3 [![Release version](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/pukkandan/yt-dlp?color=brightgreen&label=Release)]
(https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
4 [![License: Unlicense](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-Unlicense-blue.svg)](LICENSE)
5 [![CI Status](https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/workflows/Core%20Tests/badge.svg?branch=master)]
(https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/actions)
6 [![Discord](https://img.shields.io/discord/807245652072857610?color=blue&label=discord&logo=discord)]
(https://discord.gg/S75JaBna)
8 [![Commits](https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/m/pukkandan/yt-dlp?label=commits)]
(https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/commits)
9 [![Last Commit](https://img.shields.io/github/last-commit/pukkandan/yt-dlp/master)]
(https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/commits)
10 [![Downloads](https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/pukkandan/yt-dlp/total)]
(https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
11 [![PyPi Downloads](https://img.shields.io/pypi/dm/yt-dlp?label=PyPi)]
(https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp)
13 A command-line program to download videos from youtube.com and many other [video platforms](docs/supportedsites.md)
15 This is a fork of
[youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) which is inturn a fork of
[youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
17 * [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
18 * [INSTALLATION](#installation)
21 * [DESCRIPTION](#description)
23 * [Network Options](#network-options)
24 * [Geo Restriction](#geo-restriction)
25 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
26 * [Download Options](#download-options)
27 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
28 * [Thumbnail images](#thumbnail-images)
29 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
30 * [Verbosity / Simulation Options](#verbosity--simulation-options)
31 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
32 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
33 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
34 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
35 * [Adobe Pass Options](#adobe-pass-options)
36 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
37 * [SponSkrub (SponsorBlock) Options](#sponskrub-sponsorblock-options)
38 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
39 * [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
40 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
41 * [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
42 * [Output template and Windows batch files](#output-template-and-windows-batch-files)
43 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
44 * [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
45 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
46 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
47 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
53 The major new features from the latest release of
[blackjack4494/yt-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) are:
55 * **
[SponSkrub Integration](#sponskrub-sponsorblock-options)**: You can use [SponSkrub](https://github.com/pukkandan/SponSkrub) to mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the
[SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
57 * **[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 that what is possible by simply using
`--format` ([examples](#format-selection-examples))
59 * **Merged with youtube-dl v2021.02
.10**: 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)
61 * **Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl**: You get most of the features and improvements from
[animelover1984/youtube-dl](https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including
`--get-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/pukkandan/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
63 * **Youtube improvements**:
64 * All Youtube Feeds (
`:ytfav`,
`:ytwatchlater`,
`:ytsubs`,
`:ythistory`,
`:ytrec`) works correctly and supports downloading multiple pages of content
65 * Youtube search (
`ytsearch:`,
`ytsearchdate:`) along with Search URLs works correctly
66 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to
`/video` to preserve the old behaviour
68 * **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use aria2c as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats. No more slow ffmpeg/native downloads
70 * **New extractors**: AnimeLab, Philo MSO, Rcs, Gedi, bitwave.tv, mildom, audius
72 * **Fixed extractors**: archive.org, roosterteeth.com, skyit, instagram, itv, SouthparkDe, spreaker, Vlive, tiktok, akamai, ina, rumble
74 * **Plugin support**: Extractors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
76 * **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. See [`--paths`](https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/#:~:text=-P,%20--paths%20TYPE:PATH) for details
78 <!-- Relative link doesn't work for "#:~:text=" -->
80 * **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [configuration](#configuration) for details
82 * **Other new options**:
`--parse-metadata`,
`--list-formats-as-table`,
`--write-link`,
`--force-download-archive`,
`--force-overwrites`,
`--break-on-reject` etc
84 * **Improvements**: Multiple
`--postprocessor-args` and
`--external-downloader-args`, Date/time formatting in
`-o`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection) etc
86 * **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using
`youtube-dlc -U`
89 See
[changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
92 **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
94 If 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](docs/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.
99 You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
100 * Download the binary from the
[latest release](https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp/releases/latest) (recommended method)
101 * Use
[PyPI package](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp):
`python -m pip install --upgrade yt-dlp`
102 * Use pip+git:
`python -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp.git@release`
103 * Install master branch:
`python -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/pukkandan/yt-dlp`
106 Starting from version
`2021.02.09`, you can use
`youtube-dlc -U` to update if you are using the provided release.
