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e980017a 3[![YT-DLP](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/master/.github/banner.svg)](#readme)
d9d045e2 4
28dff70b 5[![Release version](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/yt-dlp/yt-dlp?color=blue&label=&style=for-the-badge)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
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7[![License: Unlicense](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Unlicense-blue.svg?style=for-the-badge)](LICENSE)
418964fa 8[![Donate](https://img.shields.io/badge/_-Donate-red.svg?logo=githubsponsors&labelColor=555555&style=for-the-badge)](Collaborators.md#collaborators)
1aebc0f7 9[![Supported Sites](https://img.shields.io/badge/-Supported_Sites-brightgreen.svg?style=for-the-badge)](supportedsites.md)
28dff70b 10[![Discord](https://img.shields.io/discord/807245652072857610?color=blue&label=​&logo=discord&style=for-the-badge)](https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r)
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b31fdeed 12[![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)
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a7191c6f 14[![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/total?style=for-the-badge&color=blue)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
b31fdeed 15[![PyPi Downloads](https://img.shields.io/pypi/dm/yt-dlp?label=PyPi&style=for-the-badge)](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp)
c76eb41b 16
b31fdeed 17</div>
c76eb41b 18
b31fdeed 19yt-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 20
034b6215 21* [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
53ed7066 22 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
c76eb41b 23* [INSTALLATION](#installation)
17fa3ee2 24 * [Update](#update)
cf59cd4d 25 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
17fa3ee2 26 * [Compile](#compile)
b31fdeed 27* [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
28 * [General Options](#general-options)
50865ca8 29 * [Network Options](#network-options)
b31fdeed 30 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
50865ca8 31 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
32 * [Download Options](#download-options)
33 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
b31fdeed 34 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
50865ca8 35 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
0744a815 36 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
50865ca8 37 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
38 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
39 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
40 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
50865ca8 41 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
7a340e0d 42 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
50865ca8 43 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
c76eb41b 44* [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
50865ca8 45 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
c76eb41b 46* [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
50865ca8 47 * [Output template and Windows batch files](#output-template-and-windows-batch-files)
48 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
c76eb41b 49* [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
50865ca8 50 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
51 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
52 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
73cd218f 53* [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
54 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
5d3a0e79 55* [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
f74980cb 56* [PLUGINS](#plugins)
e167860c 57* [DEPRECATED OPTIONS](#deprecated-options)
c76eb41b 58* [MORE](#more)
b31fdeed 59</div>
50865ca8 60
61
034b6215 62# NEW FEATURES
f20f5fe5 63The major new features from the latest release of [blackjack4494/yt-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) are:
034b6215 64
7a340e0d 65* **[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
034b6215 66
7581d246 67* **[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 68
6aecd871 69* **Merged with youtube-dl [commit/379f52a](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/379f52a4954013767219d25099cce9e0f9401961)**: (v2021.06.06) You get all the latest features and patches of [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) in addition to all the features of [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc)
034b6215 70
0fdf490d 71* **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 improvements are not available. See [#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
29b6000e 72
f5546c0b 73* **Youtube improvements**:
6ccf351a 74 * All Feeds (`:ytfav`, `:ytwatchlater`, `:ytsubs`, `:ythistory`, `:ytrec`) and private playlists supports downloading multiple pages of content
0fdf490d 75 * Search (`ytsearch:`, `ytsearchdate:`), search URLs and in-channel search works
76 * Mixes supports downloading multiple pages of content
6ccf351a 77 * Most (but not all) age-gated content can be downloaded without cookies
f703a880 78 * Partial workaround for throttling issue
f20f5fe5 79 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to `/video` to preserve the old behaviour
e6f21b3d 80 * `255kbps` audio is extracted (if available) from youtube music when premium cookies are given
9ee4f0bb 81 * Youtube music Albums, channels etc can be downloaded ([except self-uploaded music](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723))
f20f5fe5 82
245524e6 83* **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using `--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[:PROFILE]`
84
597c1866 85* **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using `--split-chapters`
86
b31fdeed 87* **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 88
b31fdeed 89* **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use `aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
f20f5fe5 90
0ef787d7 91* **New extractors**: AnimeLab, Philo MSO, Spectrum MSO, SlingTV MSO, Cablevision MSO, Rcs, Gedi, bitwave.tv, mildom, audius, zee5, mtv.it, wimtv, pluto.tv, niconico users, discoveryplus.in, mediathek, NFHSNetwork, nebula, ukcolumn, whowatch, MxplayerShow, parlview (au), YoutubeWebArchive, fancode, Saitosan, ShemarooMe, telemundo, VootSeries, SonyLIVSeries, HotstarSeries, VidioPremier, VidioLive, RCTIPlus, TBS Live, douyin, pornflip, ParamountPlusSeries, ScienceChannel, Utreon, OpenRec, BandcampMusic, blackboardcollaborate, eroprofile albums, mirrativ, BannedVideo, bilibili categories, Epicon, filmmodu, GabTV, HungamaAlbum, ManotoTV, Niconico search, Patreon User, peloton, ProjectVeritas, radiko, StarTV, tiktok user, Tokentube, voicy, TV2HuSeries, biliintl, 17live, NewgroundsUser, peertube channel/playlist, ZenYandex, CAM4, CGTN, damtomo, gotostage, Koo, Mediaite, Mediaklikk, MuseScore, nzherald, Olympics replay, radlive, SovietsCloset, Streamanity, Theta, Chingari
f20f5fe5 92
0ef787d7 93* **Fixed/improved extractors**: archive.org, roosterteeth.com, skyit, instagram, itv, SouthparkDe, spreaker, Vlive, akamai, ina, rumble, tennistv, amcnetworks, la7 podcasts, linuxacadamy, nitter, twitcasting, viu, crackle, curiositystream, mediasite, rmcdecouverte, sonyliv, tubi, tenplay, patreon, videa, yahoo, BravoTV, crunchyroll playlist, RTP, viki, Hotstar, vidio, vimeo, mediaset, Mxplayer, nbcolympics, ParamountPlus, Newgrounds, SAML Verizon login, Hungama, afreecatv, aljazeera, ATV, bitchute, camtube, CDA, eroprofile, facebook, HearThisAtIE, iwara, kakao, Motherless, Nova, peertube, pornhub, reddit, tiktok, TV2, TV2Hu, tv5mondeplus, VH1, Viafree, XHamster, 9Now, AnimalPlanet, Arte, CBC, Chingari, comedycentral, DIYNetwork, niconico, dw, funimation, globo, HiDive, NDR, Nuvid, Oreilly, pbs, plutotv, reddit, redtube, soundcloud, SpankBang, VrtNU
fac98805 94
3de7c2ce 95* **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 96
597c1866 97* **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 98
99* **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [configuration](#configuration) for details
100
418964fa 101* **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 102
418964fa 103* **Other new options**: `--print`, `--sleep-requests`, `--convert-thumbnails`, `--write-link`, `--force-download-archive`, `--force-overwrites`, `--break-on-reject` etc
0bc0a322 104
418964fa 105* **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in `--match-filter`, multiple `--postprocessor-args` and `--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection) etc
c69911e4 106
b31fdeed 107* **Plugin extractors**: Extractors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
108
7a5c1cfe 109* **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using `yt-dlp -U`
aa837ddf 110
29b6000e 111
7a5c1cfe 112See [changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
a26c99ac 113
114
90505ff1 115**PS**: Some of these changes are already in youtube-dlc, but are still unreleased. See [this](Changelog.md#unreleased-changes-in-blackjack4494yt-dlc) for details
f20f5fe5 116
b9650873 117If you are coming from [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl), the amount of changes are very large. Compare [options](#options) and [supported sites](supportedsites.md) with youtube-dl's to get an idea of the massive number of features/patches [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) has accumulated.
