1 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
4 [](#readme)
6 [](#release-files "Release")
7 []
(https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp "PyPi")
8 [](Collaborators.md#collaborators "Donate")
9 []
(https://matrix.to/#/#yt-dlp:matrix.org "Matrix")
10 []
(https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r "Discord")
11 [](supportedsites.md "Supported Sites")
12 [](LICENSE "License")
13 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/actions "CI Status")
14 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
15 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
18 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
20 yt-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
22 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "USAGE AND OPTIONS" SECTION HERE -->
24 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
25 * [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
26 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
27 * [INSTALLATION](#installation)
29 * [Release Files](#release-files)
30 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
32 * [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
33 * [General Options](#general-options)
34 * [Network Options](#network-options)
35 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
36 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
37 * [Download Options](#download-options)
38 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
39 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
40 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
41 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
42 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
43 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
44 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
45 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
46 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
47 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
48 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
49 * [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
50 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
51 * [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
52 * [Output template and Windows batch files](#output-template-and-windows-batch-files)
53 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
54 * [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
55 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
56 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
57 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
58 * [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
59 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
60 * [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
62 * [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](#embedding-yt-dlp)
63 * [Embedding examples](#embedding-examples)
64 * [DEPRECATED OPTIONS](#deprecated-options)
65 * [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp)
66 * [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue)
67 * [Developer Instructions](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
69 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
74 * Based on **youtube-dl
2021.12.17 [commit/6508688](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/6508688e88c83bb811653083db9351702cd39a6a)** (
[exceptions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21)) and **youtube-dlc
2020.11.11-
3 [commit/f9401f2](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/commit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee)**: You get all the features and patches of
[youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) in addition to the latest
[youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
76 * **
[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
78 * **[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))
80 * **Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl**: You get most of the features and improvements from
[animelover1984/youtube-dl](https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including
`--write-comments`,
`BiliBiliSearch`,
`BilibiliChannel`, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that the NicoNico livestreams are not available. See
[#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
82 * **Youtube improvements**:
83 * All Feeds (
`:ytfav`,
`:ytwatchlater`,
`:ytsubs`,
`:ythistory`,
`:ytrec`,
`:ytnotif`) and private playlists supports downloading multiple pages of content
84 * Search (
`ytsearch:`,
`ytsearchdate:`), search URLs and in-channel search works
85 * Mixes supports downloading multiple pages of content
86 * Some (but not all) age-gated content can be downloaded without cookies
87 * Fix for
[n-sig based throttling](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326)
88 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to
`/video` to preserve the old behaviour
89 * `255kbps` audio is extracted (if available) from youtube music when premium cookies are given
90 * Youtube music Albums, channels etc can be downloaded (
[except self-uploaded music](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723))
91 * Download livestreams from the start using
`--live-from-start` (experimental)
92 * Support for downloading stories (
`ytstories:<channel UCID>`)
94 * **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using
`--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]`
96 * **Download time range**: Videos can be downloaded partially based on either timestamps or chapters using
`--download-sections`
98 * **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
`--split-chapters`
100 * **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
102 * **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use
`aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
104 * **New and fixed extractors**: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the [changelog](Changelog.md) or the [list of supported sites](supportedsites.md)
106 * **New MSOs**: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN etc.
108 * **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
110 * **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`)
112 * **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [configuration](#configuration) for details
114 * **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`
116 * **Other new options**: Many new options have been added such as
`--alias`,
`--print`,
`--concat-playlist`,
`--wait-for-video`,
`--retry-sleep`,
`--sleep-requests`,
`--convert-thumbnails`,
`--force-download-archive`,
`--force-overwrites`,
`--break-on-reject` etc
118 * **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in
`--format`/
`--match-filter`, multiple
`--postprocessor-args` and
`--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection), merge multi-video/audio, multiple
`--config-locations`,
`--exec` at different stages, etc
120 * **Plugins**: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
122 * **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using
`yt-dlp -U`
124 See
[changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
126 ### Differences in default behavior
128 Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
130 * The options
`--auto-number` (
`-A`),
`--title` (
`-t`) and
`--literal` (
`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
131 * `avconv` is not supported as an alternative to
`ffmpeg`
132 * yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See [configuration](#configuration) for a list of correct locations
133 * 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`
134 * 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
135 * The default format selector is
`bv*+ba/b`. This means that if a combined video + audio format that is better than the best video-only format is found, the former will be preferred. Use
`-f bv+ba/b` or
`--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
136 * 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
137 * `--no-abort-on-error` is enabled by default. Use
`--abort-on-error` or
`--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
138 * 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
139 * `--add-metadata` attaches the
`infojson` to
`mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with
`--write-info-json`. Use
`--no-embed-info-json` or
`--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
140 * Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using
`--add-metadata` as compared to youtube-dl. Most notably,
`comment` field contains the
`webpage_url` and
`synopsis` contains the
`description`. You can [use
`--parse-metadata`](#modifying-metadata) to modify this to your liking or use
`--compat-options embed-metadata` to revert this
141 * `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
142 * The output of
`-F` is listed in a new format. Use
`--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
143 * 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
144 * 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
145 * Youtube channel URLs are automatically redirected to
`/video`. Append a
`/featured` to the URL to download only the videos in the home page. If the channel does not have a videos tab, we try to download the equivalent
`UU` playlist instead. For all other tabs, if the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised. Also,
`/live` URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use
`--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect` to revert all these redirections
146 * Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use
`--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
147 * 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
148 * Thumbnail embedding in
`mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use
`--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
149 * 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
150 * When
`--embed-subs` and
`--write-subs` are used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use just
`--embed-subs` to embed the subs and automatically delete the separate file. See
[#630 (comment)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460) for more info.
