3 [](#readme)
5 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
6 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/actions)
7 [](LICENSE)
8 [](Collaborators.md#collaborators)
9 [](supportedsites.md)
10 []
(https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r)
11 []
(https://yt-dlp.readthedocs.io)
12 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits)
13 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits)
14 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
15 []
(https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp)
19 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
21 * [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
22 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
23 * [INSTALLATION](#installation)
25 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
27 * [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
28 * [General Options](#general-options)
29 * [Network Options](#network-options)
30 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
31 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
32 * [Download Options](#download-options)
33 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
34 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
35 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
36 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
37 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
38 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
39 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
40 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
41 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
42 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
43 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
44 * [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
45 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
46 * [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
47 * [Output template and Windows batch files](#output-template-and-windows-batch-files)
48 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
49 * [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
50 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
51 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
52 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
53 * [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
54 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
55 * [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
57 * [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](#embedding-yt-dlp)
58 * [DEPRECATED OPTIONS](#deprecated-options)
59 * [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp)
60 * [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue)
61 * [Developer Instructions](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
67 The major new features from the latest release of
[blackjack4494/yt-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) are:
69 * **
[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
71 * **[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))
73 * **Merged with youtube-dl
[commit/379f52a](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/379f52a4954013767219d25099cce9e0f9401961)**: (v2021.06
.06) You get all the latest features and patches of
[youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) in addition to all the features of
[youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc)
75 * **Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl**: You get most of the features and improvements from
[animelover1984/youtube-dl](https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including
`--write-comments`,
`BiliBiliSearch`,
`BilibiliChannel`, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that the NicoNico improvements are not available. See
[#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
77 * **Youtube improvements**:
78 * All Feeds (
`:ytfav`,
`:ytwatchlater`,
`:ytsubs`,
`:ythistory`,
`:ytrec`) and private playlists supports downloading multiple pages of content
79 * Search (
`ytsearch:`,
`ytsearchdate:`), search URLs and in-channel search works
80 * Mixes supports downloading multiple pages of content
81 * Most (but not all) age-gated content can be downloaded without cookies
82 * Partial workaround for throttling issue
83 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to
`/video` to preserve the old behaviour
84 * `255kbps` audio is extracted (if available) from youtube music when premium cookies are given
85 * Youtube music Albums, channels etc can be downloaded (
[except self-uploaded music](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723))
87 * **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using
`--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[:PROFILE]`
89 * **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
`--split-chapters`
91 * **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
93 * **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use
`aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
95 * **New extractors**: AnimeLab, Philo MSO, Spectrum MSO, SlingTV MSO, Cablevision MSO, Rcs, Gedi, bitwave.tv, mildom, audius, zee5, mtv.it, wimtv, pluto.tv, niconico users, discoveryplus.in, mediathek, NFHSNetwork, nebula, ukcolumn, whowatch, MxplayerShow, parlview (au), YoutubeWebArchive, fancode, Saitosan, ShemarooMe, telemundo, VootSeries, SonyLIVSeries, HotstarSeries, VidioPremier, VidioLive, RCTIPlus, TBS Live, douyin, pornflip, ParamountPlusSeries, ScienceChannel, Utreon, OpenRec, BandcampMusic, blackboardcollaborate, eroprofile albums, mirrativ, BannedVideo, bilibili categories, Epicon, filmmodu, GabTV, HungamaAlbum, ManotoTV, Niconico search, Patreon User, peloton, ProjectVeritas, radiko, StarTV, tiktok user, Tokentube, voicy, TV2HuSeries, biliintl,
17live, NewgroundsUser, peertube channel/playlist, ZenYandex, CAM4, CGTN, damtomo, gotostage, Koo, Mediaite, Mediaklikk, MuseScore, nzherald, Olympics replay, radlive, SovietsCloset, Streamanity, Theta, Chingari