107 If you are using
`pip`, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program.
112 To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and optionally mutagen and pycryptodome)
114 python -m pip install --upgrade pyinstaller mutagen pycryptodome
116 Once you have all the necessary dependancies 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. It is strongly reccomended to use python3 although python2.6+ is supported.
118 You can also build the executable without any version info or metadata by using:
120 pyinstaller.exe youtube_dlc\__main__.py --onefile --name youtube-dlc
123 You will need the required build tools
124 python, make (GNU), pandoc, zip, nosetests
125 Then simply type this
129 **Note**: In either platform,
`devscripts\update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
132 **youtube-dlc** is a command-line program to download videos from youtube.com many other [video platforms](docs/supportedsites.md). It requires the Python interpreter, version
2.6,
2.7, or
3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS. It is released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
134 youtube-dlc [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
138 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
139 <!-- Autogenerated -->
142 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
143 --version Print program version and exit
144 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
145 sure that you have sufficient permissions
146 (run with sudo if needed)
147 -i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
148 skip unavailable videos in a playlist
149 (default) (Alias: --no-abort-on-error)
150 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
151 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
152 --dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
153 --list-extractors List all supported extractors
154 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
156 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
158 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
159 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
160 from google videos for youtube-dl "large
161 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
162 youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
163 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
164 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
165 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
166 this is not possible instead of searching
167 --ignore-config, --no-config Disable loading any configuration files
168 except the one provided by --config-location.
169 When given inside a configuration
170 file, no further configuration files are
171 loaded. Additionally, (for backward
172 compatibility) if this option is found
173 inside the system configuration file, the
174 user configuration is not loaded
175 --config-location PATH Location of the main configuration file;
176 either the path to the config or its
178 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
180 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
181 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
182 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched
183 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
186 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
187 To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
189 socks5://
127.0.0.1:
1080/. Pass in an empty
190 string (--proxy "") for direct connection
191 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
192 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
193 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
194 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
197 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
198 some geo-restricted sites. The default
199 proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
200 option is not present) is used for the
202 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
203 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
204 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
205 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
206 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
207 explicitly provided two-letter ISO
3166-
2
209 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
210 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
214 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is
1)
215 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
216 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
217 indices of the videos in the playlist
218 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
219 1,
2,
5,
8" if you want to download videos
220 indexed
1,
2,
5,
8 in the playlist. You can
221 specify range: "--playlist-items
222 1-
3,
7,
10-
13", it will download the videos
223 at index
1,
2,
3,
7,
10,
11,
12 and
13
224 --match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
226 --reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
228 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
229 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
230 SIZE (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
231 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
233 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date.
234 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
235 "(now|today)[+-][
0-
9](day|week|month|year)(s)?"
236 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
237 this date. The date formats accepted is the
239 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
240 this date. The date formats accepted is the
242 --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
244 --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
246 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Specify any key (see
247 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a list of available
248 keys) to match if the key is present, !key
249 to check if the key is not present,
250 key>NUMBER (like "comment_count >
12", also
251 works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to compare
252 against a number, key = 'LITERAL' (like
253 "uploader = 'Mike Smith'", also works with
254 !=) to match against a string literal and &
255 to require multiple matches. Values which
256 are not known are excluded unless you put a
257 question mark (?) after the operator. For
258 example, to only match videos that have
259 been liked more than
100 times and disliked
260 less than
50 times (or the dislike
261 functionality is not available at the given
262 service), but who also have a description,
263 use --match-filter "like_count >
100 &
264 dislike_count <?