f20f5fe5 118
53ed7066 119### Differences in default behavior
120
121Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc.
122
28b0eb0f 123* The options `--id`, `--auto-number` (`-A`), `--title` (`-t`) and `--literal` (`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
124* `avconv` is not supported as as an alternative to `ffmpeg`
125* 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 126* 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
28b0eb0f 127* 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 prefered. Use `-f bv+ba/b` or `--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
128* 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
129* `--ignore-errors` is enabled by default. Use `--abort-on-error` or `--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
130* 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
131* `--add-metadata` attaches the `infojson` to `mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with `--write-infojson`. Use `--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
132* `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
133* The output of `-F` is listed in a new format. Use `--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
3acf6d38 134* All *experiences* of a funimation episode are considered as a single video. This behavior breaks existing archives. Use `--compat-options seperate-video-versions` to extract information from only the default player
28b0eb0f 135* Youtube live chat (if available) is considered as a subtitle. Use `--sub-langs all,-live_chat` to download all subtitles except live chat. You can also use `--compat-options no-live-chat` to prevent live chat from downloading
09f1580e 136* 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. 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 137* Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use `--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
18e674b4 138* 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 139* Thumbnail embedding in `mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use `--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
e4f02757 140* 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
b51d2ae3 141* 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 seperate 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.
53ed7066 142
143For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
28b0eb0f 144* `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options
145* `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as `--compat-options all,-multistreams`
146* `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as `--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect`
53ed7066 147
f20f5fe5 148
d19bb9c0 149# INSTALLATION
b31fdeed 150yt-dlp is not platform specific. So it should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS
50865ca8 151
7bc877a2 152You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
e6f21b3d 153* Download the binary from the [latest release](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
b8773e63 154* With Homebrew, `brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
a61f4b28 155* Use [PyPI package](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp): `python3 -m pip install --upgrade yt-dlp`
156* Use pip+git: `python3 -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp.git@release`
157* Install master branch: `python3 -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp`
158
159Note that on some systems, you may need to use `py` or `python` instead of `python3`
5f326cf5 160
5ba4a0b6
A		 161UNIX users (Linux, macOS, BSD) can also install the [latest release](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest) one of the following ways:
162
163```
164sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
165sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
166```
167
168```
169sudo wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
170sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
171```
172
173```
174sudo aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
175sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
176```
177
b8773e63
THD		 178macOS or Linux users that are using Homebrew (formerly known as Linuxbrew for Linux users) can also install it by:
179
180```
181brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
182```
183
cf59cd4d 184### UPDATE
185You can use `yt-dlp -U` to update if you are using the provided release.
186If you are using `pip`, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program.
b8773e63 187If you have installed using Homebrew, run `brew upgrade yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
cf59cd4d 188
e58c22a0 189### DEPENDENCIES
cf59cd4d 190Python versions 3.6+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
b31fdeed 191
cf59cd4d 192<!-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26999 -->
193On 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.
fac98805 194
cf59cd4d 195While all the other dependancies are optional, `ffmpeg` and `ffprobe` are highly recommended
196* [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for [merging seperate video and audio files](#format-selection) as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. Licence [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
cf59cd4d 197* [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen) - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licenced under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
49e7e9c3 198* [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodomex) - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licenced under [BSD2](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodomex/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
e36d50c5 199* [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets) - For downloading over websocket. Licenced under [BSD3](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
982ee69a 200* [**keyring**](https://github.com/jaraco/keyring) - For decrypting cookies of chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licenced under [MIT](https://github.com/jaraco/keyring/blob/main/LICENSE)
cf59cd4d 201* [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For embedding thumbnail in mp4/m4a if mutagen is not present. Licenced under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
202* [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading `rtmp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licenced under [GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
203* [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or [**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading `rstp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licenced under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
204* [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licenced under [BSD3](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
7a340e0d 205* [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated** [sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licenced under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
cf59cd4d 206* Any external downloader that you want to use with `--downloader`
b31fdeed 207
cf59cd4d 208To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
209
f85e6be4 210The windows releases are already built with the python interpreter, mutagen, pycryptodomex and websockets included.
d710cc6d 211
212**Note**: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependancy, we provide [custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds/wiki/Latest#latest-autobuilds) 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 specifc issues solved by these builds
213
5f326cf5 214
c76eb41b 215### COMPILE
5f326cf5 216
c76eb41b 217**For Windows**:
f85e6be4 218To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and optionally mutagen, pycryptodomex, websockets)
d19bb9c0 219
49e7e9c3 220 python3 -m pip install -U -r requirements.txt
e38df8f9 221
a61f4b28 222Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, just run `py pyinst.py`. The executable will be built for the same architecture (32/64 bit) as the python used to build it.
5f326cf5 223
e38df8f9 224You can also build the executable without any version info or metadata by using:
225
7a5c1cfe 226 pyinstaller.exe yt_dlp\__main__.py --onefile --name yt-dlp
7581d246 227
fac98805 228Note that pyinstaller [does not support](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-tested-platforms) Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment
b96a939b 229
c76eb41b 230**For Unix**:
060ac762 231You will need the required build tools: `python`, `make` (GNU), `pandoc`, `zip`, `pytest`
127d0759 232Then simply run `make`. You can also run `make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
5f326cf5 233
e38df8f9 234**Note**: In either platform, `devscripts\update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
d19bb9c0 235
b31fdeed 236# USAGE AND OPTIONS
6bcd846b 237
7a5c1cfe 238 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
b50e3bc6 239
c2b5f311 240`Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
e58c22a0 241<!-- Auto generated -->
c2b5f311 242
c76eb41b 243## General Options:
1dc2726f
PH		 244 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
245 --version Print program version and exit
8d801631 246 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
247 sure that you have sufficient permissions
248 (run with sudo if needed)
b1940459 249 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
250 The download will be considered successfull
251 even if the postprocessing fails
252 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download
253 errors; e.g. to skip unavailable videos in
254 a playlist (default)
8a51f564 255 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
256 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
34488702 257 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
258 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
c4af7684 259 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
34488702 260 extractors and exit
c4af7684
PH		 261 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
262 extractor
263 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
264 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
9ee4f0bb 265 from google videos for the search term
266 "large apple". Use the value "auto" to let
267 yt-dlp guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
c4af7684
PH		 268 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
269 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
270 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
8a51f564 271 this is not possible instead of searching
298f597b 272 --ignore-config, --no-config Disable loading any configuration files
8a51f564 273 except the one provided by --config-location.