97 * **Fixed/improved extractors**: archive.org, roosterteeth.com, skyit, instagram, itv, SouthparkDe, spreaker, Vlive, akamai, ina, rumble, tennistv, amcnetworks, la7 podcasts, linuxacadamy, nitter, twitcasting, viu, crackle, curiositystream, mediasite, rmcdecouverte, sonyliv, tubi, tenplay, patreon, videa, yahoo, BravoTV, crunchyroll playlist, RTP, viki, Hotstar, vidio, vimeo, mediaset, Mxplayer, nbcolympics, ParamountPlus, Newgrounds, SAML Verizon login, Hungama, afreecatv, aljazeera, ATV, bitchute, camtube, CDA, eroprofile, facebook, HearThisAtIE, iwara, kakao, Motherless, Nova, peertube, pornhub, reddit, tiktok, TV2, TV2Hu, tv5mondeplus, VH1, Viafree, XHamster,
9Now, AnimalPlanet, Arte, CBC, Chingari, comedycentral, DIYNetwork, niconico, dw, funimation, globo, HiDive, NDR, Nuvid, Oreilly, pbs, plutotv, reddit, redtube, soundcloud, SpankBang, VrtNU
99 * **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
101 * **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`)
103 * **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [configuration](#configuration) for details
105 * **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`
107 * **Other new options**:
`--print`,
`--sleep-requests`,
`--convert-thumbnails`,
`--write-link`,
`--force-download-archive`,
`--force-overwrites`,
`--break-on-reject` etc
109 * **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in
`--match-filter`, multiple
`--postprocessor-args` and
`--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection) etc
111 * **Plugin extractors**: Extractors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
113 * **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using
`yt-dlp -U`
116 See
[changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
119 **PS**: Some of these changes are already in youtube-dlc, but are still unreleased. See [this](Changelog.md#unreleased-changes-in-blackjack4494yt-dlc) for details
121 If you are coming from
[youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl), the amount of changes are very large. Compare
[options](#options) and [supported sites](supportedsites.md) with youtube-dl's to get an idea of the massive number of features/patches [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) has accumulated.
123 ### Differences in default behavior
125 Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc.
127 * The options
`--id`,
`--auto-number` (
`-A`),
`--title` (
`-t`) and
`--literal` (
`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
128 * `avconv` is not supported as as an alternative to
`ffmpeg`
129 * 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`
130 * 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
131 * The default format selector is
`bv*+ba/b`. This means that if a combined video + audio format that is better than the best video-only format is found, the former will be prefered. Use
`-f bv+ba/b` or
`--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
132 * 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
133 * `--ignore-errors` is enabled by default. Use
`--abort-on-error` or
`--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
134 * 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
135 * `--add-metadata` attaches the
`infojson` to
`mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with
`--write-infojson`. Use
`--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
136 * `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
137 * The output of
`-F` is listed in a new format. Use
`--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
138 * 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
139 * 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
140 * Youtube channel URLs are automatically redirected to
`/video`. Append a
`/featured` to the URL to download only the videos in the home page. If the channel does not have a videos tab, we try to download the equivalent
`UU` playlist instead. Also,
`/live` URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use
`--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect` to revert all these redirections
141 * Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use
`--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
142 * 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
143 * Thumbnail embedding in
`mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use
`--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
144 * 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
145 * When
`--embed-subs` and
`--write-subs` are used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use just
`--embed-subs` to embed the subs and automatically delete the seperate file. See
[#630 (comment)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460) for more info.
`--compat-options no-keep-subs` can be used to revert this.
147 For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
148 * `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options
149 * `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-multistreams`
150 * `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect`
154 yt-dlp is not platform specific. So it should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS
156 You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
157 * Download the binary from the
[latest release](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest)
158 * With Homebrew,
`brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
159 * Use
[PyPI package](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp):
`python3 -m pip install --upgrade yt-dlp`
160 * Use pip+git:
`python3 -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp.git@release`
161 * Install master branch:
`python3 -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp`
163 Note that on some systems, you may need to use
`py` or
`python` instead of
`python3`
165 UNIX users (Linux, macOS, BSD) can also install the
[latest release](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest) one of the following ways:
168 sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
169 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
173 sudo wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
174 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
178 sudo aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
179 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
182 macOS or Linux users that are using Homebrew (formerly known as Linuxbrew for Linux users) can also install it by:
185 brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
189 You can use
`yt-dlp -U` to update if you are using the provided release.