`--compat-options no-keep-subs` can be used to revert this
151 * `certifi` will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use only system certificates, use
`--compat-options no-certifi`
152 * youtube-dl tries to remove some superfluous punctuations from filenames. While this can sometimes be helpfull, it is often undesirable. So yt-dlp tries to keep the fields in the filenames as close to their original values as possible. You can use
`--compat-options filename-sanitization` to revert to youtube-dl's behavior
154 For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
156 * `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options (Do NOT use)
157 * `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-multistreams`
158 * `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect`
163 You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
165 ### Using the release binary
167 You can simply download the [correct binary file](#release-files) for your OS
169 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
170 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)
171 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)
172 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)
173 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
174 [](#release-files)
175 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases)
176 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
178 Note: The manpages, shell completion files etc. are available in the
[source tarball](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
180 <!-- TODO: Move to Wiki -->
181 In UNIX-like OSes (MacOS, Linux, BSD), you can also install the same in one of the following ways:
184 sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
185 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
189 sudo wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
190 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
194 sudo aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp --dir /usr/local/bin -o yt-dlp
195 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
199 ### With [PIP](https://pypi.org/project/pip)
201 You can install the
[PyPI package](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) with:
203 python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp
206 You can install without any of the optional dependencies using:
208 python3 -m pip install --no-deps -U yt-dlp
211 If you want to be on the cutting edge, you can also install the master branch with:
213 python3 -m pip install --force-reinstall https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/archive/master.tar.gz
216 Note that on some systems, you may need to use
`py` or
`python` instead of
`python3`
218 <!-- TODO: Add to Wiki, Remove Taps -->
219 ### With [Homebrew](https://brew.sh)
221 macOS or Linux users that are using Homebrew can also install it by:
224 brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
228 You can use
`yt-dlp -U` to update if you are [using the provided release](#using-the-release-binary)
230 If you [installed with pip](#with-pip), simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
232 If you [installed using Homebrew](#with-homebrew), run
`brew upgrade yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
234 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
241 [yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)|Platform-independant binary. Needs Python (recommended for **Linux/BSD**)
242 [yt-dlp.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for **Windows**)
243 [yt-dlp_macos](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)|MacOS (
10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for **MacOS**)
249 [yt-dlp_x86.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86.exe)|Windows (Vista SP2+) standalone x86 (
32-bit) binary
250 [yt-dlp_min.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_min.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary built with
`py2exe`.<br/> Does not contain
`pycryptodomex`/
`certifi`, needs VC++
14
251 [yt-dlp_win.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_win.zip)|Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update)
252 [yt-dlp_macos.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos.zip)|Unpackaged MacOS (
10.15+) executable (no auto-update)
258 [yt-dlp.tar.gz](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)|Source tarball. Also contains manpages, completions, etc
259 [SHA2-512SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-512SUMS)|GNU-style SHA512 sums
260 [SHA2-256SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-256SUMS)|GNU-style SHA256 sums
261 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
264 Python versions
3.6+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
266 <!-- Python
3.5+ uses VC++
14 and it is already embedded in the binary created
267 <!x-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=
26999 --x>
268 On 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.
271 While all the other dependencies are optional,
`ffmpeg` and
`ffprobe` are highly recommended
273 * [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for
[merging separate video and audio files](#format-selection) as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. License [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
274 * [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)\* - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
275 * [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)\* - For decrypting AES-
128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under
[BSD-2-Clause](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
276 * [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)\* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
277 * [**secretstorage**](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage) - For accessing the Gnome keyring while decrypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
278 * [**brotli**](https://github.com/google/brotli)\* or
[**brotlicffi**](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) -
[Brotli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT <sup>
[1](https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) [2](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE) </sup>
279 * [**certifi**](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)\* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under
[MPLv2](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
280 * [**xattr**](https://github.com/xattr/xattr),
[**pyxattr**](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or
[**setfattr**](http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr metadata on Linux. Licensed under
[MIT](https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt),
[LGPL2.1](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and
[GPLv2+](http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING) respectively
281 * [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For embedding thumbnail in mp4/m4a if mutagen/ffmpeg cannot. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
282 * [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading
`rtmp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
283 * [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or
[**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading
`rstp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
284 * [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
285 * [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated**
[sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licensed under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
286 * Any external downloader that you want to use with
`--downloader`
288 To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
290 The Windows and MacOS standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with \* included.
292 <!-- TODO: ffmpeg has merged this patch. Remove this note once there is new release -->
293 **Note**: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide
[custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) with patches for these issues at
[yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds). See
[the readme](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specific issues solved by these builds
299 To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and any of yt-dlp's optional dependencies if needed). Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, (optionally) build lazy extractors using
`devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py`, and then just run
`pyinst.py`. The executable will be built for the same architecture (
32/
64 bit) as the python used to build it.
301 py -m pip install -U pyinstaller -r requirements.txt
302 py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
305 Note 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
308 You will need the required build tools:
`python`,
`make` (GNU),
`pandoc`,
`zip`,
`pytest`
309 Then simply run
`make`. You can also run
`make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
311 **Note**: In either platform,
`devscripts/update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
313 You can also fork the project on github and run your fork's [build workflow](.github/workflows/build.yml) to automatically build a release
317 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
318 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
320 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
321 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
323 <!-- Auto generated -->
325 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
326 --version Print program version and exit
327 -U, --update Update this program to latest version
328 --no-update Do not update (default)
329 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
330 The download will be considered successful
331 even if the postprocessing fails
332 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download errors;
333 e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a
335 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
336 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
337 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
338 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
339 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
341 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic extractor
342 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. Eg:
343 "gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from
344 google videos for the search term "python".
345 Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
346 ("auto_warning" to emit a warning when
347 guessing). "error" just throws an error. The
348 default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
349 URLs, but emits an error if this is not
350 possible instead of searching
351 --ignore-config Don't load any more configuration files
352 except those given by --config-locations.
353 For backward compatibility, if this option
354 is found inside the system configuration
355 file, the user configuration is not loaded.
357 --no-config-locations Do not load any custom configuration files
358 (default). When given inside a configuration
359 file, ignore all previous --config-locations
360 defined in the current file
361 --config-locations PATH Location of the main configuration file;
362 either the path to the config or its
363 containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be
364 used multiple times and inside other
366 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
368 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
369 --live-from-start Download livestreams from the start.
370 Currently only supported for YouTube
372 --no-live-from-start Download livestreams from the current time
374 --wait-for-video MIN[-MAX] Wait for scheduled streams to become
375 available. Pass the minimum number of
376 seconds (or range) to wait between retries
377 --no-wait-for-video Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
378 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
379 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
380 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
381 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
382 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
383 configurations by reverting some of the
384 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
385 default behavior" for details
386 --alias ALIASES OPTIONS Create aliases for an option string. Unless
387 an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
388 prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
389 according to the Python string formatting
390 mini-language. Eg: --alias get-audio,-X
391 "-S=aext:{
0},abr -x --audio-format {
0}"
392 creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that
393 takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
394 "-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
395 All defined aliases are listed in the --help
396 output. Alias options can trigger more
397 aliases; so be carefull to avoid defining
398 recursive options. As a safety measure, each
399 alias may be triggered a maximum of
100
400 times. This option can be used multiple times
403 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To
404 enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme.