274 When given inside a configuration
298f597b 275 file, no further configuration files are
276 loaded. Additionally, (for backward
277 compatibility) if this option is found
278 inside the system configuration file, the
8a51f564 279 user configuration is not loaded
0202b52a 280 --config-location PATH Location of the main configuration file;
281 either the path to the config or its
282 containing directory
c4af7684 283 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
8a51f564 284 only list them
6623ac34 285 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
bdf7f139 286 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
597c1866 287 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
8a51f564 288 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
53ed7066 289 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
31654882 290 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
53ed7066 291 configurations by reverting some of the
292 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
293 default behavior" for details
08c1d0d3 294
149f05c7 295## Network Options:
28b4f736 296 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
0934c9d4
S		 297 To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
298 scheme. For example
28b4f736
PH		 299 socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
300 string (--proxy "") for direct connection
149f05c7 301 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
c4af7684 302 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
c4af7684 303 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
c4af7684 304 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
8c6c88c7 305
b31fdeed 306## Geo-restriction:
c25f1a9b
S		 307 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
308 some geo-restricted sites. The default
309 proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
7550ea50 310 option is not present) is used for the
8a51f564 311 actual downloading
8c6c88c7 312 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
0934c9d4 313 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
8c6c88c7
S		 314 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
315 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
8c6c88c7
S		 316 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
317 explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
0934c9d4 318 country code
9e18bb4c
S		 319 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
320 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
0934c9d4 321 notation
149f05c7 322
cfcec693 323## Video Selection:
1dc2726f
PH		 324 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
325 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
c4af7684
PH		 326 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
327 indices of the videos in the playlist
328 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
329 1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
330 indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
331 specify range: "--playlist-items
332 1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
8a51f564 333 at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13
780083db 334 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
c4af7684
PH		 335 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
336 SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
337 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
338 (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
6623ac34 339 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date.
340 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
341 "(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?"
c4af7684 342 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
c76eb41b 343 this date. The date formats accepted is the
344 same as --date
c4af7684 345 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
c76eb41b 346 this date. The date formats accepted is the
347 same as --date
77b87f05
MT		 348 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Any field (see
349 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE") can be compared with a
a047eeb6 350 number or a string using the operators
351 defined in "Filtering formats". You can
352 also simply specify a field to match if the
353 field is present and "!field" to check if
354 the field is not present. In addition,
355 Python style regular expression matching
356 can be done using "~=", and multiple
357 filters can be checked with "&". Use a "\"
358 to escape "&" or quotes if needed. Eg:
359 --match-filter "!is_live & like_count>?100
2e7781a9 360 & description~='(?i)\bcats \& dogs\b'"
a047eeb6 361 matches only videos that are not live, has
362 a like count more than 100 (or the like
77b87f05 363 field is not available), and also has a
a047eeb6 364 description that contains the phrase "cats
365 & dogs" (ignoring case)
c76eb41b 366 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
c4af7684 367 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
8a51f564 368 to a video and a playlist
c4af7684 369 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
8a51f564 370 a video and a playlist
c4af7684
PH		 371 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
372 age
373 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
374 archive file. Record the IDs of all
8a51f564 375 downloaded videos in it
8b0d7497 376 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
8a51f564 377 a file that is in the archive
8b0d7497 378 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
8a51f564 379 a file that has been filtered out
26e2805c 380 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest
381 of the playlist is skipped
c76eb41b 382 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
6bcd846b 383
d5a62e4f 384## Download Options:
b31fdeed 385 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
386 video that should be download concurrently
387 (default is 1)
5e3856a2 388 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
c4af7684 389 (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
6aecd871 390 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
391 below which throttling is assumed and the
392 video data is re-extracted (e.g. 100K)
c4af7684 393 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
8a51f564 394 "infinite"
0be8314d 395 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
b56e41a7
S		 396 is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
397 ISM)
6623ac34 398 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
399 hlsnative and ISM (default)
8a51f564 400 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
6623ac34 401 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading if a fragment is unavailable
8a51f564 402 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
a82f4184 403 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
6623ac34 404 downloading is finished
c76eb41b 405 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
406 downloading is finished (default)
c4af7684
PH		 407 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
408 (default is 1024)
c76eb41b 409 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
410 from an initial value of --buffer-size
411 (default)
412 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
db157d2a
S		 413 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
414 downloading (e.g. 10485760 or 10M) (default
415 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
416 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
417 (experimental)
2101f5d4 418 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
6623ac34 419 --no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
c76eb41b 420 (default)
31487eb9 421 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
c4af7684 422 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
0934c9d4 423 expected file size
9bd20204 424 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
425 allowing some players to play the video
426 while downloading, and reducing the chance
427 of file corruption if download is
428 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
429 live streams
430 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
431 videos. This is default when not
432 downloading live streams
52a8a1e1 433 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
434 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
435 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
436 use it for. Currently supports native,
437 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
438 wget (Recommended: aria2c). You can use
439 this option multiple times to set different
440 downloaders for different protocols. For
441 example, --downloader aria2c --downloader
442 "dash,m3u8:native" will use aria2c for
443 http/ftp downloads, and the native
444 downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
445 (Alias: --external-downloader)
46ee996e 446 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
447 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
330690a2 448 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
449 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to
450 different positions using the same syntax
451 as --postprocessor-args. You can use this
452 option multiple times to give different
453 arguments to different downloaders
29b6000e 454 (Alias: --external-downloader-args)
d5a62e4f 455
cfcec693 456## Filesystem Options:
c4af7684 457 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
e8dfecb3
S		 458 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
459 with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
8a51f564 460 comments and ignored
6ccf351a 461 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
0202b52a 462 downloaded. Specify the type of file and
de6000d9 463 the path separated by a colon ":". All the
464 same types as --output are supported.
465 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
6ccf351a 466 (default) and "temp" paths. All
467 intermediary files are first downloaded to
468 the temp path and then the final files are
469 moved over to the home path after download
470 is finished. This option is ignored if
471 --output is an absolute path
d818eb74 472 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
c76eb41b 473 TEMPLATE" for details
0bc0a322 474 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder value for unavailable meta
475 fields in output filename template
476 (default: "NA")
c4af7684
PH		 477 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
478 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
479 filenames
c76eb41b 480 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
481 filenames (default)
c2934512 482 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be windows compatible
483 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames windows compatible only if
484 using windows (default)
485 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
486 extension) to the specified number of
487 characters
9b45b9f5 488 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
489 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files.