50 & description"
265 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
266 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
267 to a video and a playlist
268 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
269 a video and a playlist
270 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
272 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
273 archive file. Record the IDs of all
274 downloaded videos in it
275 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
276 a file that is in the archive
277 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
278 a file that has been filtered out
279 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
280 --include-ads Download advertisements as well
282 --no-include-ads Do not download advertisements (default)
285 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
287 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
289 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
290 is
10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
292 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
293 hlsnative and ISM (default)
294 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
295 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading if a fragment is unavailable
296 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
297 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
298 downloading is finished
299 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
300 downloading is finished (default)
301 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
303 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
304 from an initial value of --buffer-size
306 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
307 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
308 downloading (e.g.
10485760 or
10M) (default
309 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
310 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
312 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
313 --no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
315 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
316 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
318 --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
320 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
322 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
323 allowing to play the video while
324 downloading (some players may not be able
326 --external-downloader NAME Use the specified external downloader.
327 Currently supports aria2c, avconv, axel,
328 curl, ffmpeg, httpie, wget
329 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
330 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
331 the arguments separated by a colon ":". You
332 can use this option multiple times
333 (Alias: --external-downloader-args)
335 ## Filesystem Options:
336 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
337 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
338 with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
340 -P, --paths TYPE:PATH The paths where the files should be
341 downloaded. Specify the type of file and
342 the path separated by a colon ":". All the
343 same types as --output are supported.
344 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
345 and "temp" paths. All intermediary files
346 are first downloaded to the temp path and
347 then the final files are moved over to the
348 home path after download is finished. This
349 option is ignored if --output is an
351 -o, --output [TYPE:]TEMPLATE Output filename template, see "OUTPUT
352 TEMPLATE" for details
353 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder value for unavailable meta
354 fields in output filename template
356 --autonumber-start NUMBER Specify the start value for %(autonumber)s
358 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
359 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
361 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
363 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be windows compatible
364 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames windows compatible only if
365 using windows (default)
366 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
367 extension) to the specified number of
369 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
370 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files.
371 This option includes --no-continue
372 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
373 related files (default)
374 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
376 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
377 fragments. If the file is unfragmented,
378 restart download of the entire file
379 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
380 into output file (default)
381 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
383 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the
384 file modification time (default)
385 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
386 the file modification time
387 --write-description Write video description to a .description
389 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
390 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
391 (this may contain personal information)
392 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
393 --write-annotations Write video annotations to a
394 .annotations.xml file
395 --no-write-annotations Do not write video annotations (default)
396 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
397 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
398 --write-description etc. (default)
399 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
400 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
401 --get-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
403 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
404 (created with the "--write-info-json"
406 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
408 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies (default)
409 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
410 can store some downloaded information
411 permanently. By default
412 $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
413 ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
414 YouTube player files (for videos with
415 obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
417 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
418 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
421 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
422 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
424 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
425 --list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
428 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
429 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
430 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
431 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
432 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
433 OS caches the URL based on the file path
434 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
435 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
437 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
438 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
439 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
440 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
442 --skip-download Do not download the video
443 -g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
444 -e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
445 --get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
446 --get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
447 --get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
448 --get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
449 --get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
450 --get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
451 -j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
452 See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a description of
454 -J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
455 for each command-line argument. If the URL
456 refers to a playlist, dump the whole
457 playlist information in a single line
458 --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
459 JSON (video is still being downloaded)
460 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be
461 written as far as no errors occur,even if
462 -s or another simulation switch is used
463 (Alias: --force-download-archive)
464 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
465 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
466 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