405 Eg: socks5://user:pass@
127.0.0.1:
1080/. Pass
406 in an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
408 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
409 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
410 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
411 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
414 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
415 some geo-restricted sites. The default proxy
416 specified by --proxy (or none, if the option
417 is not present) is used for the actual
419 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
420 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (default)
421 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
422 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
423 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
424 explicitly provided two-letter ISO
3166-
2
426 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
427 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR notation
430 -I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Comma seperated playlist_index of the videos
431 to download. You can specify a range using
432 "[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward
433 compatibility, START-STOP is also supported.
434 Use negative indices to count from the right
435 and negative STEP to download in reverse
436 order. Eg: "-I
1:
3,
7,-
5::
2" used on a
437 playlist of size
15 will download the videos
438 at index
1,
2,
3,
7,
11,
13,
15
439 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than SIZE
441 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
443 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded on this date.
444 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
445 [now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]].
446 Eg: --date today-
2weeks
447 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
448 this date. The date formats accepted is the
450 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
451 this date. The date formats accepted is the
453 --match-filters FILTER Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE"
454 field can be compared with a number or a
455 string using the operators defined in
456 "Filtering formats". You can also simply
457 specify a field to match if the field is
458 present, use "!field" to check if the field
459 is not present, and "&" to check multiple
460 conditions. Use a "
\" to escape "&" or
461 quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
462 the filter matches if atleast one of the
463 conditions are met. Eg: --match-filter
464 !is_live --match-filter "like_count>?
100 &
465 description~='(?i)
\bcats \& dogs
\b'" matches
466 only videos that are not live OR those that
467 have a like count more than
100 (or the like
468 field is not available) and also has a
469 description that contains the phrase "cats &
470 dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filter -" to
471 interactively ask whether to download each
473 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
474 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
475 to a video and a playlist
476 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
477 a video and a playlist
478 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
480 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
481 archive file. Record the IDs of all
482 downloaded videos in it
483 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
484 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
485 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
486 a file that is in the archive
487 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
488 a file that has been filtered out
489 --break-per-input Make --break-on-existing, --break-on-reject
490 and --max-downloads act only on the current
492 --no-break-per-input --break-on-existing and similar options
493 terminates the entire download queue
494 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest of
495 the playlist is skipped
498 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
499 video that should be downloaded concurrently
501 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
503 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
504 below which throttling is assumed and the
505 video data is re-extracted (e.g.
100K)
506 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
508 --file-access-retries RETRIES Number of times to retry on file access
509 error (default is
3), or "infinite"
510 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default is
511 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
512 --retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR An expression for the time to sleep between
513 retries in seconds (optionally) prefixed by
514 the type of retry (file_access, fragment,
515 http (default)) to apply the sleep to. EXPR
516 can be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=
1]]
517 or exp=START[:END[:BASE=
2]]. This option can
518 be used multiple times to set the sleep for
519 the different retry types. Eg: --retry-sleep
520 linear=
1::
2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=
1:
20
521 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
522 hlsnative and ISM downloads (default)
523 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
524 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment
525 Abort download if a fragment is unavailable
526 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
527 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
528 downloading is finished
529 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
530 downloading is finished (default)
531 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
533 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
534 from an initial value of --buffer-size
536 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
537 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
538 downloading (e.g.
10485760 or
10M) (default
539 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
540 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
542 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
543 --lazy-playlist Process entries in the playlist as they are
544 received. This disables n_entries,
545 --playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
546 --no-lazy-playlist Process videos in the playlist only after
547 the entire playlist is parsed (default)
548 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
550 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
551 allowing some players to play the video
552 while downloading, and reducing the chance
553 of file corruption if download is
554 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
556 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
557 videos. This is default when not downloading
559 --download-sections REGEX Download only chapters whose title matches
560 the given regular expression. Time ranges
561 prefixed by a "*" can also be used in place
562 of chapters to download the specified range.
563 Eg: --download-sections "*
10:
15-
15:
00"
564 --download-sections "intro". Needs ffmpeg.
565 This option can be used multiple times to
566 download multiple sections
567 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
568 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
569 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
570 use it for. Currently supports native,
571 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
572 wget. You can use this option multiple times
573 to set different downloaders for different
574 protocols. For example, --downloader aria2c
575 --downloader "dash,m3u8:native" will use
576 aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and the
577 native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
578 (Alias: --external-downloader)
579 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
580 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
581 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
582 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different
583 positions using the same syntax as
584 --postprocessor-args. You can use this
585 option multiple times to give different
586 arguments to different downloaders (Alias:
587 --external-downloader-args)
589 ## Filesystem Options:
590 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ("-" for
591 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
592 with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
594 --no-batch-file Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
595 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
596 downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
597 path separated by a colon ":". All the same
598 TYPES as --output are supported.
599 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
600 (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
601 files are first downloaded to the temp path
602 and then the final files are moved over to
603 the home path after download is finished.
604 This option is ignored if --output is an
606 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
607 TEMPLATE" for details
608 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder for unavailable fields in
609 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" (default: "NA")
610 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
611 and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
612 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
614 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
615 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
616 using Windows (default)
617 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
618 extension) to the specified number of
620 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
621 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
622 option includes --no-continue
623 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
624 related files (default)
625 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
627 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
628 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
629 restart download of the entire file
630 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
631 into output file (default)
632 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly into
634 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the file
635 modification time (default)
636 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
637 the file modification time
638 --write-description Write video description to a .description file
639 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
640 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
641 (this may contain personal information)
642 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
643 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
644 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
645 --write-description etc. (default)
646 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
647 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
648 --clean-info-json Remove some private fields such as filenames
649 from the infojson. Note that it could still
650 contain some personal information (default)
651 --no-clean-info-json Write all fields to the infojson
652 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
653 infojson. The comments are fetched even
654 without this option if the extraction is
655 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
656 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
657 extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
659 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
660 (created with the "--write-info-json" option)
661 --cookies FILE Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
662 and dump cookie jar in
663 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
665 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]
666 The name of the browser and (optionally) the
667 name/path of the profile to load cookies
668 from, separated by a ":". Currently
669 supported browsers are: brave, chrome,
670 chromium, edge, firefox, opera, safari,
671 vivaldi. By default, the most recently
672 accessed profile is used. The keyring used
673 for decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux can
674 be (optionally) specified after the browser
675 name separated by a "+". Currently supported
676 keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring, kwallet
677 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
678 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
679 can store some downloaded information (such
680 as client ids and signatures) permanently.