490 This option includes --no-continue
491 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
492 related files (default)
c25228e5 493 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
494 (default)
495 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
e58c22a0 496 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
c25228e5 497 restart download of the entire file
c76eb41b 498 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
6623ac34 499 into output file (default)
c4af7684
PH		 500 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
501 into output file
c76eb41b 502 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the
503 file modification time (default)
c4af7684
PH		 504 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
505 the file modification time
506 --write-description Write video description to a .description
507 file
6623ac34 508 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
1dc2726f 509 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
c25228e5 510 (this may contain personal information)
6623ac34 511 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
cac96421 512 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
513 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
514 --write-description etc. (default)
515 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
516 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
75d43ca0 517 --clean-infojson Remove some private fields such as
518 filenames from the infojson. Note that it
519 could still contain some personal
520 information (default)
521 --no-clean-infojson Write all fields to the infojson
2305e2e5 522 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
523 infojson. The comments are fetched even
524 without this option if the extraction is
525 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
526 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
527 extraction is known to be quick
528 (Alias: --no-get-comments)
d845622b 529 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
c4af7684
PH		 530 (created with the "--write-info-json"
531 option)
532 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
533 jar in
982ee69a
MB		 534 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
535 (default)
536 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[:PROFILE]
537 Load cookies from a user profile of the
538 given web browser. Currently supported
0ef787d7 539 browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium,
540 edge, firefox, opera, safari, vivaldi. You
541 can specify the user profile name or
542 directory using "BROWSER:PROFILE_NAME" or
982ee69a
MB		 543 "BROWSER:PROFILE_PATH". If no profile is
544 given, the most recently accessed one is
545 used
546 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
6623ac34 547 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
3b1fe47d 548 can store some downloaded information (such
549 as client ids and signatures) permanently.
9ee4f0bb 550 By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
551 ~/.cache/yt-dlp
36f35428
PH		 552 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
553 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
6bcd846b 554
b31fdeed 555## Thumbnail Options:
1dc2726f 556 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
6623ac34 557 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
c76eb41b 558 (default)
1dc2726f 559 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
34488702 560 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
561 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
2b1bd292 562
732044af 563## Internet Shortcut Options:
8a51f564 564 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
565 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
566 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
567 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
568 OS caches the URL based on the file path
569 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
570 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
732044af 571
0744a815 572## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
34488702 573 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with
574 --verbose, print the log to stderr
6c072e7d 575 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
c4af7684
PH		 576 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
577 anything to disk
34488702 578 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
579 options are used
0cf05715 580 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Usefull
34488702 581 for extracting metadata even if the videos
582 are not actually available for download
0cf05715 583 (experimental)
584 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
585 formats are found (default)
e167860c 586 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
587 related files (Alias: --no-download)
34488702 588 -O, --print TEMPLATE Quiet, but print the given fields for each
589 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
590 used. Either a field name or same syntax as
591 the output template can be used
592 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
593 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
594 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
595 description of available keys
596 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
597 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
598 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
599 a playlist, the whole playlist information
600 is dumped in a single line
8a51f564 601 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be
e58c22a0 602 written as far as no errors occur, even if
603 -s or another simulation option is used
8a51f564 604 (Alias: --force-download-archive)
1dc2726f
PH		 605 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
606 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
819e0531 607 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
1dc2726f 608 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
819e0531 609 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
610 Template for progress outputs, optionally
611 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
612 "download-title:" (the console title),
613 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
614 The video's fields are accessible under the
615 "info" key and the progress attributes are
616 accessible under "progress" key. Eg:
617 --console-title --progress-template
618 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
1dc2726f 619 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
c4af7684
PH		 620 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
621 to debug problems (very verbose)
622 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
623 files in the current directory to debug
624 problems
780083db 625 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
6bcd846b 626
36f35428
PH		 627## Workarounds:
628 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
1dc2726f 629 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
c4af7684 630 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
e167860c 631 information about the video (Currently
05a7ffb1 632 supported only for YouTube)
1dc2726f 633 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
c4af7684
PH		 634 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
635 access is restricted to one domain
636 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
45016689 637 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
c4af7684
PH		 638 option multiple times
639 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
640 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
641 or fribidi executable in PATH
1cf376f5 642 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
643 during data extraction
c4af7684 644 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
e167860c 645 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
646 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
647 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
648 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can
649 only be used along with --min-sleep-interval
1cf376f5 650 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
651 subtitle download
36f35428 652
cfcec693 653## Video Format Options:
eb8a4433 654 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
655 for more details
656 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
657 "Sorting Formats" for more details
8a51f564 658 --S-force, --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
659 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
eb8a4433 660 Formats" for more details
661 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
c76eb41b 662 specified sort order (default), see
663 "Sorting Formats" for more details
664 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
665 into a single file
666 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for
667 each output file (default)
668 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
669 into a single file
670 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for
671 each output file (default)
da9be05e 672 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
673 over non-free ones of same quality. Use
674 with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
675 containers irrespective of quality
676 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
677 containers (default)
e8e73840 678 --check-formats Check that the formats selected are
0ba692ac 679 actually downloadable
680 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats selected are
681 actually downloadable
34488702 682 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
683 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
c4af7684
PH		 684 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
685 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
686 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
687 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
8ae7be3e
PH		 688
689## Subtitle Options:
c76eb41b 690 --write-subs Write subtitle file
691 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
692 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
e167860c 693 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
694 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
695 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
34488702 696 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
697 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
c4af7684
PH		 698 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
699 preference, for example: "srt" or
700 "ass/srt/best"
c32b0aab 701 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
702 be regex) or "all" separated by commas.
703 (Eg: --sub-langs en.*,ja) You can prefix
704 the language code with a "-" to exempt it
705 from the requested languages. (Eg: --sub-
706 langs all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a
707 list of available language tags
6bcd846b 708
cfcec693 709## Authentication Options:
1dc2726f 710 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
c4af7684 711 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
7a5c1cfe 712 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
dc48a354 713 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
1dc2726f 714 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
0001fcb5 715 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
716 either the path or its containing
717 directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
29f7c58a 718 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
f5e008d1 719 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
909d24dd 720 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
721 a list of available MSOs
f5e008d1
S		 722 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
723 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
c74d1aa3 724 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
725 interactively
f5e008d1
S		 726 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
727 operators
728
c76eb41b 729## Post-Processing Options:
c4af7684 730 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
e4172ac9 731 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
3de7c2ce 732 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format to convert the audio
733 to when -x is used. Currently supported
734 formats are: best (default) or one of
34488702 735 best|aac|flac|mp3|m4a|opus|vorbis|wav
e4172ac9 736 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality, insert a
737 value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for
738 VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
c4af7684 739 (default 5)
c76eb41b 740 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
29b6000e 741 necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv|flv
742 |webm|mov|avi|mp3|mka|m4a|ogg|opus). If
743 target container does not support the
06167fbb 744 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
3de7c2ce 745 can specify multiple rules; Eg.
