1 youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
4 **youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
8 To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
10 sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
11 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
13 If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
15 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
16 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
18 Windows users can
[download a .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in their home directory or any other location on their
[PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29).
20 OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with
[Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
22 brew install youtube-dl
26 sudo pip install youtube-dl
28 Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions below for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html .
31 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
32 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
33 2.6,
2.7, or
3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
34 your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
35 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
38 -h, --help print this help text and exit
39 --version print program version and exit
40 -U, --update update this program to latest version. Make
41 sure that you have sufficient permissions
42 (run with sudo if needed)
43 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors, for example to
44 skip unavailable videos in a playlist
45 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
46 playlist or the command line) if an error
48 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
49 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs
51 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
53 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
54 an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
56 --socket-timeout None Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
57 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
58 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
59 from google videos for youtube-dl "large
60 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
61 youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
62 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
63 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
64 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
65 this is not possible instead of searching.
66 --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
67 in the global configuration file /etc
68 /youtube-dl.conf: do not read the user
69 configuration in ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf
70 (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt on
74 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is
1)
75 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
76 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or
78 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
80 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
81 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
82 SIZE (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
83 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
85 --date DATE download only videos uploaded in this date
86 --datebefore DATE download only videos uploaded on or before
87 this date (i.e. inclusive)
88 --dateafter DATE download only videos uploaded on or after
89 this date (i.e. inclusive)
90 --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
92 --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
94 --no-playlist download only the currently playing video
95 --age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given
97 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
98 archive file. Record the IDs of all
99 downloaded videos in it.
100 --include-ads Download advertisements as well
102 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Try to download the DASH manifest on
103 YouTube videos (experimental)
106 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
108 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is
10)
109 --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
111 --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer
112 size. By default, the buffer size is
113 automatically resized from an initial value
116 ## Filesystem Options:
117 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
119 --id use only video ID in file name
120 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from
00000
121 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to
122 get the title, %(uploader)s for the
123 uploader name, %(uploader_id)s for the
124 uploader nickname if different,
125 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
126 incremented number, %(ext)s for the
127 filename extension, %(format)s for the
128 format description (like "
22 -
1280x720" or
129 "HD"), %(format_id)s for the unique id of
130 the format (like Youtube's itags: "
137"),
131 %(upload_date)s for the upload date
132 (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
133 (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
134 video id, %(playlist)s for the playlist the
135 video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
136 position in the playlist and %% for a
137 literal percent. %(height)s and %(width)s
138 for the width and height of the video
139 format. %(resolution)s for a textual
140 description of the resolution of the video
141 format. Use - to output to stdout. Can also
142 be used to download to a different
143 directory, for example with -o '/my/downloa
144 ds/%(uploader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
145 --autonumber-size NUMBER Specifies the number of digits in
146 %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
147 filename template or --auto-number option
149 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
150 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
152 -t, --title [deprecated] use title in file name
154 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
155 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
156 -c, --continue force resume of partially downloaded files.
157 By default, youtube-dl will resume
158 downloads if possible.
159 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files
160 (restart from beginning)
161 --no-part do not use .part files
162 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set
163 the file modification time
164 --write-description write video description to a .description
166 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
167 --write-annotations write video annotations to a .annotation
169 --write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
170 --load-info FILE json file containing the video information
171 (created with the "--write-json" option)
172 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie
174 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
175 can store some downloaded information
176 permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
177 /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
178 moment, only YouTube player files (for
179 videos with obfuscated signatures) are
180 cached, but that may change.
181 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
182 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
184 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
185 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
186 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
187 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write
189 --skip-download do not download the video
190 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
191 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
192 --get-id simulate, quiet but print id
193 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
194 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
195 --get-duration simulate, quiet but print video length
196 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
197 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
198 -j, --dump-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
199 See --output for a description of available
201 --newline output progress bar as new lines
202 --no-progress do not print progress bar
203 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
204 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
205 --dump-intermediate-pages print downloaded pages to debug problems
207 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
208 files in the current directory to debug
210 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
213 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
214 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
215 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
216 information about the video. (Currently
217 supported only for YouTube)
218 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
219 --referer REF specify a custom referer, use if the video
220 access is restricted to one domain
221 --add-header FIELD:VALUE specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
222 separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
223 option multiple times
224 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
225 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
226 or fribidi executable in PATH
228 ## Video Format Options:
229 -f, --format FORMAT video format code, specify the order of
230 preference using slashes: -f
22/
17/
18 . -f
231 mp4 , -f m4a and -f flv are also
232 supported. You can also use the special
233 names "best", "bestvideo", "bestaudio",
234 "worst", "worstvideo" and "worstaudio". By
235 default, youtube-dl will pick the best
236 quality. Use commas to download multiple
237 audio formats, such as -f
238 136/
137/mp4/bestvideo,
140/m4a/bestaudio
239 --all-formats download all available video formats
240 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific
242 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
243 -F, --list-formats list all available formats
246 --write-sub write subtitle file
247 --write-auto-sub write automatic subtitle file (youtube
249 --all-subs downloads all the available subtitles of
251 --list-subs lists all available subtitles for the video
252 --sub-format FORMAT subtitle format (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt]
254 --sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download
255 (optional) separated by commas, use IETF
256 language tags like 'en,pt'
258 ## Authentication Options:
259 -u, --username USERNAME account username
260 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
261 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR two-factor auth code
262 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
263 --video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo, smotri)
265 ## Post-processing Options:
266 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files
267 (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
269 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a",
270 "opus", or "wav"; best by default
271 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification,
272 insert a value between
0 (better) and
9
273 (worse) for VBR or a specific bitrate like
275 --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
276 necessary (currently supported:
277 mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv)
278 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the
279 post-processing; the video is erased by
281 --no-post-overwrites do not overwrite post-processed files; the
282 post-processed files are overwritten by
284 --embed-subs embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
286 --embed-thumbnail embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
287 --add-metadata write metadata to the video file
288 --xattrs write metadata to the video file's xattrs
289 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
290 --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
291 postprocessors (default)
292 --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
294 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
295 downloading, similar to find's -exec
296 syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
297 /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
301 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as
`--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into
`/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or
`~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the configuration file locations are
`%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` and
`C:\Users\<Yourname>\youtube-dl.conf`.
