanently. By
682 default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
2dd5a2e3 683 ~/.cache/yt-dlp
684 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
685 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
6bcd846b 686
b31fdeed 687## Thumbnail Options:
2dd5a2e3 688 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
64fa820c 689 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
2dd5a2e3 690 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
691 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
692 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
2b1bd292 693
732044af 694## Internet Shortcut Options:
2dd5a2e3 695 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
696 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
697 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
698 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
699 OS caches the URL based on the file path
700 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
701 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
732044af 702
0744a815 703## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
2dd5a2e3 704 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
705 print the log to stderr
706 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
707 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
708 anything to disk
709 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
710 options are used
711 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
712 extracting metadata even if the videos are
713 not actually available for download
714 (experimental)
715 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
716 formats are found (default)
717 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
718 related files (Alias: --no-download)
719 -O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE Field name or output template to print to
720 screen, optionally prefixed with when to
721 print it, separated by a ":". Supported
722 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
723 --use-postprocessor, and "video" (default).
724 Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
725 --no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
726 used. This option can be used multiple times
bb66c247 727 --print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
2dd5a2e3 728 Append given template to the file. The
729 values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that
730 of --print. FILE uses the same syntax as the
731 output template. This option can be used
732 multiple times
733 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
734 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
735 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
736 description of available keys
737 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
738 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
739 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
740 a playlist, the whole playlist information
741 is dumped in a single line
742 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be written
743 as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
744 another simulation option is used (Alias:
745 --force-download-archive)
746 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
747 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
748 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
749 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
819e0531 750 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
2dd5a2e3 751 Template for progress outputs, optionally
752 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
753 "download-title:" (the console title),
754 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
755 The video's fields are accessible under the
756 "info" key and the progress attributes are
62b58c09 757 accessible under "progress" key. E.g.
2dd5a2e3 758 --console-title --progress-template
759 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
760 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
761 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
762 to debug problems (very verbose)
763 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
764 in the current directory to debug problems
765 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
6bcd846b 766
36f35428 767## Workarounds:
2dd5a2e3 768 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
769 --legacy-server-connect Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
770 that do not support RFC 5746 secure
771 renegotiation
772 --no-check-certificates Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
773 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
774 information about the video (Currently
775 supported only for YouTube)
776 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
777 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
778 option multiple times
779 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
780 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
781 or fribidi executable in PATH
782 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
783 during data extraction
784 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
785 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
786 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
787 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
788 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
789 be used along with --min-sleep-interval
790 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
791 subtitle download
36f35428 792
cfcec693 793## Video Format Options:
2dd5a2e3 794 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
795 for more details
796 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
797 "Sorting Formats" for more details
798 --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
799 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
800 Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
801 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
802 specified sort order (default)
803 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
804 into a single file
805 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for each
806 output file (default)
807 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
808 into a single file
809 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
810 output file (default)
811 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
812 over non-free ones of same quality. Use with
813 "-S ext" to strictly prefer free containers
814 irrespective of quality
815 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
816 containers (default)
817 --check-formats Make sure formats are selected only from
818 those that are actually downloadable
819 --check-all-formats Check all formats for whether they are
820 actually downloadable
821 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats are actually
822 downloadable
823 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
824 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
fc61aff4 825 --merge-output-format FORMAT Containers that may be used when merging
62b58c09 826 formats, separated by "/", e.g. "mp4/mkv".
fc61aff4
LL
827 Ignored if no merge is required. (currently
828 supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)
8ae7be3e
PH
829
830## Subtitle Options:
2dd5a2e3 831 --write-subs Write subtitle file
832 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
833 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
834 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
835 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
836 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
837 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
838 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
839 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format; accepts formats preference,
62b58c09 840 e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
2dd5a2e3 841 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
62b58c09
L
842 be regex) or "all" separated by commas, e.g.
843 --sub-langs "en.*,ja". You can prefix the
2dd5a2e3 844 language code with a "-" to exclude it from
62b58c09
L
845 the requested languages, e.g. --sub-langs
846 all,-live_chat. Use --list-subs for a list
2dd5a2e3 847 of available language tags
6bcd846b 848
cfcec693 849## Authentication Options:
2dd5a2e3 850 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
851 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
852 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
853 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
854 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
855 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
856 either the path or its containing directory.
857 Defaults to ~/.netrc
858 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
859 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
860 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
861 a list of available MSOs
862 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
863 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
864 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
865 interactively
866 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system operators
867 --client-certificate CERTFILE Path to client certificate file in PEM
868 format. May include the private key
869 --client-certificate-key KEYFILE
870 Path to private key file for client
871 certificate
bb58c9ed 872 --client-certificate-password PASSWORD
2dd5a2e3 873 Password for client certificate private key,
874 if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
875 is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
f5e008d1 876
c76eb41b 877## Post-Processing Options:
2dd5a2e3 878 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
879 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
35faefee 880 --audio-format FORMAT Format to convert the audio to when -x is
881 used. (currently supported: best (default),
8dc59305 882 aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis,
e0ab9854 883 wav). You can specify multiple rules using
884 similar syntax as --remux-video
2dd5a2e3 885 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
886 converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
887 between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR or a
888 specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
889 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
8dc59305 890 necessary (currently supported: avi, flv,
891 mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac, flac,
892 m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis, wav). If
2dd5a2e3 893 target container does not support the
894 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
62b58c09 895 can specify multiple rules; e.g.
2dd5a2e3 896 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
35faefee 897 mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
2dd5a2e3 898 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
899 necessary. The syntax and supported formats
900 are the same as --remux-video
901 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
902 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
903 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
904 to give the argument to the specified
905 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
906 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
907 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
908 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
909 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
910 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
911 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
912 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
913 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
914 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
915 specified executable only when being used by
916 the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
917 for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
918 appended to the prefix optionally followed
919 by a number to pass the argument before the
62b58c09 920 specified input/output file, e.g. --ppa
2dd5a2e3 921 "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
922 this option multiple times to give different
923 arguments to different postprocessors.