681 By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
683 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
684 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
686 ## Thumbnail Options:
687 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
688 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
689 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
690 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
691 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
693 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
694 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
695 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
696 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
697 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
698 OS caches the URL based on the file path
699 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
700 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
702 ## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
703 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
704 print the log to stderr
705 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
706 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
708 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
710 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
711 extracting metadata even if the videos are
712 not actually available for download
714 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
715 formats are found (default)
716 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
717 related files (Alias: --no-download)
718 -O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE Field name or output template to print to
719 screen, optionally prefixed with when to
720 print it, separated by a ":". Supported
721 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
722 --use-postprocessor, and "video" (default).
723 Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
724 --no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
725 used. This option can be used multiple times
726 --print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
727 Append given template to the file. The
728 values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that
729 of --print. FILE uses the same syntax as the
730 output template. This option can be used
732 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
733 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
734 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
735 description of available keys
736 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
737 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
738 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
739 a playlist, the whole playlist information
740 is dumped in a single line
741 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be written
742 as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
743 another simulation option is used (Alias:
744 --force-download-archive)
745 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
746 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
747 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
748 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
749 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
750 Template for progress outputs, optionally
751 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
752 "download-title:" (the console title),
753 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
754 The video's fields are accessible under the
755 "info" key and the progress attributes are
756 accessible under "progress" key. E.g.:
757 --console-title --progress-template
758 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
759 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
760 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
761 to debug problems (very verbose)
762 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
763 in the current directory to debug problems
764 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
767 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
768 --legacy-server-connect Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
769 that do not support RFC
5746 secure
771 --no-check-certificates Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
772 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
773 information about the video (Currently
774 supported only for YouTube)
775 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
776 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
777 option multiple times
778 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
779 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
780 or fribidi executable in PATH
781 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
782 during data extraction
783 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
784 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
785 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
786 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
787 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
788 be used along with --min-sleep-interval
789 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
792 ## Video Format Options:
793 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
795 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
796 "Sorting Formats" for more details
797 --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
798 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
799 Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
800 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
801 specified sort order (default)
802 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
804 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for each
805 output file (default)
806 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
808 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
809 output file (default)
810 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
811 over non-free ones of same quality. Use with
812 "-S ext" to strictly prefer free containers
813 irrespective of quality
814 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
816 --check-formats Make sure formats are selected only from
817 those that are actually downloadable
818 --check-all-formats Check all formats for whether they are
819 actually downloadable
820 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats are actually
822 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
823 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
824 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
825 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
826 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
827 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
830 --write-subs Write subtitle file
831 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
832 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
833 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
834 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
835 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
836 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
837 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
838 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format; accepts formats preference,
839 Eg: "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
840 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
841 be regex) or "all" separated by commas. (Eg:
842 --sub-langs "en.*,ja") You can prefix the
843 language code with a "-" to exclude it from
844 the requested languages. (Eg: --sub-langs
845 all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a list
846 of available language tags
848 ## Authentication Options:
849 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
850 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
851 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
852 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
853 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
854 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
855 either the path or its containing directory.
857 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
858 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
859 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
860 a list of available MSOs
861 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
862 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
863 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
865 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system operators
866 --client-certificate CERTFILE Path to client certificate file in PEM
867 format. May include the private key
868 --client-certificate-key KEYFILE
869 Path to private key file for client
871 --client-certificate-password PASSWORD
872 Password for client certificate private key,
873 if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
874 is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
876 ## Post-Processing Options:
877 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
878 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
879 --audio-format FORMAT Format to convert the audio to when -x is
880 used. (currently supported: best (default),
881 mp3, aac, m4a, opus, vorbis, flac, alac,
882 wav). You can specify multiple rules using
883 similar syntax as --remux-video
884 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
885 converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
886 between
0 (best) and
10 (worst) for VBR or a
887 specific bitrate like
128K (default
5)
888 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
889 necessary (currently supported: mp4, mkv,
890 flv, webm, mov, avi, mka, ogg, mp3, aac,
891 m4a, opus, vorbis, flac, alac, wav). If
892 target container does not support the
893 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
894 can specify multiple rules; Eg.
895 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
896 mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
897 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
898 necessary. The syntax and supported formats
899 are the same as --remux-video
900 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
901 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
902 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
903 to give the argument to the specified
904 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
905 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
906 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
907 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
908 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
909 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
910 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
911 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
912 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
913 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
914 specified executable only when being used by
915 the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
916 for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
917 appended to the prefix optionally followed
918 by a number to pass the argument before the
919 specified input/output file. Eg: --ppa
920 "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
921 this option multiple times to give different
922 arguments to different postprocessors.
924 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
925 after post-processing
926 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
927 post-processing (default)
928 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
929 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
930 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
932 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
933 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
934 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
935 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also
936 embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
937 --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
938 used (Alias: --add-metadata)
939 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
940 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
941 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
942 (Alias: --add-chapters)
943 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
945 --embed-info-json Embed the infojson as an attachment to
947 --no-embed-info-json Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
949 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
950 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
952 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
953 Replace text in a metadata field using the
954 given regex. This option can be used
956 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
957 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
958 --concat-playlist POLICY Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
959 "never", "always", or "multi_video"
960 (default; only when the videos form a single
961 show). All the video files must have same
962 codecs and number of streams to be
963 concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
964 used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
965 the output filename for the concatenated
966 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
967 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
968 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
969 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
970 default; fix file if we can, warn
971 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
973 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
974 path to the binary or its containing directory
975 --exec [WHEN:]CMD Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
976 when to execute it (after_move if
977 unspecified), separated by a ":". Supported
978 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
979 --use-postprocessor. Same syntax as the
980 output template can be used to pass any
981 field as arguments to the command. After
982 download, an additional field "filepath"
983 that contains the final path of the
984 downloaded file is also available, and if no
985 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
986 to the end of the command. This option can
987 be used multiple times
988 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
989 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
990 (currently supported: srt, vtt, ass, lrc)
991 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
992 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
993 (currently supported: jpg, png, webp). You
994 can specify multiple rules using similar
995 syntax as --remux-video
996 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
997 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
998 be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
999 the output filename for the split files. See
1000 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
1001 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters (default)
1002 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
1003 given regular expression. The syntax is the
1004 same as --download-sections. This option can
1005 be used multiple times
1006 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
1008 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes at cuts when
1009 downloading/splitting/removing sections.