305 The
`-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in
`youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format
`%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
307 - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
308 - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
309 - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
310 - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
311 - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
312 - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
313 - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
314 - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
315 - `playlist`: The name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
316 - `playlist_index`: The index of the video in the playlist, a five-digit number.
318 The current default template is
`%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
320 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:
323 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
324 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
325 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
326 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
331 Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options
`--date`,
`--datebefore` or
`--dateafter`, they accept dates in two formats:
333 - Absolute dates: Dates in the format
`YYYYMMDD`.
334 - Relative dates: Dates in the format
`(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
339 # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
340 $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
342 # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
343 $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
345 $ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
346 $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
351 ### How do I update youtube-dl?
353 If you've followed
[our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run
`youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux,
`sudo youtube-dl -U`).
355 If you have used pip, a simple
`sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
357 If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distributions serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
359 As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
361 sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
363 Afterwards, simply follow
[our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
366 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
367 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
371 Again, from then on you'll be able to update with
`sudo youtube-dl -U`.
373 ### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
375 YouTube changed their playlist format in March
2014 and later on, so you'll need at least youtube-dl
2014.07.25 to download all YouTube videos.
377 If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to report bugs to the Ubuntu packaging guys - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
379 ### Do I always have to pass in `--max-quality FORMAT`, or `-citw`?
381 By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different,
[please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular,
`--max-quality` *limits* the video quality (so if you want the best quality, do NOT pass it in), and the only option out of
`-citw` that is regularly useful is
`-i`.
383 ### Can you please put the -b option back?
385 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be
1080p or
720p in some cases, so you no longer need the
`-b` option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the
`-f` option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
387 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
389 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We're
[considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
391 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
393 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as
[vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or
[mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
395 ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
397 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the
`--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use
`--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
399 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
401 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July
2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
403 ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
405 youtube requires an additional signature since September
2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
407 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
411 File "youtube-dl", line
2
412 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '
\x93' ...
414 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python
2.6 or
2.7.
416 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
418 Since June
2012 (#
342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to
`youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the
`__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run
`make youtube-dl`.
420 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
422 To run the exe you need to install first the
[Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
424 # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
426 Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can
[download the builds](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.
428 To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
432 To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
434 python -m unittest discover
435 python test/test_download.py
438 If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
446 ### Adding support for a new site
448 If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called
`yourextractor`):
450 1.
[Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
451 2. Check out the source code with
`git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
452 3. Start a new git branch with
`cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor`
453 4. Start with this simple template and save it to
`youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
456 from __future__ import unicode_literals
458 from .common import InfoExtractor
461 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
462 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
464 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
465 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
469 'title': 'Video title goes here',
470 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
471 # TODO more properties, either as:
473 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
474 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
475 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
479 def _real_extract(self, url):
480 video_id = self._match_id(url)
482 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
483 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
484 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
489 # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
492 5. Add an import in
[`youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py).
493 6. Run
`python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename
``_TEST
`` to
``_TESTS
`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests will be then be named
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`,
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`,
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
494 7. Have a look at
[`youtube_dl/common/extractor/common.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a
[detailed description of what your extractor should return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L38). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
495 8. If you can, check the code with
[pyflakes](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyflakes) (a good idea) and
[pep8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8) (optional, ignore E501).
496 9. When the tests pass,
[add](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-add.html) the new files and
[commit](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-commit.html) them and
[push](https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-push.html) the result, like this:
498 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
499 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
500 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
501 $ git push origin yourextractor
503 10. Finally,
[create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
505 In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
509 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues> . Unless you were prompted so or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email.
511 Please include the full output of the command when run with
`--verbose`. The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
513 For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
515 When you submit a request, please re-read it once to avoid a couple of mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
517 ### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
519 We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most cases we eventually get the required information after asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may misread some parts.
521 So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
523 - What the problem is
524 - How it could be fixed
525 - How your proposed solution would look like
527 If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a commiter myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
529 For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the *complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the -v flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
531 Site support requests **must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc . There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/ ) is *not* an example URL.
533 ### Are you using the latest version?
535 Before reporting any issue, type youtube-dl -U. This should report that you're up-to-date. About
20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.
537 ### Is the issue already documented?
539 Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or at https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version
2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
541 ### Why are existing options not enough?
543 Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at
[the list of supported options](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#synopsis). Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.
545 ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
547 People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
549 We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing feature would be useful.
551 ### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
553 Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.
555 In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.
557 ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
559 Only post features that you (or an incapicated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.
561 ### Is your question about youtube-dl?
563 It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's own application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
567 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
569 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.