190 If you are using
`pip`, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program.
191 If you have installed using Homebrew, run
`brew upgrade yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
194 Python versions
3.6+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
196 <!-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=
26999 -->
197 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.
199 While all the other dependancies are optional,
`ffmpeg` and
`ffprobe` are highly recommended
200 * [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for
[merging seperate video and audio files](#format-selection) as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. Licence [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
201 * [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen) - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
202 * [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome) - For decrypting AES-
128 HLS streams and various other data. Licenced under
[BSD2](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
203 * [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets) - For downloading over websocket. Licenced under
[BSD3](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
204 * [**keyring**](https://github.com/jaraco/keyring) - For decrypting cookies of chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licenced under
[MIT](https://github.com/jaraco/keyring/blob/main/LICENSE)
205 * [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For embedding thumbnail in mp4/m4a if mutagen is not present. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
206 * [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading
`rtmp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
207 * [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or
[**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading
`rstp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
208 * [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licenced under
[BSD3](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
209 * [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated**
[sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licenced under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
210 * Any external downloader that you want to use with
`--downloader`
212 To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
214 The windows releases are already built with the python interpreter, mutagen, pycryptodomex and websockets included.
216 **Note**: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependancy, we provide
[custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds/wiki/Latest#latest-autobuilds) with patches for these issues at
[yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds). See
[the readme](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specifc issues solved by these builds
222 To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and optionally mutagen, pycryptodomex, websockets)
224 python3 -m pip install -U -r requirements.txt
226 Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, just run
`py pyinst.py`. The executable will be built for the same architecture (
32/
64 bit) as the python used to build it.
228 You can also build the executable without any version info or metadata by using:
230 pyinstaller.exe yt_dlp\__main__.py --onefile --name yt-dlp
232 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
235 You will need the required build tools:
`python`,
`make` (GNU),
`pandoc`,
`zip`,
`pytest`
236 Then simply run
`make`. You can also run
`make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
238 **Note**: In either platform,
`devscripts\update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
242 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
244 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
245 <!-- Auto generated -->
248 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
249 --version Print program version and exit
250 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
251 sure that you have sufficient permissions
252 (run with sudo if needed)
253 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
254 The download will be considered successfull
255 even if the postprocessing fails
256 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download
257 errors; e.g. to skip unavailable videos in
259 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
260 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
261 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
262 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
263 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
265 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
267 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
268 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
269 from google videos for the search term
270 "large apple". Use the value "auto" to let
271 yt-dlp guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
272 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
273 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
274 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
275 this is not possible instead of searching
276 --ignore-config, --no-config Disable loading any configuration files
277 except the one provided by --config-location.
278 When given inside a configuration
279 file, no further configuration files are
280 loaded. Additionally, (for backward
281 compatibility) if this option is found
282 inside the system configuration file, the
283 user configuration is not loaded
284 --config-location PATH Location of the main configuration file;
285 either the path to the config or its
287 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
289 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
290 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate).
291 Currently only supported for YouTube
292 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
293 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
294 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
295 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
296 configurations by reverting some of the
297 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
298 default behavior" for details
301 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
302 To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
304 socks5://
127.0.0.1:
1080/. Pass in an empty
305 string (--proxy "") for direct connection
306 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
307 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
308 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
309 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
312 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
313 some geo-restricted sites. The default
314 proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
315 option is not present) is used for the
317 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
318 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
319 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
320 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
321 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
322 explicitly provided two-letter ISO
3166-
2
324 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
325 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
329 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is
1)
330 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
331 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
332 indices of the videos in the playlist
333 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
334 1,
2,
5,
8" if you want to download videos
335 indexed
1,
2,
5,
8 in the playlist. You can
336 specify range: "--playlist-items
337 1-
3,
7,
10-
13", it will download the videos
338 at index
1,
2,
3,
7,
10,
11,
12 and
13
339 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
340 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
341 SIZE (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
342 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
344 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date.