467 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
468 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
469 to debug problems (very verbose)
470 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
471 files in the current directory to debug
473 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
476 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
477 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
478 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
479 information about the video. (Currently
480 supported only for YouTube)
481 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
482 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
483 access is restricted to one domain
484 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
485 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
486 option multiple times
487 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
488 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
489 or fribidi executable in PATH
490 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
491 download when used alone or a lower bound
492 of a range for randomized sleep before each
493 download (minimum possible number of
494 seconds to sleep) when used along with
496 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep
497 before each download (maximum possible
498 number of seconds to sleep). Must only be
499 used along with --min-sleep-interval
500 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Enforce sleep interval on subtitles as well
502 ## Video Format Options:
503 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
505 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
506 "Sorting Formats" for more details
507 --S-force, --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
508 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
509 Formats" for more details
510 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
511 specified sort order (default), see
512 "Sorting Formats" for more details
513 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
515 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for
516 each output file (default)
517 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
519 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for
520 each output file (default)
521 --all-formats Download all available video formats
522 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
523 over non-free ones of same quality. Use
524 with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
525 containers irrespective of quality
526 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
528 -F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
530 --list-formats-as-table Present the output of -F in tabular form
532 --list-formats-old Present the output of -F in the old form
533 (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
534 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Download the DASH manifests and related
535 data on YouTube videos (default)
536 (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
537 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
538 related data on YouTube videos
539 (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
540 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Download the HLS manifests and related data
541 on YouTube videos (default)
542 (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
543 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest Do not download the HLS manifests and
544 related data on YouTube videos
545 (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
546 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
547 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
548 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
549 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
550 --allow-unplayable-formats Allow unplayable formats to be listed and
551 downloaded. All video postprocessing will
553 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Do not allow unplayable formats to be
554 listed or downloaded (default)
557 --write-subs Write subtitle file
558 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
559 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
561 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write automatically generated
562 subtitle file (default)
563 --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
565 --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
566 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
567 preference, for example: "srt" or
569 --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
570 (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
571 subs for available language tags
573 ## Authentication Options:
574 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
575 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
576 out, youtube-dlc will ask interactively
577 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
578 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
579 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
581 ## Adobe Pass Options:
582 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
583 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
584 a list of available MSOs
585 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
586 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
587 If this option is left out, youtube-dlc
588 will ask interactively
589 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
592 ## Post-Processing Options:
593 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
594 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
595 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
596 "flac", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", "vorbis", or
597 "wav"; "best" by default; No effect without
599 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality, insert a
600 value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse) for
601 VBR or a specific bitrate like
128K
603 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
604 necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv|flv
605 |webm|mov|avi|mp3|mka|m4a|ogg|opus). If
606 target container does not support the
607 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
608 can specify multiple rules; eg.
609 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to
610 m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
611 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
612 re-encoding is necessary. The supported
613 formats are the same as --remux-video
614 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
615 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
616 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
617 to give the argument to the specified
618 postprocessor/executable. Supported
619 postprocessors are: SponSkrub,
620 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
621 EmbedSubtitle, Metadata, Merger,
622 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
623 SubtitlesConvertor and EmbedThumbnail. The
624 supported executables are: SponSkrub,
625 FFmpeg, FFprobe, and AtomicParsley. You can
626 use this option multiple times to give
627 different arguments to different
628 postprocessors. You can also specify
629 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
630 specified executable only when being used
631 by the specified postprocessor. You can use
632 this option multiple times (Alias: --ppa)
633 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
634 after post-processing
635 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
636 post-processing (default)
637 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
638 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
639 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
641 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
642 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
643 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
644 --add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
645 --no-add-metadata Do not write metadata (default)
646 --parse-metadata FIELD:FORMAT Parse additional metadata like title/artist
647 from other fields. Give field name to
648 extract data from, and format of the field
649 seperated by a ":". Either regular
650 expression with named capture groups or a
651 similar syntax to the output template can
652 also be used. The parsed parameters replace
653 any existing values and can be use in
654 output templateThis option can be used
655 multiple times. Example: --parse-metadata
656 "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a
657 title like "Coldplay - Paradise". Example
658 (regex): --parse-metadata
659 "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+?)"