924 (Alias: --ppa)
925 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
926 after post-processing
927 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
928 post-processing (default)
929 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
930 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
931 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
932 webm and mkv videos)
933 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
934 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
935 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
936 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also
937 embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
938 --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
939 used (Alias: --add-metadata)
940 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
941 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
942 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
943 (Alias: --add-chapters)
944 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
945 --no-add-chapters)
946 --embed-info-json Embed the infojson as an attachment to
947 mkv/mka video files
948 --no-embed-info-json Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
949 to the video file
950 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
951 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
952 for details
e9f4ccd1 953 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
2dd5a2e3 954 Replace text in a metadata field using the
955 given regex. This option can be used
956 multiple times
957 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
958 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
959 --concat-playlist POLICY Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
960 "never", "always", or "multi_video"
961 (default; only when the videos form a single
962 show). All the video files must have same
963 codecs and number of streams to be
964 concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
965 used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
966 the output filename for the concatenated
967 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
968 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
969 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
970 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
971 default; fix file if we can, warn
972 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
973 already exists)
974 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
64fa820c 975 path to the binary or its containing directory
2dd5a2e3 976 --exec [WHEN:]CMD Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
977 when to execute it (after_move if
978 unspecified), separated by a ":". Supported
979 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
980 --use-postprocessor. Same syntax as the
981 output template can be used to pass any
982 field as arguments to the command. After
983 download, an additional field "filepath"
984 that contains the final path of the
985 downloaded file is also available, and if no
986 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
987 to the end of the command. This option can
988 be used multiple times
989 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
990 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
8dc59305 991 (currently supported: ass, lrc, srt, vtt)
2dd5a2e3 992 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
993 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
00bbc5f1 994 (currently supported: jpg, png, webp). You
995 can specify multiple rules using similar
996 syntax as --remux-video
2dd5a2e3 997 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
998 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
999 be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
1000 the output filename for the split files. See
1001 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
64fa820c 1002 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters (default)
2dd5a2e3 1003 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
5ec1b6b7 1004 given regular expression. The syntax is the
1005 same as --download-sections. This option can
2dd5a2e3 1006 be used multiple times
1007 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
1008 (default)
5ec1b6b7 1009 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes at cuts when
1010 downloading/splitting/removing sections.
1011 This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but
1012 the resulting video may have fewer artifacts
1013 around the cuts
2dd5a2e3 1014 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
1015 when cutting/splitting (default)
1016 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
1017 The (case sensitive) name of plugin
1018 postprocessors to be enabled, and
1019 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
1020 separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
1021 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
1022 The "when" argument determines when the
1023 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
1024 "pre_process" (after video extraction),
1025 "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
1026 "before_dl" (before each video download),
1027 "post_process" (after each video download;
1028 default), "after_move" (after moving video
1029 file to it's final locations), "after_video"
1030 (after downloading and processing all
1031 formats of a video), or "playlist" (at end
1032 of playlist). This option can be used
64fa820c 1033 multiple times to add different postprocessors
7a340e0d
NA
1034
1035## SponsorBlock Options:
1036Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
1037 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
8a51f564 1038 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
1039
2dd5a2e3 1040 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
1041 for, separated by commas. Available
1042 categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
1043 selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
1044 music_offtopic, poi_highlight, all and
1045 default (=all). You can prefix the category
1046 with a "-" to exclude it. See [1] for
62b58c09 1047 description of the categories. E.g.
2dd5a2e3 1048 --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
1049 [1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
1050 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
1051 the video file, separated by commas. If a
1052 category is present in both mark and remove,
1053 remove takes precedence. The syntax and
1054 available categories are the same as for
1055 --sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
1056 refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight is
1057 not available
7a340e0d 1058 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
2dd5a2e3 1059 An output template for the title of the
1060 SponsorBlock chapters created by
1061 --sponsorblock-mark. The only available
1062 fields are start_time, end_time, category,
1063 categories, name, category_names. Defaults
1064 to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
1065 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
1066 --sponsorblock-remove
1067 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
1068 https://sponsor.ajay.app
a9e7f546 1069
78895bd3 1070## Extractor Options:
2dd5a2e3 1071 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor errors
1072 (default is 3), or "infinite"
1073 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
1074 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
1075 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
1076 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
1077 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
1078 discontinuities such as ad breaks
1079 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
1080 formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
1081 (default)
2fa669f7 1082 --extractor-args IE_KEY:ARGS Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY extractor.
1083 See "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You
1084 can use this option multiple times to give
2dd5a2e3 1085 arguments for different extractors
17cb02d0 1086
b7770046
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1087# CONFIGURATION
1088
7a5c1cfe 1089You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
e2e43aea 1090
0202b52a 10911. **Main Configuration**: The file given by `--config-location`
7a5c1cfe 10921. **Portable Configuration**: `yt-dlp.conf` in the same directory as the bundled binary. If you are running from source-code (`<root dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py`), the root directory is used instead.
88f23a18 10931. **Home Configuration**: `yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given by `-P`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
e2e43aea 10941. **User Configuration**:
2fa669f7 1095 * `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
1096 * `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/yt-dlp.conf`
1097 * `$APPDATA/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
1098 * `$APPDATA/yt-dlp/config.txt`
e2e43aea 1099 * `~/yt-dlp.conf`
1100 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
3d3bb168 1101
2fa669f7 1102 `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME` defaults to `~/.config` if undefined. On windows, `$APPDATA` generally points to `C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming` and `~` points to `$HOME` if present, `$USERPROFILE` (generally `C:\Users\<user name>`), or `${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH}`
3d3bb168 1103
07cce701 11041. **System Configuration**: `/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
b7770046 1105
62b58c09 1106E.g. with the following configuration file yt-dlp will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under `YouTube` directory in your home directory:
b7770046
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1107```
1108# Lines starting with # are comments
1109
1110# Always extract audio
1111-x
1112
1113# Do not copy the mtime
1114--no-mtime
1115
1116# Use this proxy
1117--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
1118
298f597b 1119# Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
1120-o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
b7770046
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1121```
1122
2fa669f7 1123Note 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`. They must also be quoted when necessary as-if it were a UNIX shell.
b7770046 1124
a4211baf 1125You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable all configuration files for a particular yt-dlp run. If `--ignore-config` is found inside any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents loading of home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if `--ignore-config` is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
b7770046 1126
88f60feb 1127### Config file encoding
a904a7f8 1128
88f60feb 1129The config files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if present, and in the encoding from system locale otherwise.
a904a7f8 1130
88f60feb 1131If you want your file to be decoded differently, add `# coding: ENCODING` to the beginning of the file (e.g. `# coding: shift-jis`). There must be no characters before that, even spaces or BOM.