345 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
346 "(now|today)[+-][
0-
9](day|week|month|year)(s)?"
347 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
348 this date. The date formats accepted is the
350 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
351 this date. The date formats accepted is the
353 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Any field (see
354 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE") can be compared with a
355 number or a string using the operators
356 defined in "Filtering formats". You can
357 also simply specify a field to match if the
358 field is present and "!field" to check if
359 the field is not present. In addition,
360 Python style regular expression matching
361 can be done using "~=", and multiple
362 filters can be checked with "&". Use a "
\"
363 to escape "&" or quotes if needed. Eg:
364 --match-filter "!is_live & like_count>?
100
365 & description~='(?i)
\bcats \& dogs
\b'"
366 matches only videos that are not live, has
367 a like count more than
100 (or the like
368 field is not available), and also has a
369 description that contains the phrase "cats
370 & dogs" (ignoring case)
371 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
372 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
373 to a video and a playlist
374 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
375 a video and a playlist
376 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
378 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
379 archive file. Record the IDs of all
380 downloaded videos in it
381 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
382 a file that is in the archive
383 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
384 a file that has been filtered out
385 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest
386 of the playlist is skipped
387 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
390 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
391 video that should be download concurrently
393 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
395 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
396 below which throttling is assumed and the
397 video data is re-extracted (e.g.
100K)
398 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
400 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
401 is
10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
403 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
404 hlsnative and ISM (default)
405 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
406 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading if a fragment is unavailable
407 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
408 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
409 downloading is finished
410 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
411 downloading is finished (default)
412 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
414 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
415 from an initial value of --buffer-size
417 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
418 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
419 downloading (e.g.
10485760 or
10M) (default
420 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
421 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
423 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
424 --no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
426 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
427 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
429 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
430 allowing some players to play the video
431 while downloading, and reducing the chance
432 of file corruption if download is
433 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
435 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
436 videos. This is default when not
437 downloading live streams
438 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
439 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
440 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
441 use it for. Currently supports native,
442 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
443 wget (Recommended: aria2c). You can use
444 this option multiple times to set different
445 downloaders for different protocols. For
446 example, --downloader aria2c --downloader
447 "dash,m3u8:native" will use aria2c for
448 http/ftp downloads, and the native
449 downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
450 (Alias: --external-downloader)
451 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
452 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
453 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
454 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to
455 different positions using the same syntax
456 as --postprocessor-args. You can use this
457 option multiple times to give different
458 arguments to different downloaders
459 (Alias: --external-downloader-args)
461 ## Filesystem Options:
462 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
463 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
464 with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
466 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
467 downloaded. Specify the type of file and
468 the path separated by a colon ":". All the
469 same types as --output are supported.
470 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
471 (default) and "temp" paths. All
472 intermediary files are first downloaded to
473 the temp path and then the final files are
474 moved over to the home path after download
475 is finished. This option is ignored if
476 --output is an absolute path
477 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
478 TEMPLATE" for details
479 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder value for unavailable meta
480 fields in output filename template
482 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
483 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
485 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
487 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be windows compatible
488 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames windows compatible only if
489 using windows (default)
490 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
491 extension) to the specified number of
493 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
494 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files.