06167fbb 746 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to
747 m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
c76eb41b 748 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
3de7c2ce 749 re-encoding is necessary. The syntax and
750 supported formats are the same as --remux-video
1b77b347 751 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
43820c03 752 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
45016689 753 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
754 to give the argument to the specified
8fa43c73 755 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
7a340e0d
NA		 756 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
757 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
8fa43c73 758 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
759 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
6aecd871 760 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
761 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
8fa43c73 762 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
9ee4f0bb 763 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
7a340e0d
NA		 764 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
765 specified executable only when being used
766 by the specified postprocessor.
767 Additionally, for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o"
768 can be appended to the prefix optionally
769 followed by a number to pass the argument
770 before the specified input/output file. Eg:
771 --ppa "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can
772 use this option multiple times to give
e4172ac9 773 different arguments to different
5b1ecbb3 774 postprocessors. (Alias: --ppa)
c76eb41b 775 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
6623ac34 776 after post-processing
c76eb41b 777 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
6623ac34 778 post-processing (default)
779 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
780 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
0be8314d
PH		 781 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
782 webm and mkv videos)
c76eb41b 783 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
6aecd871 784 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
6623ac34 785 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
7a340e0d
NA		 786 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also adds
787 chapters to file unless --no-add-chapters
788 is used (Alias: --add-metadata)
789 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
6aecd871 790 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
7a340e0d
NA		 791 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
792 (Alias: --add-chapters)
793 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default)
794 (Alias: --no-add-chapters)
73cd218f 795 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
796 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
797 for details
e9f4ccd1 798 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
799 Replace text in a metadata field using the
800 given regex. This option can be used
801 multiple times
c4af7684
PH		 802 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
803 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
804 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
805 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
806 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
807 default; fix file if we can, warn
6aecd871 808 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
809 already exists
e4172ac9 810 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
811 path to the binary or its containing
812 directory
c4af7684 813 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
34488702 814 downloading and post-processing. Same
815 syntax as the output template can be used
9de3ea31 816 to pass any field as arguments to the
817 command. An additional field "filepath"
818 that contains the final path of the
819 downloaded file is also available. If no
7d1eb38a 820 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
34488702 821 to the end of the command. This option can
822 be used multiple times
823 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
5520aa2d 824 --exec-before-download CMD Execute a command before the actual
825 download. The syntax is the same as --exec
34488702 826 but "filepath" is not available. This
827 option can be used multiple times
828 --no-exec-before-download Remove any previously defined
829 --exec-before-download
e167860c 830 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
3de7c2ce 831 (currently supported: srt|vtt|ass|lrc)
e167860c 832 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
8fa43c73 833 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
3de7c2ce 834 (currently supported: jpg|png)
72755351 835 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
836 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix
837 can be used with "--paths" and "--output"
838 to set the output filename for the split
839 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
840 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters
841 (default)
7a340e0d
NA		 842 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
843 given regular expression. This option can
844 be used multiple times
9ee4f0bb 845 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
846 (default)
7a340e0d
NA		 847 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes around the chapters before
848 removing/splitting them. Requires a
849 reencode and thus is very slow, but the
850 resulting video may have fewer artifacts
851 around the cuts
852 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
853 when cutting/splitting (default)
3ae5e797 854 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS] The (case sensitive) name of plugin
855 postprocessors to be enabled, and
856 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
857 seperated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
858 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
859 The "when" argument determines when the
860 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
861 "pre_process" (after extraction),
862 "before_dl" (before video download),
863 "post_process" (after video download;
864 default) or "after_move" (after moving file
865 to their final locations). This option can
866 be used multiple times to add different
867 postprocessors
7a340e0d
NA		 868
869## SponsorBlock Options:
870Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
871 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
8a51f564 872 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
873
7a340e0d
NA		 874 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
875 for, separated by commas. Available
876 categories are all, sponsor, intro, outro,
877 selfpromo, interaction, preview,
878 music_offtopic. You can prefix the category
879 with a "-" to exempt it. See
880 https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/index.php/Segment_Categories
881 for description of the categories. Eg:
882 --sponsorblock-query all,-preview
883 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
884 the video file, separated by commas. If a
885 category is present in both mark and
886 remove, remove takes precedence. The syntax
887 and available categories are the same as
888 for --sponsorblock-mark
889 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
890 The title template for SponsorBlock
891 chapters created by --sponsorblock-mark.
892 The same syntax as the output template is
893 used, but the only available fields are
894 start_time, end_time, category, categories,
895 name, category_names. Defaults to
896 "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
897 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
898 --sponsorblock-remove
899 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
900 https://sponsor.ajay.app
a9e7f546 901
78895bd3 902## Extractor Options:
5ef7d9bd 903 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor
d6e51845 904 errors (default is 3), or "infinite"
6623ac34 905 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
8a51f564 906 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
907 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
908 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
e409895f 909 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
910 discontinuities such as ad breaks
911 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
912 formats at discontinuities such as ad
913 breaks (default)
5d3a0e79 914 --extractor-args KEY:ARGS Pass these arguments to the extractor. See
915 "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can
916 use this option multiple times to give
245524e6 917 arguments for different extractors
17cb02d0 918
b7770046
U		 919# CONFIGURATION
920
7a5c1cfe 921You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
e2e43aea 922
0202b52a 9231. **Main Configuration**: The file given by `--config-location`
7a5c1cfe
P		 9241. **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.
9251. **Home Configuration**: `yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given by `-P "home:<path>"`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
e2e43aea 9261. **User Configuration**:
927 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
928 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
929 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
930 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
931 * `~/yt-dlp.conf`
932 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
933
c589c1d3 934 `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to `~/.config` if undefined. On windows, `~` points to %HOME% if present, `%USERPROFILE%` (generally `C:\Users\<user name>`) or `%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`.