a904a7f8 1132
b7770046
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1133### Authentication with `.netrc` file
1134
0001fcb5 1135You 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 yt-dlp execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a [`.netrc` file](https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on a per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a `.netrc` file in `--netrc-location` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:
b7770046
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1136```
1137touch $HOME/.netrc
1138chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
1139```
1140After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
1141```
0001fcb5 1142machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
b7770046 1143```
62b58c09 1144E.g.
b7770046
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1145```
1146machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
1147machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
1148```
7a5c1cfe 1149To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
b7770046 1150
2fa669f7 1151The default location of the .netrc file is `$HOME` (`~`). On Windows, if `$HOME` is not present, `$USERPROFILE` (generally `C:\Users\<user name>`) or `${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH}` is used
b7770046
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1152
1153# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
1154
0202b52a 1155The `-o` option is used to indicate a template for the output file names while `-P` option is used to specify the path each type of file should be saved to.
b7770046 1156
ec2e44fc 1157<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
b7770046 1158**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
ec2e44fc 1159<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
b7770046 1160
e58c22a0 1161The simplest usage of `-o` is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `yt-dlp -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video"` (hard-coding file extension like this is _not_ recommended and could break some post-processing).
a439a3a4 1162
62b58c09 1163It may however also contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to [Python string formatting operations](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting), e.g. `%(NAME)s` or `%(NAME)05d`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations.
a439a3a4 1164
1165The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
3d3bb168 1166
07a1250e 11671. **Object traversal**: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a dot `.` separator; e.g. `%(tags.0)s`, `%(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s`. You can do Python slicing with colon `:`; E.g. `%(id.3:7:-1)s`, `%(formats.:.format_id)s`. Curly braces `{}` can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys; e.g. `%(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j`. An empty field name `%()s` refers to the entire infodict; e.g. `%(.{id,title})s`. Note that all the fields that become available using this method are not listed below. Use `-j` to see such fields
ec2e44fc 1168
62b58c09 11691. **Addition**: Addition and subtraction of numeric fields can be done using `+` and `-` respectively. E.g. `%(playlist_index+10)03d`, `%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d`
ec2e44fc 1170
62b58c09 11711. **Date/time Formatting**: Date/time fields can be formatted according to [strftime formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-format-codes) by specifying it separated from the field name using a `>`. E.g. `%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s`, `%(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s`, `%(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s`
ec2e44fc 1172
62b58c09 11731. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a `,`. E.g. `%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
ec2e44fc 1174
e978789f
P
11751. **Replacement**: A replacement value can specified using a `&` separator. If the field is *not* empty, this replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if *any* of the alternative fields is *not* empty.
1176
17ffed18 11771. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a `|` separator. This overrides `--output-na-placeholder`. E.g. `%(uploader|Unknown)s`
ec2e44fc 1178
62b58c09 11791. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types `diouxXeEfFgGcrs`, yt-dlp additionally supports converting to `B` = **B**ytes, `j` = **j**son (flag `#` for pretty-printing), `h` = HTML escaping, `l` = a comma separated **l**ist (flag `#` for `\n` newline-separated), `q` = a string **q**uoted for the terminal (flag `#` to split a list into different arguments), `D` = add **D**ecimal suffixes (e.g. 10M) (flag `#` to use 1024 as factor), and `S` = **S**anitize as filename (flag `#` for restricted)
ec2e44fc 1180
62b58c09 11811. **Unicode normalization**: The format type `U` can be used for NFC [unicode normalization](https://docs.python.org/3/library/unicodedata.html#unicodedata.normalize). The alternate form flag (`#`) changes the normalization to NFD and the conversion flag `+` can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility equivalence normalization. E.g. `%(title)+.100U` is NFKC
a439a3a4 1182
1183To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1184```
e978789f 1185%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
a439a3a4 1186```
de6000d9 1187
62b58c09 1188Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files separately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a colon `:`. The different file types supported are `subtitle`, `thumbnail`, `description`, `annotation` (deprecated), `infojson`, `link`, `pl_thumbnail`, `pl_description`, `pl_infojson`, `chapter`, `pl_video`. E.g. `-o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s"` will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video. If any of the templates is empty, that type of file will not be written. E.g. `--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:"` will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
e29663c6 1189
1190The available fields are:
b7770046
U
1191
1192 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1193 - `title` (string): Video title
455a15e2 1194 - `fulltitle` (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
b7770046
U
1195 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1196 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
597c1866 1197 - `description` (string): The description of the video
b7770046
U
1198 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1199 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1200 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1201 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
b7770046 1202 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
ae6a1b95 1203 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
e6f21b3d 1204 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
ae6a1b95 1205 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
f0d785d3 1206 - `modified_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
ae6a1b95 1207 - `modified_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
b7770046
U
1208 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1209 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1210 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
6c73052c 1211 - `channel_follower_count` (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
b7770046
U
1212 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1213 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
53c18592 1214 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
b7770046
U
1215 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1216 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1217 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1218 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1219 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
277d6ff5 1220 - `comment_count` (numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some extractors, comments are only downloaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)
b7770046 1221 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
e325a21a 1222 - `live_status` (string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming", "was_live", "post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)
b7770046 1223 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
f76ede8e 1224 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
6cfda058 1225 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
940a67a3 1226 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"
b7770046
U
1227 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1228 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
b7770046
U
1229 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1230 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
455a15e2 1231 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
b7770046 1232 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at `--autonumber-start`
9c906919 1233 - `video_autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
e6f21b3d 1234 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
455a15e2 1235 - `playlist_id` (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
1236 - `playlist_title` (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
1237 - `playlist` (string): `playlist_id` or `playlist_title`
f0d785d3 1238 - `playlist_count` (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
e6f21b3d 1239 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1240 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
b7770046
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1241 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1242 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
bd99f6e6 1243 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
0bb322b9 1244 - `webpage_url_basename` (string): The basename of the webpage URL
1245 - `webpage_url_domain` (string): The domain of the webpage URL
bd99f6e6 1246 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as `webpage_url` for playlist entries)
d2c8aadf 1247
1248All the fields in [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats) can also be used
b7770046
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1249
1250Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1251
1252 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1253 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1254 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1255
1256Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1257
1258 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1259 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1260 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1261 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1262 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1263 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1264 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1265
1266Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1267
1268 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1269 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1270 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1271 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1272 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1273 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1274 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1275 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1276 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1277 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1278
5ec1b6b7 1279Available only when using `--download-sections` and for `chapter:` prefix when using `--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
72755351 1280
1281 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1282 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1283 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1284 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1285
53c18592 1286Available only when used in `--print`:
1287
1288 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1289 - `filename` (string): Name of the video file. Note that the actual filename may be different due to post-processing. Use `--exec echo` to get the name after all postprocessing is complete
ed5835b4 1290 - `formats_table` (table): The video format table as printed by `--list-formats`
1291 - `thumbnails_table` (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by `--list-thumbnails`
1292 - `subtitles_table` (table): The subtitle format table as printed by `--list-subs`
1293 - `automatic_captions_table` (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by `--list-subs`
1294
7a340e0d
NA
1295
1296Available only in `--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1297
1298 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1299 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1300 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1301 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1302 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1303 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
53c18592 1304
62b58c09 1305Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. E.g. for `-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and an mp4 video with title `yt-dlp test video` and id `BaW_jenozKc`, this will result in a `yt-dlp test video-BaW_jenozKc.mp4` file created in the current directory.