495 This option includes --no-continue
496 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
497 related files (default)
498 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
500 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
501 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
502 restart download of the entire file
503 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
504 into output file (default)
505 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
507 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the
508 file modification time (default)
509 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
510 the file modification time
511 --write-description Write video description to a .description
513 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
514 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
515 (this may contain personal information)
516 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
517 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
518 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
519 --write-description etc. (default)
520 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
521 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
522 --clean-infojson Remove some private fields such as
523 filenames from the infojson. Note that it
524 could still contain some personal
525 information (default)
526 --no-clean-infojson Write all fields to the infojson
527 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
528 infojson. The comments are fetched even
529 without this option if the extraction is
530 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
531 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
532 extraction is known to be quick
533 (Alias: --no-get-comments)
534 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
535 (created with the "--write-info-json"
537 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
539 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
541 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[:PROFILE]
542 Load cookies from a user profile of the
543 given web browser. Currently supported
544 browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium,
545 edge, firefox, opera, safari, vivaldi. You
546 can specify the user profile name or
547 directory using "BROWSER:PROFILE_NAME" or
548 "BROWSER:PROFILE_PATH". If no profile is
549 given, the most recently accessed one is
551 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
552 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
553 can store some downloaded information (such
554 as client ids and signatures) permanently.
555 By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
557 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
558 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
560 ## Thumbnail Options:
561 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
562 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
564 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
565 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
566 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
568 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
569 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
570 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
571 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
572 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
573 OS caches the URL based on the file path
574 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
575 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
577 ## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
578 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with
579 --verbose, print the log to stderr
580 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
581 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
583 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
585 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Usefull
586 for extracting metadata even if the videos
587 are not actually available for download
589 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
590 formats are found (default)
591 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
592 related files (Alias: --no-download)
593 -O, --print TEMPLATE Quiet, but print the given fields for each
594 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
595 used. Either a field name or same syntax as
596 the output template can be used
597 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
598 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
599 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
600 description of available keys
601 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
602 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
603 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
604 a playlist, the whole playlist information
605 is dumped in a single line
606 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be
607 written as far as no errors occur, even if
608 -s or another simulation option is used
609 (Alias: --force-download-archive)
610 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
611 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
612 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
613 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
614 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
615 Template for progress outputs, optionally
616 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
617 "download-title:" (the console title),
618 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
619 The video's fields are accessible under the
620 "info" key and the progress attributes are
621 accessible under "progress" key. Eg:
622 --console-title --progress-template
623 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
624 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
625 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
626 to debug problems (very verbose)
627 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
628 files in the current directory to debug
630 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
633 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
634 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
635 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
636 information about the video (Currently
637 supported only for YouTube)
638 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
639 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
640 access is restricted to one domain
641 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
642 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
643 option multiple times
644 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
645 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
646 or fribidi executable in PATH
647 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
648 during data extraction
649 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
650 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
651 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
652 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
653 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can
654 only be used along with --min-sleep-interval
655 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
658 ## Video Format Options:
659 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
661 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
662 "Sorting Formats" for more details
663 --S-force, --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
664 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
665 Formats" for more details
666 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
667 specified sort order (default), see
668 "Sorting Formats" for more details
669 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
671 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for
672 each output file (default)
673 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
675 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for
676 each output file (default)
677 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
678 over non-free ones of same quality. Use
679 with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
680 containers irrespective of quality
681 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
683 --check-formats Check that the formats selected are
684 actually downloadable
685 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats selected are
686 actually downloadable
687 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
688 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
689 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
690 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
691 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
692 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
695 --write-subs Write subtitle file
696 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
697 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
698 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
699 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
700 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
701 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
702 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
703 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
704 preference, for example: "srt" or
706 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
707 be regex) or "all" separated by commas.
708 (Eg: --sub-langs en.*,ja) You can prefix
709 the language code with a "-" to exempt it
710 from the requested languages. (Eg: --sub-
711 langs all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a
712 list of available language tags
714 ## Authentication Options:
715 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
716 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
717 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
718 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
719 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
720 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
721 either the path or its containing
722 directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
723 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
724 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
725 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
726 a list of available MSOs
727 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
728 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
729 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
731 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
734 ## Post-Processing Options:
735 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
736 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
737 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format to convert the audio
738 to when -x is used. Currently supported
739 formats are: best (default) or one of
740 best|aac|flac|mp3|m4a|opus|vorbis|wav
741 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality, insert a
742 value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse) for
743 VBR or a specific bitrate like
128K
745 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
746 necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv|flv
747 |webm|mov|avi|mp3|mka|m4a|ogg|opus). If
748 target container does not support the
749 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
750 can specify multiple rules; Eg.