1010 This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but
1011 the resulting video may have fewer artifacts
1013 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
1014 when cutting/splitting (default)
1015 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
1016 The (case sensitive) name of plugin
1017 postprocessors to be enabled, and
1018 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
1019 separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
1020 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
1021 The "when" argument determines when the
1022 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
1023 "pre_process" (after video extraction),
1024 "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
1025 "before_dl" (before each video download),
1026 "post_process" (after each video download;
1027 default), "after_move" (after moving video
1028 file to it's final locations), "after_video"
1029 (after downloading and processing all
1030 formats of a video), or "playlist" (at end
1031 of playlist). This option can be used
1032 multiple times to add different postprocessors
1034 ## SponsorBlock Options:
1035 Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
1036 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
1037 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
1039 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
1040 for, separated by commas. Available
1041 categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
1042 selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
1043 music_offtopic, poi_highlight, all and
1044 default (=all). You can prefix the category
1045 with a "-" to exclude it. See [
1] for
1046 description of the categories. Eg:
1047 --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
1048 [
1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
1049 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
1050 the video file, separated by commas. If a
1051 category is present in both mark and remove,
1052 remove takes precedence. The syntax and
1053 available categories are the same as for
1054 --sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
1055 refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight is
1057 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
1058 An output template for the title of the
1059 SponsorBlock chapters created by
1060 --sponsorblock-mark. The only available
1061 fields are start_time, end_time, category,
1062 categories, name, category_names. Defaults
1063 to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
1064 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
1065 --sponsorblock-remove
1066 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
1067 https://sponsor.ajay.app
1069 ## Extractor Options:
1070 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor errors
1071 (default is
3), or "infinite"
1072 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
1073 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
1074 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
1075 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
1076 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
1077 discontinuities such as ad breaks
1078 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
1079 formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
1081 --extractor-args KEY:ARGS Pass these arguments to the extractor. See
1082 "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can
1083 use this option multiple times to give
1084 arguments for different extractors
1088 You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
1090 1. **Main Configuration**: The file given by
`--config-location`
1091 1. **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.
1092 1. **Home Configuration**:
`yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given by
`-P`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
1093 1. **User Configuration**:
1094 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
1095 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
1096 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
1097 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
1099 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
1101 `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to
`~/.config` if undefined. On windows,
`%APPDATA%` generally points to
`C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming` and
`~` points to
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`), or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
1103 1. **System Configuration**:
`/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
1105 For 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:
1107 # Lines starting with # are comments
1109 # Always extract audio
1112 # Do not copy the mtime
1116 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
1118 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
1119 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
1122 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`.
1124 You can use
`--ignore-config` if you want to disable all configuration files for a particular yt-dlp run. If
`--ignore-config` is found inside any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents loading of home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if
`--ignore-config` is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
1126 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
1128 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 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:
1131 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
1133 After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
1135 machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
1139 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
1140 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
1142 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
1144 The default location of the .netrc file is
`$HOME` (
`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
1148 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.
1150 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1151 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
1152 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1154 The 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).
1156 It 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.
1158 The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
1160 1. **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
1162 1. **Addition**: Addition and subtraction of numeric fields can be done using
`+` and
`-` respectively. Eg:
`%(playlist_index+10)03d`,
`%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d`
1164 1. **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`
1166 1. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a
`,`. Eg:
`%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
1168 1. **Replacement**: A replacement value can specified using a
`&` separator. If the field is *not* empty, this replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if *any* of the alternative fields is *not* empty.
1170 1. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a
`|` separator. This overrides
`--output-na-template`. Eg:
`%(uploader|Unknown)s`
1172 1. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types
`diouxXeEfFgGcrs`,
`B`,
`j`,
`l`,
`q`,
`D`,
`S` can be used for converting to **B**ytes, **j**son (flag
`#` for pretty-printing), a comma separated **l**ist (flag
`#` for
`\n` newline-separated), a string **q**uoted for the terminal (flag
`#` to split a list into different arguments), to add **D**ecimal suffixes (Eg:
10M) (flag
`#` to use
1024 as factor), and to **S**anitize as filename (flag
`#` for restricted), respectively
1174 1. **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
1176 To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1178 %(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
1181 Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files separately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a colon
`:`. The different file types supported are
`subtitle`,
`thumbnail`,
`description`,
`annotation` (deprecated),
`infojson`,
`link`,
`pl_thumbnail`,
`pl_description`,
`pl_infojson`,
`chapter`,
`pl_video`. 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 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.