660 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
661 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
662 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
663 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
664 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
665 default; fix file if we can, warn
667 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
668 path to the binary or its containing
670 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
671 downloading and post-processing, similar to
672 find's -exec syntax. Example: --exec 'adb
673 push {} /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
674 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
675 (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt|lrc)
677 ## SponSkrub (SponsorBlock) Options:
678 [SponSkrub](https://github.com/pukkandan/SponSkrub) is a utility to
679 mark/remove sponsor segments from downloaded YouTube videos using
680 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
682 --sponskrub Use sponskrub to mark sponsored sections.
683 This is enabled by default if the sponskrub
684 binary exists (Youtube only)
685 --no-sponskrub Do not use sponskrub
686 --sponskrub-cut Cut out the sponsor sections instead of
688 --no-sponskrub-cut Simply mark the sponsor sections, not cut
690 --sponskrub-force Run sponskrub even if the video was already
692 --no-sponskrub-force Do not cut out the sponsor sections if the
693 video was already downloaded (default)
694 --sponskrub-location PATH Location of the sponskrub binary; either
695 the path to the binary or its containing
698 ## Extractor Options:
699 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
700 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
701 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
702 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
706 You can configure youtube-dlc by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
708 1. **Main Configuration**: The file given by
`--config-location`
709 1. **Portable Configuration**:
`yt-dlp.conf` or
`youtube-dlc.conf` in the same directory as the bundled binary. If you are running from source-code (
`<root dir>/youtube_dlc/__main__.py`), the root directory is used instead.
710 1. **Home Configuration**:
`yt-dlp.conf` or
`youtube-dlc.conf` in the home path given by
`-P "home:<path>"`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
711 1. **User Configuration**:
712 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
713 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
714 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
715 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
717 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
719 If none of these files are found, the search is performed again by replacing
`yt-dlp` with
`youtube-dlc`. Note that
`~` points to
`C:\Users\<user name>` on windows. Also,
`%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to
`~/.config` if undefined
720 1. **System Configuration**:
`/etc/yt-dlp.conf` or
`/etc/youtube-dlc.conf`
722 For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dlc will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under
`YouTube` directory in your home directory:
724 # Lines starting with # are comments
726 # Always extract audio
729 # Do not copy the mtime
733 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
735 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
736 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
739 Note 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`.
741 You can use
`--ignore-config` if you want to disable all configuration files for a particular youtube-dlc 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.
743 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
745 You 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 youtube-dlc 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 your
`$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:
748 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
750 After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
752 machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
756 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
757 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
759 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to youtube-dlc or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
761 On Windows you may also need to setup the
`%HOME%` environment variable manually. For example:
763 set HOME=%USERPROFILE%
768 The
`-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.
770 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
772 The basic usage of
`-o` is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in
`youtube-dlc -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video"`. However, it may 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/2/library/stdtypes.html#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. Date/time fields can also be formatted according to
[strftime formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-format-codes) by specifying it inside the parantheses seperated from the field name using a
`>`. For example,
`%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s`.
774 Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files seperately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template seperated by a colon ":". The different filetypes supported are
`subtitle|thumbnail|description|annotation|infojson|pl_description|pl_infojson`. 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.
776 The available fields are:
778 - `id` (string): Video identifier
779 - `title` (string): Video title
780 - `url` (string): Video URL
781 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
782 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
783 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
784 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
785 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
786 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
787 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
788 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
789 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
790 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
791 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
792 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
793 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
794 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
795 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH-mm-ss)
796 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
797 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
798 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
799 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
800 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
801 - `comment_count` (numeric): Number of comments on the video
802 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
803 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
804 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
805 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
806 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
807 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
808 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
809 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by
`--format`
810 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
811 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
812 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
813 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
814 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
815 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
816 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
817 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
818 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
819 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
820 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
821 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
822 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
823 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
824 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
825 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
826 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
827 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
828 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at
`--autonumber-start`
829 - `playlist` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
830 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
831 - `playlist_id` (string): Playlist identifier
832 - `playlist_title` (string): Playlist title
833 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
834 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
836 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
838 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
839 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
840 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
842 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
844 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
845 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
846 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
847 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
848 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
849 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
850 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
852 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
854 - `track` (string): Title of the track
855 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
856 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
857 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
858 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
859 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
860 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
861 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
862 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
863 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
865 Each 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).
867 For example for
`-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and an mp4 video with title
`youtube-dlc test video` and id
`BaW_jenozKcj`, this will result in a
`youtube-dlc test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4` file created in the current directory.