751 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to
752 m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
753 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
754 re-encoding is necessary. The syntax and
755 supported formats are the same as --remux-video
756 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
757 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
758 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
759 to give the argument to the specified
760 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
761 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
762 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
763 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
764 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
765 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
766 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
767 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
768 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
769 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
770 specified executable only when being used
771 by the specified postprocessor.
772 Additionally, for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o"
773 can be appended to the prefix optionally
774 followed by a number to pass the argument
775 before the specified input/output file. Eg:
776 --ppa "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can
777 use this option multiple times to give
778 different arguments to different
779 postprocessors. (Alias: --ppa)
780 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
781 after post-processing
782 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
783 post-processing (default)
784 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
785 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
786 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
788 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
789 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
790 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
791 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also adds
792 chapters to file unless --no-add-chapters
793 is used (Alias: --add-metadata)
794 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
795 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
796 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
797 (Alias: --add-chapters)
798 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default)
799 (Alias: --no-add-chapters)
800 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
801 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
803 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
804 Replace text in a metadata field using the
805 given regex. This option can be used
807 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
808 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
809 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
810 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
811 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
812 default; fix file if we can, warn
813 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
815 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
816 path to the binary or its containing
818 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
819 downloading and post-processing. Same
820 syntax as the output template can be used
821 to pass any field as arguments to the
822 command. An additional field "filepath"
823 that contains the final path of the
824 downloaded file is also available. If no
825 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
826 to the end of the command. This option can
827 be used multiple times
828 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
829 --exec-before-download CMD Execute a command before the actual
830 download. The syntax is the same as --exec
831 but "filepath" is not available. This
832 option can be used multiple times
833 --no-exec-before-download Remove any previously defined
834 --exec-before-download
835 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
836 (currently supported: srt|vtt|ass|lrc)
837 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
838 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
839 (currently supported: jpg|png)
840 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
841 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix
842 can be used with "--paths" and "--output"
843 to set the output filename for the split
844 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
845 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters
847 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
848 given regular expression. This option can
849 be used multiple times
850 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
852 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes around the chapters before
853 removing/splitting them. Requires a
854 reencode and thus is very slow, but the
855 resulting video may have fewer artifacts
857 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
858 when cutting/splitting (default)
859 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS] The (case sensitive) name of plugin
860 postprocessors to be enabled, and
861 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
862 seperated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
863 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
864 The "when" argument determines when the
865 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
866 "pre_process" (after extraction),
867 "before_dl" (before video download),
868 "post_process" (after video download;
869 default) or "after_move" (after moving file
870 to their final locations). This option can
871 be used multiple times to add different
874 ## SponsorBlock Options:
875 Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
876 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
877 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
879 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
880 for, separated by commas. Available
881 categories are all, sponsor, intro, outro,
882 selfpromo, interaction, preview,
883 music_offtopic. You can prefix the category
884 with a "-" to exempt it. See
885 https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/index.php/Segment_Categories
886 for description of the categories. Eg:
887 --sponsorblock-query all,-preview
888 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
889 the video file, separated by commas. If a
890 category is present in both mark and
891 remove, remove takes precedence. The syntax
892 and available categories are the same as
893 for --sponsorblock-mark
894 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
895 The title template for SponsorBlock
896 chapters created by --sponsorblock-mark.
897 The same syntax as the output template is
898 used, but the only available fields are
899 start_time, end_time, category, categories,
900 name, category_names. Defaults to
901 "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
902 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
903 --sponsorblock-remove
904 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
905 https://sponsor.ajay.app
907 ## Extractor Options:
908 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor
909 errors (default is
3), or "infinite"
910 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
911 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
912 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
913 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
914 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
915 discontinuities such as ad breaks
916 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
917 formats at discontinuities such as ad
919 --extractor-args KEY:ARGS Pass these arguments to the extractor. See
920 "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can
921 use this option multiple times to give
922 arguments for different extractors
926 You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
928 1. **Main Configuration**: The file given by
`--config-location`
929 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.