1183 The available fields are:
1185 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1186 - `title` (string): Video title
1187 - `fulltitle` (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
1188 - `url` (string): Video URL
1189 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1190 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
1191 - `description` (string): The description of the video
1192 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1193 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1194 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1195 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
1196 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1197 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
1198 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
1199 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
1200 - `modified_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
1201 - `modified_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
1202 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1203 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1204 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1205 - `channel_follower_count` (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
1206 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1207 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
1208 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
1209 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1210 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1211 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1212 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1213 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
1214 - `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)
1215 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
1216 - `live_status` (string): One of "is_live", "was_live", "is_upcoming", "not_live"
1217 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
1218 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
1219 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
1220 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"
1221 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1222 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
1223 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
1224 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by
`--format`
1225 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
1226 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
1227 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
1228 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
1229 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1230 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1231 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
1232 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1233 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1234 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
1235 - `dynamic_range` (string): The dynamic range of the video
1236 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
1237 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
1238 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
1239 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
1240 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
1241 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1242 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1243 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
1244 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at
`--autonumber-start`
1245 - `video_autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
1246 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
1247 - `playlist_id` (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
1248 - `playlist_title` (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
1249 - `playlist` (string):
`playlist_id` or
`playlist_title`
1250 - `playlist_count` (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
1251 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1252 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
1253 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1254 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
1255 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
1256 - `webpage_url_basename` (string): The basename of the webpage URL
1257 - `webpage_url_domain` (string): The domain of the webpage URL
1258 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as
`webpage_url` for playlist entries)
1260 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1262 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1263 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1264 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1266 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1268 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1269 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1270 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1271 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1272 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1273 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1274 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1276 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1278 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1279 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1280 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1281 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1282 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1283 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1284 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1285 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1286 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1287 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1289 Available only when using
`--download-sections` and for
`chapter:` prefix when using
`--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
1291 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1292 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1293 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1294 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1296 Available only when used in
`--print`:
1298 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1299 - `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
1300 - `formats_table` (table): The video format table as printed by
`--list-formats`
1301 - `thumbnails_table` (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by
`--list-thumbnails`
1302 - `subtitles_table` (table): The subtitle format table as printed by
`--list-subs`
1303 - `automatic_captions_table` (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by
`--list-subs`
1306 Available only in
`--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1308 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1309 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1310 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1311 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1312 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1313 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
1315 Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. For 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.
1317 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).
1319 **Tip**: Look at the
`-j` output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
1321 For numeric sequences you can use
[numeric related formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting), for example,
`%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to
5 characters, like in
`00042`.
1323 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.
1325 To use percent literals in an output template use
`%%`. To output to stdout use
`-o -`.
1327 The current default template is
`%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
1329 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.
1331 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1332 #### Output template and Windows batch files
1334 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"`.
1335 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1337 #### Output template examples
1340 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1341 test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
1343 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1344 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
1346 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1347 youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
1349 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
1350 $ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1352 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
1353 $ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1355 # Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
1356 $ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist_index|)s%(playlist_index& - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1358 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
1359 $ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1361 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
1362 $ 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"
1364 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
1365 $ 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"
1367 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
1368 # and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
1369 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
1371 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
1372 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
1374 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
1375 $ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
1380 By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1381 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 yt-dlp to stream to
`stdout` (
`-o -`), the default becomes
`-f best/bestvideo+bestaudio`.
1383 **Deprecation warning**: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to
`-f bv*+ba/b` similar to normal downloads. If you want to preserve the
`-f b/bv+ba` setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.
1385 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.
1387 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1388 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1389 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1391 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.
1393 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.
1395 You can use
`-f -` to interactively provide the format selector *for each video*
1397 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1399 - `all`: Select **all formats** separately
1400 - `mergeall`: Select and **merge all formats** (Must be used with
`--audio-multistreams`,
`--video-multistreams` or both)
1401 - `b*`,
`best*`: Select the best quality format that **contains either** a video or an audio
1402 - `b`,
`best`: Select the best quality format that **contains both** video and audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1403 - `bv`,
`bestvideo`: Select the best quality **video-only** format. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec=none]`
1404 - `bv*`,
`bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that **contains video**. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none]`
1405 - `ba`,
`bestaudio`: Select the best quality **audio-only** format. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec=none]`
1406 - `ba*`,
`bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that **contains audio**. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec!=none]` ([Do not use!](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/979#issuecomment-919629354))
1407 - `w*
`, `worst*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
1408 - `w
`, `worst
`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
`
1409 - `wv
`, `worstvideo
`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec=none]
`
1410 - `wv*
`, `worstvideo*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none]
`
1411 - `wa
`, `worstaudio
`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec=none]
`
1412 - `wa*
`, `worstaudio*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec!=none]
`
1414 For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use `-f worstvideo
`. It is however recommended not to use `worst
` and related options. When your format selector is `worst
`, the format which is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use `-S +size
` or more rigorously, `-S +size,+br,+res,+fps
` instead of `-f worst
`. See [sorting formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
1416 You 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.
1418 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.
1420 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
`.
1422 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.
1424 **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
1426 Unless `--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
`.
1428 ## Filtering Formats
1430 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=
720]"
` (or `-f "[filesize>
10M]"
`).
1432 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<
`, `<=
`, `>
`, `>=
`, `=
` (equals), `!=
` (not equals):
1434 - `filesize
`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1435 - `width
`: Width of the video, if known
1436 - `height
`: Height of the video, if known
1437 - `tbr
`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1438 - `abr
`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1439 - `vbr
`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1440 - `asr
`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1443 Also filtering work for comparisons `=
` (equals), `^=
` (starts with), `$=
` (ends with), `*=
` (contains), `~=
` (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
1445 - `ext
`: File extension
1446 - `acodec
`: Name of the audio codec in use
1447 - `vcodec
`: Name of the video codec in use
1448 - `container
`: Name of the container format
1449 - `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
`)
1450 - `format_id
`: A short description of the format
1451 - `language
`: Language code
1453 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation `!
` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. `!*=
` (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than `._-
`.
1455 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 website. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.
1457 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.
1459 Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use `-f "(mp4,webm)[height<
480]"
`.
1463 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...
`.
1465 The available fields are:
1467 - `hasvid
`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1468 - `hasaud
`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
1469 - `ie_pref
`: The format preference
1470 - `lang
`: The language preference
1471 - `quality
`: The quality of the format
1472 - `source
`: The preference of the source
1473 - `proto
`: Protocol used for download (`https
`/`ftps
` > `http
`/`ftp
` > `m3u8_native
`/`m3u8
` > `http_dash_segments
`> `websocket_frag
` > `mms
`/`rtsp
` > `f4f
`/`f4m
`)
1474 - `vcodec
`: Video Codec (`av01
` > `vp9.2
` > `vp9
` > `h265
` > `h264
` > `vp8
` > `h263
` > `theora
` > other)
1475 - `acodec
`: Audio Codec (`flac
`/`alac
` > `wav
`/`aiff
` > `opus
` > `vorbis
` > `aac
` > `mp4a
` > `mp3
` > `eac3
` > `ac3
` > `dts
` > other)
1476 - `codec
`: Equivalent to `vcodec,acodec
`
1477 - `vext
`: Video Extension (`mp4
` > `webm
` > `flv
` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats
` is used, `webm
` is preferred.