49a57e70 1306
1307Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with `--output-na-placeholder` (`NA` by default).
b7770046 1308
0930b11f 1309**Tip**: Look at the `-j` output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
b7770046 1310
62b58c09 1311For numeric sequences you can use [numeric related formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting); e.g. `%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in `00042`.
b7770046 1312
940a67a3 1313Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. `-o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s"` which will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
b7770046
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1314
1315To use percent literals in an output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
1316
91ebc640 1317The current default template is `%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
b7770046 1318
f304da8a 1319In 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.
b7770046 1320
b7770046
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1321#### Output template examples
1322
b7770046 1323```bash
d2c8aadf 1324$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
9222c381 1325test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
1326
d2c8aadf 1327$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
9222c381 1328youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
b7770046 1329
d2c8aadf 1330$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
9222c381 1331youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
b7770046
U
1332
1333# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
940a67a3 1334$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
b7770046 1335
b050d210 1336# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
940a67a3 1337$ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
e29663c6 1338
e978789f 1339# Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
6a34813a 1340$ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist_index|)s%(playlist_index& - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
e978789f 1341
b7770046 1342# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
940a67a3 1343$ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
b7770046
U
1344
1345# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
940a67a3 1346$ yt-dlp -u user -p password -P "~/MyVideos" -o "%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial"
b7770046
U
1347
1348# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
940a67a3 1349$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" "https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617"
b7770046 1350
6a34813a 1351# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
1352# and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
1353$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
1354
1355# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
1356$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
1357
b7770046 1358# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
7a5c1cfe 1359$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
b7770046
U
1360```
1361
1362# FORMAT SELECTION
1363
7a5c1cfe
P
1364By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1365This is generally equivalent to using `-f bestvideo*+bestaudio/best`. However, if multiple audiostreams is enabled (`--audio-multistreams`), the default format changes to `-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best`. Similarly, if ffmpeg is unavailable, or if you use yt-dlp to stream to `stdout` (`-o -`), the default becomes `-f best/bestvideo+bestaudio`.
b7770046 1366
c111cefa 1367**Deprecation warning**: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to `-f bv*+ba/b` similar to normal downloads. If you want to preserve the `-f b/bv+ba` setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.
1368
eff63539 1369The general syntax for format selection is `-f FORMAT` (or `--format FORMAT`) where `FORMAT` is a *selector expression*, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
b7770046 1370
ec2e44fc 1371<!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
b7770046 1372**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
ec2e44fc 1373<!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
b7770046 1374
62b58c09 1375The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. 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.
b7770046
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1376
1377You can also use a file extension (currently `3gp`, `aac`, `flv`, `m4a`, `mp3`, `mp4`, `ogg`, `wav`, `webm` are supported) to download the best quality format of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. `-f webm` will download the best quality format with the `webm` extension served as a single file.
1378
fa9f30b8 1379You can use `-f -` to interactively provide the format selector *for each video*
1380
b7770046
U
1381You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1382
59a7a13e 1383 - `all`: Select **all formats** separately
1384 - `mergeall`: Select and **merge all formats** (Must be used with `--audio-multistreams`, `--video-multistreams` or both)
30389593 1385 - `b*`, `best*`: Select the best quality format that **contains either** a video or an audio or both (ie; `vcodec!=none or acodec!=none`)
59a7a13e 1386 - `b`, `best`: Select the best quality format that **contains both** video and audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1387 - `bv`, `bestvideo`: Select the best quality **video-only** format. Equivalent to `best*[acodec=none]`
1388 - `bv*`, `bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that **contains video**. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none]`
1389 - `ba`, `bestaudio`: Select the best quality **audio-only** format. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec=none]`
ae6a1b95 1390 - `ba*`, `bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that **contains audio**. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `best*[acodec!=none]` ([Do not use!](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/979#issuecomment-919629354))
59a7a13e 1391 - `w*`, `worst*`: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
909d24dd 1392 - `w`, `worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
909d24dd 1393 - `wv`, `worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec=none]`
909d24dd 1394 - `wv*`, `worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none]`
909d24dd 1395 - `wa`, `worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec=none]`
909d24dd 1396 - `wa*`, `worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec!=none]`
b7770046 1397
d4ada357 1398For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use `-f worstvideo`. It is however recommended not to use `worst` and related options. When your format selector is `worst`, the format which is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use `-S +size` or more rigorously, `-S +size,+br,+res,+fps` instead of `-f worst`. See [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
eff63539 1399
1400You can select the n'th best format of a type by using `best<type>.<n>`. For example, `best.2` will select the 2nd best combined format. Similarly, `bv*.3` will select the 3rd best format that contains a video stream.
b7770046 1401
62b58c09 1402If 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 formats on the left hand side are preferred; e.g. `-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.
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1403
1404If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as a separator, e.g. `-f 22,17,18` will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example combined with the precedence feature: `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`.
