7 **youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
10 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
11 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
12 2.6,
2.7, or
3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
13 your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
14 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
17 -h, --help print this help text and exit
18 --version print program version and exit
19 -U, --update update this program to latest version
20 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors
21 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT download rate limit (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
22 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is
10)
23 --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16k) (default
25 --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer size. By
26 default, the buffer size is automatically resized
27 from an initial value of SIZE.
28 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
29 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
30 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs they
34 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is
1)
35 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
36 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or caseless
38 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
40 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
42 ## Filesystem Options:
43 -t, --title use title in file name
44 --id use video ID in file name
45 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
46 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from
00000
47 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to get the
48 title, %(uploader)s for the uploader name,
49 %(uploader_id)s for the uploader nickname if
50 different, %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
51 incremented number, %(ext)s for the filename
52 extension, %(upload_date)s for the upload date
53 (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
54 (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the video id
55 and %% for a literal percent. Use - to output to
56 stdout. Can also be used to download to a different
57 directory, for example with -o '/my/downloads/%(upl
58 oader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
59 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and
60 avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
61 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for stdin)
62 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
63 -c, --continue resume partially downloaded files
64 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files (restart
66 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
67 --no-part do not use .part files
68 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set the file
70 --write-description write video description to a .description file
71 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
73 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
74 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
75 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write anything
77 --skip-download do not download the video
78 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
79 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
80 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
81 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
82 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
83 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
84 --no-progress do not print progress bar
85 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
86 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
88 ## Video Format Options:
89 -f, --format FORMAT video format code
90 --all-formats download all available video formats
91 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific one is
93 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
94 -F, --list-formats list all available formats (currently youtube only)
95 --write-srt write video closed captions to a .srt file
96 (currently youtube only)
97 --srt-lang LANG language of the closed captions to download
98 (optional) use IETF language tags like 'en'
100 ## Authentication Options:
101 -u, --username USERNAME account username
102 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
103 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
105 ## Post-processing Options:
106 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files (requires
107 ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
108 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or
109 "wav"; best by default
110 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification, insert a
111 value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse) for VBR or a
112 specific bitrate like
128K (default
5)
113 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the post-
114 processing; the video is erased by default
115 --no-post-overwrites do not overwrite post-processed files; the post-
116 processed files are overwritten by default
120 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as
`--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into
`/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or
`~/.config/youtube-dl.conf`.
124 The
`-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in
`youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format
`%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
126 - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
127 - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
128 - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
129 - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
130 - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
131 - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
132 - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
133 - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
135 The current default template is
`%(id)s.%(ext)s`, but that will be switchted to
`%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` (which can be requested with
`-t` at the moment).
137 In some cases, you don't want special characters such as 中, spaces, or &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system or the filename through an
8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the
`--restrict-filenames` flag to get a shorter title:
139 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
140 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
141 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
142 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
146 ### Can you please put the -b option back?
148 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be
1080p or
720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you''re interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
150 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
152 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We''re
[considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
154 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
156 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as
[vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or
[mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
158 ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
160 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the
`--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use
`--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
162 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
164 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July
2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
166 ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
168 youtube requires an additional signature since September
2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
170 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
174 File "youtube-dl", line
2
175 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '
\x93' ...
177 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python
2.6 or
2.7.
179 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
181 Since June
2012 (#
342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to
`youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the
`__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run
`make youtube-dl`.
183 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
185 To run the exe you need to install first the
[Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
189 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
191 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.
195 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>
199 * Your exact command line, like
`youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title"`. A common mistake is not to escape the
`&`. Putting URLs in quotes should solve this problem.
200 * If possible re-run the command with
`--verbose`, and include the full output, it is really helpful to us.
201 * The output of
`youtube-dl --version`
202 * The output of
`python --version`
203 * The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu
11.04 x64" or "Windows
7 x64" is usually enough).
205 For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.