1478 - `aext
`: Audio Extension (`m4a
` > `aac
` > `mp3
` > `ogg
` > `opus
` > `webm
` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats
` is used, the order changes to `opus
` > `ogg
` > `webm
` > `m4a
` > `mp3
` > `aac
`.
1479 - `ext
`: Equivalent to `vext,aext
`
1480 - `filesize
`: Exact filesize, if known in advance
1481 - `fs_approx
`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1482 - `size
`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1483 - `height
`: Height of video
1484 - `width
`: Width of video
1485 - `res
`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1486 - `fps
`: Framerate of video
1487 - `hdr
`: The dynamic range of the video (`DV
` > `HDR12
` > `HDR10+
` > `HDR10
` > `HLG
` > `SDR
`)
1488 - `tbr
`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1489 - `vbr
`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1490 - `abr
`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1491 - `br
`: Equivalent to using `tbr,vbr,abr
`
1492 - `asr
`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1494 **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.
1496 All 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.
1498 The fields `hasvid
` and `ie_pref
` are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behaviour can be changed by using `--format-sort-force
`. Apart from these, the default order used is: `lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:
12,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.
1500 Note that the default has `codec:vp9.2
`; i.e. `av1
` is not preferred. Similarly, the default for hdr is `hdr:
12`; i.e. dolby vision is not preferred. These choices are made since DV and AV1 formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future as more devices become capable of smoothly playing back these formats.
1502 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 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
`.
1504 **Tip**: You can use the `-v -F
` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1506 ## Format Selection examples
1509 # Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1510 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1511 $ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
1513 # Download best format that contains video,
1514 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1515 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
1520 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1521 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1522 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1523 $ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
1525 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1526 # and all audio-only formats into one file
1527 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
1529 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1530 # and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1531 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
1534 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1535 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
1537 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1538 $ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
1540 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1543 # Download the smallest video available
1544 $ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
1548 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1549 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
1551 # Download the best video with the best extension
1552 # (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1557 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1558 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1559 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
1561 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1562 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1563 $ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
1565 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1566 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1567 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1568 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1569 $ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
1573 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1574 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1575 $ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
1577 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1578 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1579 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
1581 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1582 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
1586 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1587 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1588 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
1590 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1591 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1596 # Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
1597 # or the best video if there is no such video
1598 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
1600 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1601 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1602 $ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
1604 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1605 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1606 $ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
1610 # More complex examples
1612 # Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1613 # or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1614 $ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
1616 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1617 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1618 # preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1619 $ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
1623 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1624 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1625 # preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1626 $ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
1629 # MODIFYING METADATA
1631 The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using `--parse-metadata
` and `--replace-in-metadata
`
1633 `--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.
1635 The 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.
1637 Note 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
`.
1639 This option also has a few special uses:
1641 * 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
1643 * 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". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use the `meta<n>_
` prefix (Eg: `meta1_language
`). Any value set to the `meta_
` field will overwrite all default values.
1645 **Note**: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
1647 For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1649 Metadata fields | From
1650 :--------------------------|:------------------------------------------------
1651 `title
` | `track
` or `title
`
1652 `date
` | `upload_date
`
1653 `description
`, `synopsis
` | `description
`
1654 `purl
`, `comment
` | `webpage_url
`
1655 `track
` | `track_number
`
1656 `artist
` | `artist
`, `creator
`, `uploader
` or `uploader_id
`
1659 `album_artist
` | `album_artist
`
1660 `disc
` | `disc_number
`
1662 `season_number
` | `season_number
`
1663 `episode_id
` | `episode
` or `episode_id
`
1664 `episode_sort
` | `episode_number
`
1665 `language
` of each stream | the format's `language
`
1667 **Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1670 ## Modifying metadata examples
1673 # Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
1674 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
1677 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
1679 # Set title as "Series name S01E05"
1680 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
1682 # Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
1683 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --add-metadata
1685 # Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
1686 # handling multiple lines correctly
1687 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --add-metadata
1689 # Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
1690 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<formats>)" -j
1692 # Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1693 $ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
1697 # EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1699 Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using `--extractor-args KEY:ARGS
`. `ARGS
` is a `;
` (semicolon) separated string of `ARG=VAL1,VAL2
`. Eg: `--extractor-args "youtube:player-client=android_embedded,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"
`
1701 The following extractors use this feature:
1704 * `skip
`: One or more of `hls
`, `dash
` or `translated_subs
` to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and auto-translated subtitles respectively
1705 * `player_client
`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are `web
`, `android
` and `ios
` with variants `_music
`, `_embedded
`, `_embedscreen
`, `_creator
` (Eg: `web_embedded
`); and `mweb
` and `tv_embedded
` (agegate bypass) with no variants. By default, `android,web
` is used, but `tv_embedded
` and `creator
` variants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for `music.youtube.com
` urls. You can use `all
` to use all the clients, and `default
` for the default clients.