1405
62b58c09 1406You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using `-f <format1>+<format2>+...` (requires ffmpeg installed); e.g. `-f bestvideo+bestaudio` will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.
d806c9fd 1407
1408**Deprecation warning**: Since the *below* described behavior is complex and counter-intuitive, this will be removed and multistreams will be enabled by default in the future. A new operator will be instead added to limit formats to single audio/video
1409
62b58c09 1410Unless `--video-multistreams` is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, unless `--audio-multistreams` is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. E.g. `-f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --video-multistreams --audio-multistreams` will download and merge all 3 given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But `-f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams` will download and merge only `bestvideo` and `bestaudio`. `best` is ignored since another format containing a video stream (`bestvideo`) has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. `-f best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams` will download and merge both formats while `-f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams` will ignore `best` and download only `bestaudio`.
eb8a4433 1411
1412## Filtering Formats
1413
b7770046
U
1414You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
1415
1416The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
1417
1418 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
d2c8aadf 1419 - `filesize_approx`: An estimate for the number of bytes
b7770046
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1420 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
1421 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
1422 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1423 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1424 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1425 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1426 - `fps`: Frame rate
d2c8aadf 1427 - `audio_channels`: The number of audio channels
1428 - `stretched_ratio`: `width:height` of the video's pixels, if not square
b7770046 1429
1ce9a3cb 1430Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `^=` (starts with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains), `~=` (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
b7770046 1431
d2c8aadf 1432 - `url`: Video URL
b7770046
U
1433 - `ext`: File extension
1434 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
1435 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
1436 - `container`: Name of the container format
1437 - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (`http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `mms`, `f4m`, `ism`, `http_dash_segments`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`)
29f7c58a 1438 - `language`: Language code
d2c8aadf 1439 - `dynamic_range`: The dynamic range of the video
1440 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
1441 - `format`: A human-readable description of the format
1442 - `format_note`: Additional info about the format
1443 - `resolution`: Textual description of width and height
b7770046 1444
1ce9a3cb 1445Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation `!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. `!*=` (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than `._-`.
b7770046 1446
e58c22a0 1447Note 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 the website. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.
b7770046 1448
62b58c09 1449Formats 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 also use the filters with `all` to download all formats that satisfy the filter, e.g. `-f "all[vcodec=none]"` selects all audio-only formats.
b7770046 1450
62b58c09 1451Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. `-f "(mp4,webm)[height<480]"` will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480.
b7770046 1452
eb8a4433 1453## Sorting Formats
1454
2e7781a9 1455You can change the criteria for being considered the `best` by using `-S` (`--format-sort`). The general format for this is `--format-sort field1,field2...`.
1456
1457The available fields are:
eb8a4433 1458
63be1aab 1459 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1460 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
ed8d87f9 1461 - `ie_pref`: The format preference
1462 - `lang`: The language preference
1463 - `quality`: The quality of the format
1464 - `source`: The preference of the source
d80d98e7 1465 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (`https`/`ftps` > `http`/`ftp` > `m3u8_native`/`m3u8` > `http_dash_segments`> `websocket_frag` > `mms`/`rtsp` > `f4f`/`f4m`)
1466 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (`av01` > `vp9.2` > `vp9` > `h265` > `h264` > `vp8` > `h263` > `theora` > other)
1467 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (`flac`/`alac` > `wav`/`aiff` > `opus` > `vorbis` > `aac` > `mp4a` > `mp3` > `eac3` > `ac3` > `dts` > other)
eb8a4433 1468 - `codec`: Equivalent to `vcodec,acodec`
d80d98e7 1469 - `vext`: Video Extension (`mp4` > `webm` > `flv` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, `webm` is preferred.
f2e9fa3e 1470 - `aext`: Audio Extension (`m4a` > `aac` > `mp3` > `ogg` > `opus` > `webm` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, the order changes to `ogg` > `opus` > `webm` > `mp3` > `m4a` > `aac`
63be1aab 1471 - `ext`: Equivalent to `vext,aext`
0930b11f 1472 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if known in advance
63be1aab 1473 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1474 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
eb8a4433 1475 - `height`: Height of video
1476 - `width`: Width of video
63be1aab 1477 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1478 - `fps`: Framerate of video
49a57e70 1479 - `hdr`: The dynamic range of the video (`DV` > `HDR12` > `HDR10+` > `HDR10` > `HLG` > `SDR`)
b8ed0f15 1480 - `channels`: The number of audio channels
63be1aab 1481 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1482 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1483 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1484 - `br`: Equivalent to using `tbr,vbr,abr`
1485 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
d806c9fd 1486
1487**Deprecation warning**: Many of these fields have (currently undocumented) aliases, that may be removed in a future version. It is recommended to use only the documented field names.
eb8a4433 1488
62b58c09 1489All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a `+`. E.g. `+res` prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a `:`. E.g. `res:720` prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p. For `codec` and `ext`, you can provide two preferred values, the first for video and the second for audio. E.g. `+codec:avc:m4a` (equivalent to `+vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a`) sets the video codec preference to `h264` > `h265` > `vp9` > `vp9.2` > `av01` > `vp8` > `h263` > `theora` and audio codec preference to `mp4a` > `aac` > `vorbis` > `opus` > `mp3` > `ac3` > `dts`. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using `~` as the delimiter. E.g. `filesize~1G` prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
9ee4f0bb 1490
7e798d72 1491The fields `hasvid` and `ie_pref` are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behaviour can be changed by using `--format-sort-force`. Apart from these, the default order used is: `lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,vcodec:vp9.2,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id`. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
eb8a4433 1492
7e798d72 1493Note that the default has `vcodec:vp9.2`; i.e. `av1` is not preferred. Similarly, the default for hdr is `hdr:12`; i.e. dolby vision is not preferred. These choices are made since DV and AV1 formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future as more devices become capable of smoothly playing back these formats.
eb8a4433 1494
e58c22a0 1495If your format selector is `worst`, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all respects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use `-f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps`.