07cce701 9351. **System Configuration**: `/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
b7770046 936
7a5c1cfe 937For example, 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
U		 938```
939# Lines starting with # are comments
940
941# Always extract audio
942-x
943
944# Do not copy the mtime
945--no-mtime
946
947# Use this proxy
948--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
949
298f597b 950# Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
951-o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
b7770046
U		 952```
953
e2e43aea 954Note 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`.
b7770046 955
7a5c1cfe 956You 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 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
U		 957
958### Authentication with `.netrc` file
959
0001fcb5 960You 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
U		 961```
962touch $HOME/.netrc
963chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
964```
965After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
966```
0001fcb5 967machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
b7770046
U		 968```
969For example:
970```
971machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
972machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
973```
7a5c1cfe 974To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
b7770046 975
0001fcb5 976The default location of the .netrc file is `$HOME` (`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is `%HOME%` if present, `%USERPROFILE%` (generally `C:\Users\<user name>`) or `%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
b7770046
U		 977
978# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
979
0202b52a 980The `-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
U		 981
982**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
983
e58c22a0 984The 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 985
f5aa5cfb 986It 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). For example, `%(NAME)s` or `%(NAME)05d`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations.
a439a3a4 987
988The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
2b8a2973 9891. **Object traversal**: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a `.` (dot) separator. You can also do python slicing using `:`. Eg: `%(tags.0)s`, `%(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s`, `%(id.3:7:-1)s`, `%(formats.:.format_id)s`. `%()s` refers to the entire infodict. Note that all the fields that become available using this method are not listed below. Use `-j` to see such fields
e625be0d 9901. **Addition**: Addition and subtraction of numeric fields can be done using `+` and `-` respectively. Eg: `%(playlist_index+10)03d`, `%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d`
9911. **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 `>`. Eg: `%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s`, `%(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s`, `%(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s`
7c37ff97 9921. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified seperated with a `,`. Eg: `%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
9931. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a `|` seperator. This overrides `--output-na-template`. Eg: `%(uploader|Unknown)s`
91dd88b9 9941. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types `diouxXeEfFgGcrs`, `B`, `j`, `l`, `q` can be used for converting to **B**ytes, **j**son, a comma seperated **l**ist (alternate form flag `#` makes it new line `\n` seperated) and a string **q**uoted for the terminal, respectively
524e2e4f 9951. **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. Eg: `%(title)+.100U` is NFKC
a439a3a4 996
997To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
998```
7c37ff97 999%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
a439a3a4 1000```
de6000d9 1001
80c03fa9 1002Additionally, 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`, `pl_thumbnail`, `pl_description`, `pl_infojson`, `chapter`. For example, `-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 (except default) is empty, that type of file will not be written. Eg: `--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:"` will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
e29663c6 1003
1004The available fields are:
b7770046
U		 1005
1006 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1007 - `title` (string): Video title
1008 - `url` (string): Video URL
1009 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1010 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
597c1866 1011 - `description` (string): The description of the video
b7770046
U		 1012 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1013 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1014 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1015 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
b7770046
U		 1016 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1017 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
e6f21b3d 1018 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
1019 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
b7770046
U		 1020 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1021 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1022 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1023 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1024 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
53c18592 1025 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
b7770046
U		 1026 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1027 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1028 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1029 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1030 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
277d6ff5 1031 - `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 1032 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
3dbb2a9d 1033 - `live_status` (string): One of 'is_live', 'was_live', 'is_upcoming', 'not_live'
b7770046 1034 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
f76ede8e 1035 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
6cfda058 1036 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
c224251a 1037 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is 'private', 'premium_only', 'subscriber_only', 'needs_auth', 'unlisted' or 'public'
b7770046
U		 1038 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1039 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
29b6000e 1040 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
b7770046
U		 1041 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by `--format`
1042 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
1043 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
1044 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
1045 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
1046 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1047 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1048 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
1049 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1050 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1051 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
1052 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
1053 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
1054 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
1055 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
1056 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
1057 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1058 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1059 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
1060 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at `--autonumber-start`
e6f21b3d 1061 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
b7770046 1062 - `playlist` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
e6f21b3d 1063 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1064 - `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
U		 1065 - `playlist_id` (string): Playlist identifier
1066 - `playlist_title` (string): Playlist title
1067 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1068 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
bd99f6e6 1069 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
1070 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as `webpage_url` for playlist entries)
b7770046
U		 1071
1072Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1073
1074 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1075 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1076 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1077
1078Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1079
1080 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1081 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1082 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1083 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1084 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1085 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1086 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1087
1088Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1089
1090 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1091 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1092 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1093 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1094 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1095 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1096 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1097 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1098 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1099 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1100
b050d210 1101Available for `chapter:` prefix when using `--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
72755351 1102
1103 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1104 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1105 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1106 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1107
53c18592 1108Available only when used in `--print`:
1109
1110 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1111 - `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
7a340e0d
NA		 1112
1113Available only in `--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1114
1115 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1116 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1117 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1118 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1119 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1120 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
53c18592 1121
a820dc72 1122Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with `--output-na-placeholder` (`NA` by default).
b7770046 1123
bc97cdae 1124For example 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.
b7770046
U		 1125
1126For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for example, `%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in `00042`.
1127
1128Output 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.
1129
1130To use percent literals in an output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
1131
91ebc640 1132The current default template is `%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
b7770046
U		 1133
1134In 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:
1135
1136#### Output template and Windows batch files
1137
1138If you are using an output template inside a Windows batch file then you must escape plain percent characters (`%`) by doubling, so that `-o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"` should become `-o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s"`. However you should not touch `%`'s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for expansion should stay intact: `-o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s"`.
1139
1140#### Output template examples
1141
de6000d9 1142Note that on Windows you need to use double quotes instead of single.
b7770046
U		 1143
1144```bash
7a5c1cfe
P		 1145$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
1146youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
b7770046 1147
7a5c1cfe
P		 1148$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1149youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
b7770046
U		 1150
1151# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
7a5c1cfe 1152$ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
b7770046 1153
b050d210 1154# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
7a5c1cfe 1155$ yt-dlp -o '%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
e29663c6 1156
b7770046 1157# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
7a5c1cfe 1158$ yt-dlp -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
b7770046
U		 1159
1160# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
7a5c1cfe 1161$ 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		 1162
1163# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
7a5c1cfe 1164$ 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
U		 1165
1166# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
7a5c1cfe 1167$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
b7770046
U		 1168```
1169
1170# FORMAT SELECTION
1171
7a5c1cfe
P		 1172By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1173This 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 1174
eff63539 1175The 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
U		 1176
1177**tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1178
a439a3a4 1179The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with `-f 22` you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using `--list-formats` or `-F`. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.
b7770046
U		 1180
1181You 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.
1182
1183You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1184
e094cec1 1185 - `all`: Select all formats
f8d4ad9a 1186 - `mergeall`: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with `--audio-multistreams`, `--video-multistreams` or both)
1187 - `b*`, `best*`: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
1188 - `w*`, `worst*`: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
909d24dd 1189 - `b`, `best`: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1190 - `w`, `worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
909d24dd 1191 - `bv`, `bestvideo`: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to `best*[acodec=none]`
1192 - `wv`, `worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec=none]`
909d24dd 1193 - `bv*`, `bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none]`
1194 - `wv*`, `worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none]`
909d24dd 1195 - `ba`, `bestaudio`: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec=none]`
1196 - `wa`, `worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec=none]`
909d24dd 1197 - `ba*`, `bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `best*[acodec!=none]`
1198 - `wa*`, `worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec!=none]`
b7770046 1199
e58c22a0 1200For 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 `-f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps` instead of `-f worst`. See [sorting formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
eff63539 1201
1202You 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 1203
eb8a4433 1204If 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, for example `-f 22/17/18` will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.
b7770046
U		 1205
1206If 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`.