1706 * `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
1707 * `include_live_dash
`: Include live dash formats even without `--live-from-start
` (These formats don't download properly)
1708 * `comment_sort
`: `top
` or `new
` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
1709 * `max_comments
`: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing `max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread
`. Default is `all,all,all,all
`
1710 * E.g. `all,all,
1000,
10` will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread. `1000,all,
100` will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
1711 * `innertube_host
`: Innertube API host to use for all API requests
1712 * e.g. `studio.youtube.com
`, `youtubei.googleapis.com
`
1713 * Note: Cookies exported from `www.youtube.com
` will not work with hosts other than `*.youtube.com
`
1714 * `innertube_key
`: Innertube API key to use for all API requests
1716 #### youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1717 * `skip
`: One or more of `webpage
` (skip initial webpage download), `authcheck
` (allow the download of playlists requiring authentication when no initial webpage is downloaded. This may cause unwanted behavior, see [#1122](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122) for more details)
1718 * `approximate_date
`: Extract approximate `upload_date
` in flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
1721 * `language
`: Languages to extract. Eg: `funimation:language=english,japanese
`
1722 * `version
`: The video version to extract - `uncut
` or `simulcast
`
1725 * `language
`: Languages to extract. Eg: `crunchyroll:language=jaJp
`
1726 * `hardsub
`: Which hard-sub versions to extract. Eg: `crunchyroll:hardsub=None,enUS
`
1728 #### crunchyrollbeta
1729 * `format
`: Which stream type(s) to extract. Default is `adaptive_hls
` Eg: `crunchyrollbeta:format=vo_adaptive_hls
`
1730 * Potentially useful values include `adaptive_hls
`, `adaptive_dash
`, `vo_adaptive_hls
`, `vo_adaptive_dash
`, `download_hls
`, `trailer_hls
`, `trailer_dash
`
1731 * `hardsub
`: Preference order for which hardsub versions to extract. Default is `None
` (no hardsubs). Eg: `crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,None
`
1734 * `video_types
`: Types of videos to download - one or more of `episodes
`, `movies
`, `clips
`, `trailers
`
1737 * `segment_duration
`: Segment duration in milliseconds for HLS-DMC formats. Use it at your own risk since this feature **may result in your account termination.**
1739 #### youtubewebarchive
1740 * `check_all
`: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more of `thumbnails
`, `captures
`
1743 * `comment_sort
`: `hot
` (default), `you
` (cookies needed), `top
`, `new
` - choose comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
1746 * `res
`: resolution to ignore - one or more of `sd
`, `hd
`, `fhd
`
1747 * `vcodec
`: vcodec to ignore - one or more of `h264
`, `h265
`, `dvh265
`
1748 * `dr
`: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of `sdr
`, `hdr10
`, `dv
`
1751 * `app_version
`: App version to call mobile APIs with - should be set along with `manifest_app_version
`. (e.g. `20.2.1`)
1752 * `manifest_app_version
`: Numeric app version to call mobile APIs with. (e.g. `221`)
1755 * `tab
`: Which tab to download. One of `new
`, `top
`, `videos
`, `podcasts
`, `streams
`, `stacks
`. (E.g. `rokfinchannel:tab=streams
`)
1758 NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
1760 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "INSTALLATION" SECTION HERE -->
1765 Plugins 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
1767 Plugins 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
`.
1769 See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1771 Note 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
1773 If you are a plugin author, add [ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
1779 yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1781 Your program should avoid parsing the normal stdout since they may change in future versions. Instead they should use options such as `-J
`, `--print
`, `--progress-template
`, `--exec
` etc to create console output that you can reliably reproduce and parse.
1783 From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1786 from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
1788 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1789 with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1793 Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at [`yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py
`](yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py#L180).
1795 **Tip**: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one important point to look out for is that we do not guarantee the return value of `YoutubeDL.extract_info
` to be json serializable, or even be a dictionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it is a serializable dictionary, pass it through `YoutubeDL.sanitize_info
` as shown in the [example below](#extracting-information)
1797 ## Embedding examples
1799 #### Extracting information
1805 URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
1807 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
1809 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1810 info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
1812 # ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
1813 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1815 #### Download using an info-json
1820 INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
1822 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1823 error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
1825 print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
1826 else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
1834 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1837 'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
1838 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
1839 'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
1840 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1841 'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
1845 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1846 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1854 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1856 def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
1857 """Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
1858 duration = info.get('duration')
1859 if duration and duration < 60:
1860 return 'The video is too short'
1863 'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
1866 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1867 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1870 #### Adding logger and progress hook
1875 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1878 def debug(self, msg):
1879 # For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
1880 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
1881 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
1886 def info(self, msg):
1889 def warning(self, msg):
1892 def error(self, msg):
1896 # ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
1898 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1899 print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
1903 'logger': MyLogger(),
1904 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1907 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1911 #### Add a custom PostProcessor
1916 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1918 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
1919 class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
1920 def run(self, info):
1921 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
1925 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1926 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP())
1931 #### Use a custom format selector
1936 URL = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1938 def format_selector(ctx):
1939 """ Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
1940 NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
1942 # formats are already sorted worst to best
1943 formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
1945 # acodec='none' means there is no audio
1946 best_video = next(f for f in formats
1947 if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
1949 # find compatible audio extension
1950 audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
1951 # vcodec='none' means there is no video
1952 best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
1953 f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
1955 # These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
1957 'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
1958 'ext': best_video['ext'],
1959 'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
1960 # Must be + separated list of protocols
1961 'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
1966 'format': format_selector,
1969 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1973 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "NEW FEATURES" SECTION HERE -->
1975 # DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1977 These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1979 #### Almost redundant options
1980 While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
1982 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
1983 -F, --list-formats --print formats_table
1984 --list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
1985 --list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
1987 #### Redundant options
1988 While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
1990 --get-description --print description
1991 --get-duration --print duration_string
1992 --get-filename --print filename
1993 --get-format --print format
1995 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1996 -e, --get-title --print title
1997 -g, --get-url --print urls
1998 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1999 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
2000 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
2001 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
2002 --user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
2003 --referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
2004 --playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
2005 --playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
2006 --playlist-reverse -I ::-1
2007 --no-playlist-reverse Default
2010 #### Not recommended
2011 While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
2013 --exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
2014 --no-exec-before-download --no-exec
2015 --all-formats -f all
2016 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
2017 --print-json -j --no-simulate
2018 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)03d
2019 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
2020 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2021 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
2022 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
2023 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
2024 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
2025 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
2026 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
2027 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
2028 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
2029 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
2032 #### Developer options
2033 These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
2035 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
2036 --load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
2037 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
2038 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
2039 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
2043 These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
2045 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
2046 --clean-infojson --clean-info-json
2047 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
2048 --dump-headers --print-traffic
2049 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
2050 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
2051 --load-info --load-info-json
2052 --no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
2053 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
2054 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
2055 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
2056 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
2057 --split-tracks --split-chapters
2058 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
2059 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
2060 --write-srt --write-subs
2061 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
2063 #### Sponskrub Options
2064 Support for [SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of the `--sponsorblock
` options
2066 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
2067 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
2068 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
2069 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
2070 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
2071 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
2072 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
2073 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
2075 #### No longer supported
2076 These options may no longer work as intended
2078 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
2079 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
2080 -C, --call-home Not implemented
2081 --no-call-home Default
2082 --include-ads No longer supported
2083 --no-include-ads Default
2084 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
2085 --no-write-annotations Default
2088 These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
2090 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2091 -t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2094 See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp) for instructions on [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue) and [Contributing code to the project](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
2097 For FAQ see the [youtube-dl README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
projects / yt-dlp.git / blob