eb8a4433 1496
1497**Tip**: You can use the `-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1498
eb8a4433 1499## Format Selection examples
b7770046 1500
b7770046 1501```bash
e58c22a0 1502# Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
909d24dd 1503# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
940a67a3 1504$ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
909d24dd 1505
1506# Download best format that contains video,
1507# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
940a67a3 1508$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
2af884ff 1509
1510# Same as above
7a5c1cfe 1511$ yt-dlp
909d24dd 1512
6fd35a11 1513# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1514# For this case, an output template should be used since
1515# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
940a67a3 1516$ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
909d24dd 1517
f8d4ad9a 1518# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1519# and all audio-only formats into one file
940a67a3 1520$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
f8d4ad9a 1521
1522# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1523# and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
940a67a3 1524$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
909d24dd 1525
6fd35a11 1526
1527# The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
f8d4ad9a 1528# and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
6fd35a11 1529
1530# Download the worst video available (old method)
940a67a3 1531$ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
eb8a4433 1532
1533# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
940a67a3 1534$ yt-dlp -S "+res"
eb8a4433 1535
1536# Download the smallest video available
940a67a3 1537$ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
eb8a4433 1538
1539
909d24dd 1540
eb8a4433 1541# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
940a67a3 1542$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
eb8a4433 1543
1544# Download the best video with the best extension
1545# (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
940a67a3 1546$ yt-dlp -S "ext"
eb8a4433 1547
1548
909d24dd 1549
eb8a4433 1550# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1551# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
940a67a3 1552$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
b7770046 1553
eb8a4433 1554# Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1555# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
940a67a3 1556$ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
b7770046 1557
eb8a4433 1558# Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1559# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1560# Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1561# So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
940a67a3 1562$ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
b7770046 1563
b7770046 1564
909d24dd 1565
eb8a4433 1566# Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1567# or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
940a67a3 1568$ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
eb8a4433 1569
1570# Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1571# or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
940a67a3 1572$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
eb8a4433 1573
1574# Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
940a67a3 1575$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
eb8a4433 1576
1577
909d24dd 1578
eb8a4433 1579# Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1580# or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
940a67a3 1581$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
eb8a4433 1582
1583# Download best video available via the best protocol
1584# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
940a67a3 1585$ yt-dlp -S "proto"
eb8a4433 1586
1587
909d24dd 1588
1ce9a3cb
LF
1589# Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
1590# or the best video if there is no such video
1591$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
eb8a4433 1592
1593# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1594# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
940a67a3 1595$ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
eb8a4433 1596
1597# Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1598# or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
940a67a3 1599$ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
eb8a4433 1600
1601
1602
1603# More complex examples
1604
e58c22a0 1605# Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1606# or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
940a67a3 1607$ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
eb8a4433 1608
1609# Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
f8d4ad9a 1610# or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
e58c22a0 1611# preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
940a67a3 1612$ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
eb8a4433 1613
1614
909d24dd 1615
eb8a4433 1616# Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1617# or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
e58c22a0 1618# preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
940a67a3 1619$ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
b7770046 1620```
eb8a4433 1621
73cd218f 1622# MODIFYING METADATA
1623
a4211baf 1624The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using `--parse-metadata` and `--replace-in-metadata`
e9f4ccd1 1625
418964fa 1626`--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE` is used to replace text in any metadata field using [python regular expression](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax). [Backreferences](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html?highlight=backreferences#re.sub) can be used in the replace string for advanced use.
e9f4ccd1 1627
2e7781a9 1628The general syntax of `--parse-metadata FROM:TO` is to give the name of a field or an [output template](#output-template) to extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon `:`. Either a [python regular expression](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax) with named capture groups or a similar syntax to the [output template](#output-template) (only `%(field)s` formatting is supported) can be used for `TO`. The option can be used multiple times to parse and modify various fields.
73cd218f 1629
2fa669f7 1630Note that any field created by this can be used in the [output template](#output-template) and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using `--embed-metadata`.
73cd218f 1631
9c2b75b5 1632This option also has a few special uses:
3d3bb168 1633
62b58c09 1634* You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of the currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field `additional_urls` to the URL that you want to download. E.g. `--parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)` will download the first vimeo video found in the description
3d3bb168 1635
62b58c09 1636* You can use this to change the metadata that is embedded in the media file. To do this, set the value of the corresponding field with a `meta_` prefix. For example, any value you set to `meta_description` field will be added to the `description` field in the file - you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use the `meta<n>_` prefix (e.g. `meta1_language`). Any value set to the `meta_` field will overwrite all default values.
c31be5b0 1637
08d30158 1638**Note**: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
1639
c31be5b0 1640For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1641
08d30158 1642Metadata fields | From
1643:--------------------------|:------------------------------------------------
1644`title` | `track` or `title`
1645`date` | `upload_date`
1646`description`, `synopsis` | `description`
1647`purl`, `comment` | `webpage_url`
1648`track` | `track_number`
1649`artist` | `artist`, `creator`, `uploader` or `uploader_id`
1650`genre` | `genre`
1651`album` | `album`
1652`album_artist` | `album_artist`
1653`disc` | `disc_number`
1654`show` | `series`
1655`season_number` | `season_number`
1656`episode_id` | `episode` or `episode_id`
1657`episode_sort` | `episode_number`
1658`language` of each stream | the format's `language`
1659
c31be5b0 1660**Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1661
73cd218f 1662
1663## Modifying metadata examples
1664
73cd218f 1665```bash
1666# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
940a67a3 1667$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
73cd218f 1668
1669# Regex example
940a67a3 1670$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
73cd218f 1671
1672# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
940a67a3 1673$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
73cd218f 1674
a44ca5a4 1675# Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
2fa669f7 1676$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --embed-metadata
a44ca5a4 1677
1678# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
1679# handling multiple lines correctly
2fa669f7 1680$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --embed-metadata
73cd218f 1681
8aa0e7cd 1682# Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
1683$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"
1684
0930b11f 1685# Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
940a67a3 1686$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<formats>)" -j
0930b11f 1687
e9f4ccd1 1688# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
940a67a3 1689$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
e9f4ccd1 1690
73cd218f 1691```
1692
5d3a0e79 1693# EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1694
62b58c09 1695Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using `--extractor-args KEY:ARGS`. `ARGS` is a `;` (semicolon) separated string of `ARG=VAL1,VAL2`. E.g. `--extractor-args "youtube:player-client=android_embedded,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"`
5d3a0e79 1696
1697The following extractors use this feature:
96565c7e 1698
1699#### youtube
2fa669f7 1700* `lang`: Language code to prefer translated metadata of this language (case-sensitive). By default, the video primary language metadata is preferred, with a fallback to `en` translated. See [youtube.py](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/c26f9b991a0681fd3ea548d535919cec1fbbd430/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L381-L390) for list of supported content language codes
8aa0e7cd 1701* `skip`: One or more of `hls`, `dash` or `translated_subs` to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and [auto-translated subtitles](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/4090#issuecomment-1158102032) respectively
62b58c09 1702* `player_client`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are `web`, `android` and `ios` with variants `_music`, `_embedded`, `_embedscreen`, `_creator` (e.g. `web_embedded`); and `mweb` and `tv_embedded` (agegate bypass) with no variants. By default, `android,web` is used, but `tv_embedded` and `creator` variants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for `music.youtube.com` urls. You can use `all` to use all the clients, and `default` for the default clients.