1207
d806c9fd 1208You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using `-f <format1>+<format2>+...` (requires ffmpeg installed), for example `-f bestvideo+bestaudio` will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.
1209
1210**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
1211
1212Unless `--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. For example, `-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 1213
1214## Filtering Formats
1215
b7770046
U		 1216You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
1217
1218The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
1219
1220 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1221 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
1222 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
1223 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1224 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1225 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1226 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1227 - `fps`: Frame rate
1228
1229Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `^=` (starts with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
1230
1231 - `ext`: File extension
1232 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
1233 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
1234 - `container`: Name of the container format
1235 - `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`)
1236 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
29f7c58a 1237 - `language`: Language code
b7770046
U		 1238
1239Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation `!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. `!*=` (does not contain).
1240
e58c22a0 1241Note 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 1242
e094cec1 1243Formats 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. For example, `-f "all[vcodec=none]"` selects all audio-only formats.
b7770046 1244
b7770046
U		 1245Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use `-f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'`.
1246
eb8a4433 1247## Sorting Formats
1248
2e7781a9 1249You can change the criteria for being considered the `best` by using `-S` (`--format-sort`). The general format for this is `--format-sort field1,field2...`.
1250
1251The available fields are:
eb8a4433 1252
63be1aab 1253 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1254 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
1255 - `ie_pref`: The format preference as given by the extractor
1256 - `lang`: Language preference as given by the extractor
dca3ff4a 1257 - `quality`: The quality of the format as given by the extractor
63be1aab 1258 - `source`: Preference of the source as given by the extractor
e36d50c5 1259 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (`https`/`ftps` > `http`/`ftp` > `m3u8_native`/`m3u8` > `http_dash_segments`> `websocket_frag` > other > `mms`/`rtsp` > unknown > `f4f`/`f4m`)
155d2b48 1260 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (`av01` > `vp9.2` > `vp9` > `h265` > `h264` > `vp8` > `h263` > `theora` > other > unknown)
63be1aab 1261 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (`opus` > `vorbis` > `aac` > `mp4a` > `mp3` > `ac3` > `dts` > other > unknown)
eb8a4433 1262 - `codec`: Equivalent to `vcodec,acodec`
63be1aab 1263 - `vext`: Video Extension (`mp4` > `webm` > `flv` > other > unknown). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, `webm` is prefered.
1264 - `aext`: Audio Extension (`m4a` > `aac` > `mp3` > `ogg` > `opus` > `webm` > other > unknown). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, the order changes to `opus` > `ogg` > `webm` > `m4a` > `mp3` > `aac`.
1265 - `ext`: Equivalent to `vext,aext`
eb8a4433 1266 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.
63be1aab 1267 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1268 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
eb8a4433 1269 - `height`: Height of video
1270 - `width`: Width of video
63be1aab 1271 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1272 - `fps`: Framerate of video
1273 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1274 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1275 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1276 - `br`: Equivalent to using `tbr,vbr,abr`
1277 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
d806c9fd 1278
1279**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 1280
9ee4f0bb 1281All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a `+`. Eg: `+res` prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a `:`. Eg: `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. Eg: `+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. Eg: `filesize~1G` prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
1282
e6f21b3d 1283The 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,codec:vp9.2,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id`. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
eb8a4433 1284
9ee4f0bb 1285Note that the default has `codec:vp9.2`; i.e. `av1` is not prefered
eb8a4433 1286
e58c22a0 1287If 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 1288
1289**Tip**: You can use the `-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1290
eb8a4433 1291## Format Selection examples
b7770046
U		 1292
1293Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1294
1295```bash
e58c22a0 1296# Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
909d24dd 1297# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
7a5c1cfe 1298$ yt-dlp -f 'bv+ba/b'
909d24dd 1299
1300# Download best format that contains video,
1301# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
7a5c1cfe 1302$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba/b'
2af884ff 1303
1304# Same as above
7a5c1cfe 1305$ yt-dlp
909d24dd 1306
6fd35a11 1307# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1308# For this case, an output template should be used since
1309# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
7a5c1cfe 1310$ yt-dlp -f 'bv,ba' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
909d24dd 1311
f8d4ad9a 1312# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1313# and all audio-only formats into one file
1314$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]' --audio-multistreams
1315
1316# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1317# and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1318$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba+ba.2' --audio-multistreams
909d24dd 1319
6fd35a11 1320
1321# The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
f8d4ad9a 1322# and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
6fd35a11 1323
1324# Download the worst video available (old method)
7a5c1cfe 1325$ yt-dlp -f 'wv*+wa/w'
eb8a4433 1326
1327# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
7a5c1cfe 1328$ yt-dlp -S '+res'
eb8a4433 1329
1330# Download the smallest video available
7a5c1cfe 1331$ yt-dlp -S '+size,+br'
eb8a4433 1332
1333
909d24dd 1334
eb8a4433 1335# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
7a5c1cfe 1336$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b'
eb8a4433 1337
1338# Download the best video with the best extension
1339# (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
7a5c1cfe 1340$ yt-dlp -S 'ext'
eb8a4433 1341
1342
909d24dd 1343
eb8a4433 1344# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1345# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
7a5c1cfe 1346$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w'
b7770046 1347
eb8a4433 1348# Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1349# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
7a5c1cfe 1350$ yt-dlp -S 'height:480'
b7770046 1351
eb8a4433 1352# Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1353# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1354# Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1355# So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
7a5c1cfe 1356$ yt-dlp -S 'res:480'
b7770046 1357
b7770046 1358
909d24dd 1359
eb8a4433 1360# Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1361# or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
7a5c1cfe 1362$ yt-dlp -f 'b[filesize<50M] / w'
eb8a4433 1363
1364# Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1365# or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
7a5c1cfe 1366$ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize:50M'
eb8a4433 1367
1368# Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
7a5c1cfe 1369$ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize~50M'
eb8a4433 1370
1371
909d24dd 1372
eb8a4433 1373# Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1374# or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
7a5c1cfe 1375$ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)'
eb8a4433 1376
1377# Download best video available via the best protocol
1378# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
7a5c1cfe 1379$ yt-dlp -S 'proto'
eb8a4433 1380
1381
909d24dd 1382
eb8a4433 1383# Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
7a5c1cfe 1384$ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[vcodec^=avc1] / (bv*+ba/b)'
eb8a4433 1385
1386# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1387# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
7a5c1cfe 1388$ yt-dlp -S 'codec:h264'
eb8a4433 1389
1390# Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1391# or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
7a5c1cfe 1392$ yt-dlp -S '+codec:h264'
eb8a4433 1393
1394
1395
1396# More complex examples
1397
e58c22a0 1398# Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1399# or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
7a5c1cfe 1400$ 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 1401
1402# Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
f8d4ad9a 1403# or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
e58c22a0 1404# preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
7a5c1cfe 1405$ yt-dlp -S 'res:720,fps'
eb8a4433 1406
1407
909d24dd 1408
eb8a4433 1409# Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1410# or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
e58c22a0 1411# preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
7a5c1cfe 1412$ yt-dlp -S '+res:480,codec,br'
b7770046 1413```
eb8a4433 1414
73cd218f 1415# MODIFYING METADATA
1416
e9f4ccd1 1417The metadata obtained the the extractors can be modified by using `--parse-metadata` and `--replace-in-metadata`
1418
418964fa 1419`--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 1420
2e7781a9 1421The 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 1422
1423Note 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 `--add-metadata`.