930 1. **Home Configuration**:
`yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given by
`-P "home:<path>"`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
931 1. **User Configuration**:
932 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
933 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
934 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
935 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
937 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
939 `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to
`~/.config` if undefined. On windows,
`~` points to %HOME% if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`.
940 1. **System Configuration**:
`/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
942 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:
944 # Lines starting with # are comments
946 # Always extract audio
949 # Do not copy the mtime
953 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
955 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
956 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
959 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`.
961 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 user and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if
`--ignore-config` is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
963 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
965 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:
968 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
970 After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
972 machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
976 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
977 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
979 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
981 The default location of the .netrc file is
`$HOME` (
`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
985 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.
987 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
989 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).
991 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.
993 The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
994 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
995 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`
996 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`
997 1. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified seperated with a
`,`. Eg:
`%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
998 1. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a
`|` seperator. This overrides
`--output-na-template`. Eg:
`%(uploader|Unknown)s`
999 1. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types
`diouxXeEfFgGcrs`,
`B`,
`j`,
`l`,
`q` can be used for converting to **B**ytes, **j**son, a comma seperated **l**ist (alternate form flag
`#` makes it new line
`\n` seperated) and a string **q**uoted for the terminal, respectively
1000 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
1002 To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1004 %(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
1007 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`,
`pl_thumbnail`,
`pl_description`,
`pl_infojson`,
`chapter`. For example,
`-o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' -o 'thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s'` will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video. If any of the templates (except default) is empty, that type of file will not be written. Eg:
`--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:"` will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
1009 The available fields are:
1011 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1012 - `title` (string): Video title
1013 - `url` (string): Video URL
1014 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1015 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
1016 - `description` (string): The description of the video
1017 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1018 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1019 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1020 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
1021 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1022 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
1023 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
1024 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
1025 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1026 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1027 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1028 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1029 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
1030 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
1031 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1032 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1033 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1034 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1035 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
1036 - `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)
1037 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
1038 - `live_status` (string): One of 'is_live', 'was_live', 'is_upcoming', 'not_live'
1039 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
1040 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
1041 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
1042 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is 'private', 'premium_only', 'subscriber_only', 'needs_auth', 'unlisted' or 'public'
1043 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1044 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
1045 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
1046 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by
`--format`
1047 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
1048 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
1049 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
1050 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
1051 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1052 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1053 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
1054 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1055 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1056 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
1057 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
1058 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
1059 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
1060 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
1061 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
1062 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1063 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1064 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
1065 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at
`--autonumber-start`
1066 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
1067 - `playlist` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
1068 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1069 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
1070 - `playlist_id` (string): Playlist identifier
1071 - `playlist_title` (string): Playlist title
1072 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1073 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
1074 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
1075 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as
`webpage_url` for playlist entries)
1077 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1079 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1080 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1081 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1083 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1085 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1086 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1087 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1088 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1089 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1090 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1091 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1093 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1095 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1096 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1097 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1098 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1099 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1100 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1101 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1102 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1103 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1104 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1106 Available for
`chapter:` prefix when using
`--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
1108 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1109 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1110 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1111 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1113 Available only when used in
`--print`:
1115 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1116 - `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
1118 Available only in
`--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1120 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1121 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1122 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1123 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1124 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1125 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
1127 Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with
`--output-na-placeholder` (
`NA` by default).
1129 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.
1131 For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for example,
`%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to
5 characters, like in
`00042`.
1133 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.
1135 To use percent literals in an output template use
`%%`. To output to stdout use
`-o -`.
1137 The current default template is
`%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
1139 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:
1141 #### Output template and Windows batch files
1143 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"`.