96565c7e 1703* `player_skip`: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more of `configs` (skip client configs), `webpage` (skip initial webpage), `js` (skip js player). While these options can help reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting, they could cause some issues. See [#860](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) for more details
96565c7e 1704* `comment_sort`: `top` or `new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
a44ca5a4 1705* `max_comments`: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing `max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread`. Default is `all,all,all,all`
1706 * E.g. `all,all,1000,10` will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread. `1000,all,100` will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
4d37720a 1707* `include_incomplete_formats`: Extract formats that cannot be downloaded completely (live dash and post-live m3u8)
1e4fca9a 1708* `innertube_host`: Innertube API host to use for all API requests; e.g. `studio.youtube.com`, `youtubei.googleapis.com`. Note that cookies exported from one subdomain will not work on others
2ae778b8 1709* `innertube_key`: Innertube API key to use for all API requests
96565c7e 1710
1711#### youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1712* `skip`: One or more of `webpage` (skip initial webpage download), `authcheck` (allow the download of playlists requiring authentication when no initial webpage is downloaded. This may cause unwanted behavior, see [#1122](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122) for more details)
a30a6ed3 1713* `approximate_date`: Extract approximate `upload_date` in flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
96565c7e 1714
1715#### funimation
62b58c09 1716* `language`: Languages to extract, e.g. `funimation:language=english,japanese`
96565c7e 1717* `version`: The video version to extract - `uncut` or `simulcast`
1718
a9d4da60 1719#### crunchyroll
62b58c09
L
1720* `language`: Languages to extract, e.g. `crunchyroll:language=jaJp`
1721* `hardsub`: Which hard-sub versions to extract, e.g. `crunchyroll:hardsub=None,enUS`
a9d4da60 1722
ae6a1b95 1723#### crunchyrollbeta
62b58c09 1724* `format`: Which stream type(s) to extract (default: `adaptive_hls`). Potentially useful values include `adaptive_hls`, `adaptive_dash`, `vo_adaptive_hls`, `vo_adaptive_dash`, `download_hls`, `download_dash`, `multitrack_adaptive_hls_v2`
dfea94f8 1725* `hardsub`: Preference order for which hardsub versions to extract, or `all` (default: `None` = no hardsubs), e.g. `crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,None`
706dfe44 1726
96565c7e 1727#### vikichannel
1728* `video_types`: Types of videos to download - one or more of `episodes`, `movies`, `clips`, `trailers`
73d829c1 1729
7bdcb4a4
LNO
1730#### niconico
1731* `segment_duration`: Segment duration in milliseconds for HLS-DMC formats. Use it at your own risk since this feature **may result in your account termination.**
1732
aa4b0545 1733#### youtubewebarchive
1734* `check_all`: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more of `thumbnails`, `captures`
1735
d43de682
M
1736#### gamejolt
1737* `comment_sort`: `hot` (default), `you` (cookies needed), `top`, `new` - choose comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
1738
26f2aa3d
AG
1739#### hotstar
1740* `res`: resolution to ignore - one or more of `sd`, `hd`, `fhd`
1741* `vcodec`: vcodec to ignore - one or more of `h264`, `h265`, `dvh265`
1742* `dr`: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of `sdr`, `hdr10`, `dv`
1743
046cab39 1744#### tiktok
62b58c09
L
1745* `app_version`: App version to call mobile APIs with - should be set along with `manifest_app_version`, e.g. `20.2.1`
1746* `manifest_app_version`: Numeric app version to call mobile APIs with, e.g. `221`
046cab39 1747
7eaf7f9a 1748#### rokfinchannel
62b58c09 1749* `tab`: Which tab to download - one of `new`, `top`, `videos`, `podcasts`, `streams`, `stacks`
7eaf7f9a 1750
1751
bc97cdae 1752NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
5d3a0e79 1753
ec2e44fc 1754<!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "INSTALLATION" SECTION HERE -->
1755
3acf6d38 1756
f74980cb 1757# PLUGINS
b7770046 1758
3ae5e797 1759Plugins are loaded from `<root-dir>/ytdlp_plugins/<type>/__init__.py`; where `<root-dir>` is the directory of the binary (`<root-dir>/yt-dlp`), or the root directory of the module if you are running directly from source-code (`<root dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py`). Plugins are currently not supported for the `pip` version
1760
1761Plugins can be of `<type>`s `extractor` or `postprocessor`. Extractor plugins do not need to be enabled from the CLI and are automatically invoked when the input URL is suitable for it. Postprocessor plugins can be invoked using `--use-postprocessor NAME`.
1762
1763See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1764
1765Note that **all** plugins are imported even if not invoked, and that **there are no checks** performed on plugin code. Use plugins at your own risk and only if you trust the code
1766
1767If you are a plugin author, add [ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
b7770046 1768
deae7c17 1769See the [wiki for some known plugins](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Plugins)
1770
b7770046 1771
8c6f4daa 1772
1773# EMBEDDING YT-DLP
1774
1775yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1776
1777Your program should avoid parsing the normal stdout since they may change in future versions. Instead they should use options such as `-J`, `--print`, `--progress-template`, `--exec` etc to create console output that you can reliably reproduce and parse.
1778
1779From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1780
1781```python
59a7a13e 1782from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
8c6f4daa 1783
3d3bb168 1784URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1785with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1786 ydl.download(URLS)
8c6f4daa 1787```
1788
1890fc63 1789Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at [`yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py`](yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py#L180).