869 For 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`.
871 Output 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.
873 To use percent literals in an output template use
`%%`. To output to stdout use
`-o -`.
875 The current default template is
`%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
877 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:
879 #### Output template and Windows batch files
881 If 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"`.
883 #### Output template examples
885 Note that on Windows you need to use double quotes instead of single.
888 $ youtube-dlc --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
889 youtube-dlc test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
891 $ youtube-dlc --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
892 youtube-dlc_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
894 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
895 $ youtube-dlc -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
897 # Download YouTube playlist videos in seperate directories according to their uploaded year
898 $ youtube-dlc -o '%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
900 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
901 $ youtube-dlc -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
903 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
904 $ youtube-dlc -u user -p password -P '~/MyVideos' -o '%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/
906 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
907 $ youtube-dlc -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
909 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
910 $ youtube-dlc -o - BaW_jenozKc
915 By default, youtube-dlc tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
916 This 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 youtube-dlc to stream to
`stdout` (
`-o -`), the default becomes
`-f best/bestvideo+bestaudio`.
918 The 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.
920 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
922 The 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.
924 You 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.
926 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
928 - `all`: Select all formats
929 - `b*`,
`best*`: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio.
930 - `w*`,
`worst*`: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio.
931 - `b`,
`best`: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
932 - `w`,
`worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
933 - `bv`,
`bestvideo`: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec=none]`
934 - `wv`,
`worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec=none]`
935 - `bv*`,
`bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none]`
936 - `wv*`,
`worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none]`
937 - `ba`,
`bestaudio`: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec=none]`
938 - `wa`,
`worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec=none]`
939 - `ba*`,
`bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec!=none]`
940 - `wa*`,
`worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec!=none]`
942 For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use
`-f worstvideo`. It is however recomended to never actually 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.
944 If 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.
946 If 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`.
948 You 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. If
`--no-video-multistreams` is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, if
`--no-audio-multistreams` is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. For example,
`-f bestvideo+best+bestaudio` 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`.
952 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in
`-f "best[height=720]"` (or
`-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
954 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons
`<`,
`<=`,
`>`,
`>=`,
`=` (equals),
`!=` (not equals):
956 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
957 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
958 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
959 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
960 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
961 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
962 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
965 Also filtering work for comparisons
`=` (equals),
`^=` (starts with),
`$=` (ends with),
`*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
967 - `ext`: File extension
968 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
969 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
970 - `container`: Name of the container format
971 - `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`)
972 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
973 - `language`: Language code
975 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation
`!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g.
`!*=` (does not contain).
977 Note 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 video hoster. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.
979 Formats 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.
981 Format 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]'`.
985 You can change the criteria for being considered the
`best` by using
`-S` (
`--format-sort`). The general format for this is
`--format-sort field1,field2...`. The available fields are:
987 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
988 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
989 - `ie_pref`: The format preference as given by the extractor
990 - `lang`: Language preference as given by the extractor
991 - `quality`: The quality of the format as given by the extractor
992 - `source`: Preference of the source as given by the extractor
993 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (
`https`/
`ftps` >
`http`/
`ftp` >
`m3u8-native` >
`m3u8` >
`http-dash-segments` > other >
`mms`/
`rtsp` > unknown >
`f4f`/
`f4m`)
994 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (
`av01` >
`vp9.2` >
`vp9` >
`h265` >
`h264` >
`vp8` >
`h263` >
`theora` > other > unknown)
995 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (
`opus` >
`vorbis` >
`aac` >
`mp4a` >
`mp3` >
`ac3` >
`dts` > other > unknown)
996 - `codec`: Equivalent to
`vcodec,acodec`
997 - `vext`: Video Extension (
`mp4` >
`webm` >
`flv` > other > unknown). If
`--prefer-free-formats` is used,
`webm` is prefered.