1424
9c2b75b5 1425This option also has a few special uses:
28b0eb0f 1426* 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. Eg: `--parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)` will download the first vimeo video found in the description
c31be5b0 1427* 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. For example, you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis"
1428
1429For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1430
1431Metadata fields|From
1432:---|:---
1433`title`|`track` or `title`
1434`date`|`upload_date`
1435`description`, `synopsis`|`description`
1436`purl`, `comment`|`webpage_url`
1437`track`|`track_number`
1438`artist`|`artist`, `creator`, `uploader` or `uploader_id`
1439`genre`|`genre`
1440`album`|`album`
1441`album_artist`|`album_artist`
1442`disc`|`disc_number`
1443`show`|`series`
1444`season_number`|`season_number`
1445`episode_id`|`episode` or `episode_id`
1446`episode_sort`|`episode_number`
1447`language` of each stream|From the format's `language`
1448**Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1449
73cd218f 1450
1451## Modifying metadata examples
1452
1453Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1454
1455```bash
1456# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
02aabd45 1457$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'title:%(artist)s - %(title)s'
73cd218f 1458
1459# Regex example
02aabd45 1460$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)'
73cd218f 1461
1462# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
02aabd45 1463$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata '%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s'
73cd218f 1464
1465# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url
02aabd45 1466$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)' --add-metadata
73cd218f 1467
e9f4ccd1 1468# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1469$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata 'title,uploader' '[ _]' '-'
1470
73cd218f 1471```
1472
5d3a0e79 1473# EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1474
34488702 1475Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using `--extractor-args KEY:ARGS`. `ARGS` is a `;` (semicolon) seperated string of `ARG=VAL1,VAL2`. Eg: `--extractor-args "youtube:player_client=android_agegate,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"`
5d3a0e79 1476
1477The following extractors use this feature:
1478* **youtube**
1479 * `skip`: `hls` or `dash` (or both) to skip download of the respective manifests
e7e94f2a 1480 * `player_client`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are `web`, `android`, `ios`, `mweb`. These also have `_music`, `_embedded`, `_agegate`, and `_creator` variants (Eg: `web_embedded`) (`mweb` has only `_agegate`). By default, `android,web` is used, but the agegate and creator variants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for `music.youtube.com` urls. You can also use `all` to use all the clients
b6de707d 1481 * `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
57015a4a 1482 * `include_live_dash`: Include live dash formats (These formats don't download properly)
2d6659b9 1483 * `comment_sort`: `top` or `new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side).
34488702 1484 * `max_comments`: Maximum amount of comments to download (default all).
7581d246 1485 * `max_comment_depth`: Maximum depth for nested comments. YouTube supports depths 1 or 2 (default).
11f9be09 1486
3acf6d38 1487* **funimation**
1488 * `language`: Languages to extract. Eg: `funimation:language=english,japanese`
1489 * `version`: The video version to extract - `uncut` or `simulcast`
1490
73d829c1 1491* **vikiChannel**
1492 * `video_types`: Types of videos to download - one or more of `episodes`, `movies`, `clips`, `trailers`
1493
bc97cdae 1494NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
5d3a0e79 1495
3acf6d38 1496
f74980cb 1497# PLUGINS
b7770046 1498
3ae5e797 1499Plugins 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
1500
1501Plugins 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`.
1502
1503See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1504
1505Note 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
1506
1507If you are a plugin author, add [ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
b7770046 1508
b7770046 1509
e167860c 1510# DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1511
1512These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1513
6ccf351a 1514#### Redundant options
1515While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
f4536226 1516
53c18592 1517 --get-description --print description
1518 --get-duration --print duration_string
1519 --get-filename --print filename
1520 --get-format --print format
1521 --get-id --print id
1522 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1523 -e, --get-title --print title
1524 -g, --get-url --print urls
2b8a2973 1525 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
8f18aca8 1526 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1527 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
1528 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
1529 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
6ccf351a 1530
1531
1532#### Not recommended
1533While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
1534
d9aa2332 1535 --all-formats -f all
c32b0aab 1536 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
b7b04c78 1537 --print-json -j --no-simulate
e167860c 1538 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)03d
a439a3a4 1539 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
73cd218f 1540 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
52a8a1e1 1541 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
1542 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
53ed7066 1543 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
1544 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
5d3a0e79 1545 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
1546 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
1547 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
1548 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
6ccf351a 1549
1550
1551#### Developer options
1552These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
1553
34488702 1554 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
6ccf351a 1555 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
88acdbc2 1556 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
1557 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
f4536226 1558
1559
1560#### Old aliases
1561These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
1562
1563 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
1564 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
1565 --dump-headers --print-traffic
1566 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
1567 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
1568 --load-info --load-info-json
1569 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
e167860c 1570 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
e167860c 1571 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
1572 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
f4536226 1573 --split-tracks --split-chapters
1574 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
e167860c 1575 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
f4536226 1576 --write-srt --write-subs
e167860c 1577 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
f4536226 1578
7a340e0d
NA		 1579#### Sponskrub Options
1580Support for [SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of `--sponsorblock`
1581
1582 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
1583 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
1584 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
1585 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
1586 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
1587 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
1588 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
1589 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
1590
f4536226 1591#### No longer supported
1592These options may no longer work as intended
1593
1594 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
1595 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
1596 -C, --call-home Not implemented
1597 --no-call-home Default
1598 --include-ads No longer supported
1599 --no-include-ads Default
0bb1bc1b 1600 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
1601 --no-write-annotations Default
486fb179 1602
1603#### Removed
1604These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
1605
f4536226 1606 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1607 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1608 -t, --title -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1609 -l, --literal -o accepts literal names
1610
e167860c 1611
c2b5f311 1612# MORE
5bfa4862 1613For FAQ, Developer Instructions etc., see the [original README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
fork of https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/