8c6f4daa 1790
43cc91ad 1791**Tip**: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one important point to look out for is that we do not guarantee the return value of `YoutubeDL.extract_info` to be json serializable, or even be a dictionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it is a serializable dictionary, pass it through `YoutubeDL.sanitize_info` as shown in the [example below](#extracting-information)
3d3bb168 1792
1793## Embedding examples
1794
43cc91ad 1795#### Extracting information
8c6f4daa 1796
1797```python
1798import json
8c6f4daa 1799import yt_dlp
8c6f4daa 1800
3d3bb168 1801URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
1802
1803# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
1804ydl_opts = {}
1805with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1806 info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
1807
1808 # ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
1809 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1810```
43cc91ad 1811#### Download using an info-json
3d3bb168 1812
1813```python
1814import yt_dlp
1815
1816INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
1817
1818with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1819 error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
1820
1821print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
1822 else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
1823```
1824
43cc91ad 1825#### Extract audio
3d3bb168 1826
1827```python
1828import yt_dlp
1829
1830URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1831
1832ydl_opts = {
0a41f331 1833 'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
3d3bb168 1834 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
1835 'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
1836 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1837 'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
1838 }]
1839}
1840
1841with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1842 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1843```
0a41f331 1844
1845#### Filter videos
1846
1847```python
1848import yt_dlp
1849
1850URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1851
1852def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
1853 """Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
1854 duration = info.get('duration')
1855 if duration and duration < 60:
1856 return 'The video is too short'
1857
1858ydl_opts = {
1859 'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
1860}
1861
1862with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1863 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1864```
1865
43cc91ad 1866#### Adding logger and progress hook
3d3bb168 1867
1868```python
1869import yt_dlp
1870
1871URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
8c6f4daa 1872
1873class MyLogger:
1874 def debug(self, msg):
e75bb0d6 1875 # For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
8c6f4daa 1876 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
1877 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
1878 pass
1879 else:
1880 self.info(msg)
1881
1882 def info(self, msg):
1883 pass
1884
1885 def warning(self, msg):
1886 pass
1887
1888 def error(self, msg):
1889 print(msg)
1890
1891
3d3bb168 1892# ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
1893def my_hook(d):
1894 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1895 print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
1896
1897
1898ydl_opts = {
1899 'logger': MyLogger(),
1900 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1901}
1902
1903with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1904 ydl.download(URLS)
1905```
1906
43cc91ad 1907#### Add a custom PostProcessor
3d3bb168 1908
1909```python
1910import yt_dlp
1911
1912URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1913
1914# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
59a7a13e 1915class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
8c6f4daa 1916 def run(self, info):
1917 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
1918 return [], info
1919
1920
3d3bb168 1921with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
8aa0e7cd 1922 # ℹ️ "when" can take any value in yt_dlp.utils.POSTPROCESS_WHEN
1923 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP(), when='pre_process')
3d3bb168 1924 ydl.download(URLS)
1925```
8c6f4daa 1926
1927
43cc91ad 1928#### Use a custom format selector
3d3bb168 1929
1930```python
1931import yt_dlp
1932
1933URL = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1934
093a1710 1935def format_selector(ctx):
1936 """ Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
3d3bb168 1937 NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
093a1710 1938
1939 # formats are already sorted worst to best
1940 formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
1941
1942 # acodec='none' means there is no audio
1943 best_video = next(f for f in formats
1944 if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
1945
1946 # find compatible audio extension
1947 audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
1948 # vcodec='none' means there is no video
1949 best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
1950 f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
1951
3d3bb168 1952 # These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
093a1710 1953 yield {
093a1710 1954 'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
1955 'ext': best_video['ext'],
1956 'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
e75bb0d6 1957 # Must be + separated list of protocols
093a1710 1958 'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
1959 }
1960
1961
8c6f4daa 1962ydl_opts = {
093a1710 1963 'format': format_selector,
8c6f4daa 1964}
1965
1966with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
3d3bb168 1967 ydl.download(URLS)
8c6f4daa 1968```
1969
ec2e44fc 1970<!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "NEW FEATURES" SECTION HERE -->
1971
e167860c 1972# DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1973
1974These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1975
8130779d 1976#### Almost redundant options
1977While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
1978
1979 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
1980 -F, --list-formats --print formats_table
0bfc53d0 1981 --list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
8130779d 1982 --list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
1983
6ccf351a 1984#### Redundant options
1985While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
f4536226 1986
53c18592 1987 --get-description --print description
1988 --get-duration --print duration_string
1989 --get-filename --print filename
1990 --get-format --print format
1991 --get-id --print id
1992 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1993 -e, --get-title --print title
1994 -g, --get-url --print urls
8f18aca8 1995 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1996 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
1997 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
1998 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
8b7539d2 1999 --user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
2000 --referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
7e88d7d7 2001 --playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
2002 --playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
2003 --playlist-reverse -I ::-1
2004 --no-playlist-reverse Default
6ccf351a 2005
2006
2007#### Not recommended
2008While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
2009
fe7866d0 2010 --force-generic-extractor --ies generic,default
1e43a6f7 2011 --exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
2012 --no-exec-before-download --no-exec
d9aa2332 2013 --all-formats -f all
c32b0aab 2014 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
b7b04c78 2015 --print-json -j --no-simulate
62b58c09 2016 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting, e.g. %(autonumber)03d
a439a3a4 2017 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
19b824f6 2018 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
73cd218f 2019 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
52a8a1e1 2020 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
2021 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
53ed7066 2022 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
2023 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
5d3a0e79 2024 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
2025 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
2026 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
2027 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
6ccf351a 2028
2029
2030#### Developer options
2031These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
2032
34488702 2033 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
f95b9dee 2034 --load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
6ccf351a 2035 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
88acdbc2 2036 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
2037 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
f4536226 2038
2039
2040#### Old aliases
2041These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
2042
2043 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
3856407a 2044 --clean-infojson --clean-info-json
f4536226 2045 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
2046 --dump-headers --print-traffic
2047 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
2048 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
2049 --load-info --load-info-json
3856407a 2050 --no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
f4536226 2051 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
e167860c 2052 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
e167860c 2053 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
2054 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
f4536226 2055 --split-tracks --split-chapters
2056 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
e167860c 2057 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
f4536226 2058 --write-srt --write-subs
e167860c 2059 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
f4536226 2060
7a340e0d 2061#### Sponskrub Options
f304da8a 2062Support for [SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of the `--sponsorblock` options
7a340e0d
NA
2063
2064 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
2065 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
2066 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
2067 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
2068 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
2069 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
2070 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
2071 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
2072
f4536226 2073#### No longer supported
2074These options may no longer work as intended
2075
2076 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
2077 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
2078 -C, --call-home Not implemented
2079 --no-call-home Default
2080 --include-ads No longer supported
2081 --no-include-ads Default
0bb1bc1b 2082 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
2083 --no-write-annotations Default
1e8fe57e 2084 --compat-options seperate-video-versions No longer needed
486fb179 2085
2086#### Removed
2087These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
2088
f4536226 2089 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
3d3bb168 2090 -t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
f4536226 2091
8c6f4daa 2092# CONTRIBUTING
2093See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp) for instructions on [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue) and [Contributing code to the project](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
e167860c 2094
17ffed18 2095# WIKI
2096See the [Wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki) for more information