998 - `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`.
999 - `ext`: Equivalent to
`vext,aext`
1000 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.
1001 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1002 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1003 - `height`: Height of video
1004 - `width`: Width of video
1005 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1006 - `fps`: Framerate of video
1007 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1008 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1009 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1010 - `br`: Equivalent to using
`tbr,vbr,abr`
1011 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1013 Note that any other **numerical** field made available by the extractor can also be used. All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in decending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a
`+`. Eg:
`+res` prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a prefered value for the fields, seperated 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 prefered 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.
1015 The fields
`hasvid`,
`ie_pref`,
`lang` are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behaviour can be changed by using
`--force-format-sort`. Apart from these, the default order used is:
`quality,res,fps,codec:vp9.2,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id`. Note that the extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
1017 If your format selector is
`worst`, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all repects. 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`.
1019 **Tip**: You can use the
`-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1021 ## Format Selection examples
1023 Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1026 # Download and merge the best best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1027 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1028 $ youtube-dlc -f 'bv+ba/b'
1030 # Download best format that contains video,
1031 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1032 $ youtube-dlc -f 'bv*+ba/b'
1037 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1038 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1039 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1040 $ youtube-dlc -f 'bv,ba' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
1044 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1045 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but better result
1047 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1048 $ youtube-dlc -f 'wv*+wa/w'
1050 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1051 $ youtube-dlc -S '+res'
1053 # Download the smallest video available
1054 $ youtube-dlc -S '+size,+br'
1058 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1059 $ youtube-dlc -f 'bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b'
1061 # Download the best video with the best extension
1062 # (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1063 $ youtube-dlc -S 'ext'
1067 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1068 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1069 $ youtube-dlc -f 'bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w'
1071 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1072 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1073 $ youtube-dlc -S 'height:480'
1075 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1076 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1077 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1078 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1079 $ youtube-dlc -S 'res:480'
1083 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1084 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1085 $ youtube-dlc -f 'b[filesize<50M] / w'
1087 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1088 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1089 $ youtube-dlc -f 'b' -S 'filesize:50M'
1091 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1092 $ youtube-dlc -f 'b' -S 'filesize~50M'
1096 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1097 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1098 $ youtube-dlc -f '(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1100 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1101 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1102 $ youtube-dlc -S 'proto'
1106 # Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
1107 $ youtube-dlc -f '(bv*+ba/b)[vcodec^=avc1] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1109 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1110 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1111 $ youtube-dlc -S 'codec:h264'
1113 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1114 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1115 $ youtube-dlc -S '+codec:h264'
1119 # More complex examples
1121 # Download the best video no better than 720p prefering framerate greater than 30,
1122 # or the worst video (still prefering framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1123 $ youtube-dlc -f '((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)'
1125 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1126 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1127 # prefering larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1128 $ youtube-dlc -S 'res:720,fps'
1132 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1133 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1134 # prefering better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1135 $ youtube-dlc -S '+res:480,codec,br'
1140 Plugins are loaded from
`<root-dir>/ytdlp_plugins/<type>/__init__.py`. Currently only
`extractor` plugins are supported. Support for
`downloader` and
`postprocessor` plugins may be added in the future. See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example.
1142 **Note**:
`<root-dir>` is the directory of the binary (
`<root-dir>/youtube-dlc`), or the root directory of the module if you are running directly from source-code (
`<root dir>/youtube_dlc/__main__.py`)
1145 For FAQ, Developer Instructions etc., see the
[original README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)