1145 #### Output template examples
1147 Note that on Windows you need to use double quotes instead of single.
1150 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
1151 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
1153 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1154 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
1156 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
1157 $ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
1159 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
1160 $ yt-dlp -o '%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
1162 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
1163 $ yt-dlp -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
1165 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
1166 $ 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/
1168 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
1169 $ 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
1171 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
1172 $ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
1177 By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1178 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`.
1180 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.
1182 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1184 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.
1186 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.
1188 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1190 - `all`: Select all formats
1191 - `mergeall`: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with
`--audio-multistreams`,
`--video-multistreams` or both)
1192 - `b*`,
`best*`: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
1193 - `w*`,
`worst*`: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
1194 - `b`,
`best`: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1195 - `w`,
`worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1196 - `bv`,
`bestvideo`: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec=none]`
1197 - `wv`,
`worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec=none]`
1198 - `bv*`,
`bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none]`
1199 - `wv*`,
`worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none]`
1200 - `ba`,
`bestaudio`: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec=none]`
1201 - `wa`,
`worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec=none]`
1202 - `ba*`,
`bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec!=none]`
1203 - `wa*`,
`worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec!=none]`
1205 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
`-f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps` instead of
`-f worst`. See [sorting formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
1207 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.
1209 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.
1211 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`.
1213 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.
1215 **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
1217 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`.
1219 ## Filtering Formats
1221 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in
`-f "best[height=720]"` (or
`-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
1223 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons
`<`,
`<=`,
`>`,
`>=`,
`=` (equals),
`!=` (not equals):
1225 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1226 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
1227 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
1228 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1229 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1230 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1231 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1234 Also filtering work for comparisons
`=` (equals),
`^=` (starts with),
`$=` (ends with),
`*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
1236 - `ext`: File extension
1237 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
1238 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
1239 - `container`: Name of the container format
1240 - `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`)
1241 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
1242 - `language`: Language code
1244 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation
`!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g.
`!*=` (does not contain).
1246 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.
1248 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.
1250 Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than
480 you can use
`-f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'`.
1254 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...`.
1256 The available fields are:
1258 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1259 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
1260 - `ie_pref`: The format preference as given by the extractor
1261 - `lang`: Language preference as given by the extractor
1262 - `quality`: The quality of the format as given by the extractor
1263 - `source`: Preference of the source as given by the extractor
1264 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (
`https`/
`ftps` >
`http`/
`ftp` >
`m3u8_native`/
`m3u8` >
`http_dash_segments`>
`websocket_frag` > other >
`mms`/
`rtsp` > unknown >
`f4f`/
`f4m`)
1265 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (
`av01` >
`vp9.2` >
`vp9` >
`h265` >
`h264` >
`vp8` >
`h263` >
`theora` > other > unknown)
1266 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (
`opus` >
`vorbis` >
`aac` >
`mp4a` >
`mp3` >
`ac3` >
`dts` > other > unknown)
1267 - `codec`: Equivalent to
`vcodec,acodec`
1268 - `vext`: Video Extension (
`mp4` >
`webm` >
`flv` > other > unknown). If
`--prefer-free-formats` is used,
`webm` is prefered.
1269 - `aext`: Audio Extension (
`m4a` >
`aac` >
`mp3` >
`ogg` >
`opus` >
`webm` > other > unknown). If
`--prefer-free-formats` is used, the order changes to
`opus` >
`ogg` >
`webm` >
`m4a` >
`mp3` >
`aac`.
1270 - `ext`: Equivalent to
`vext,aext`
1271 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.
1272 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1273 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1274 - `height`: Height of video
1275 - `width`: Width of video
1276 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1277 - `fps`: Framerate of video
1278 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1279 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1280 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1281 - `br`: Equivalent to using
`tbr,vbr,abr`
1282 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1284 **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.
1286 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.
1288 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,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.
1290 Note that the default has
`codec:vp9.2`; i.e.
`av1` is not prefered
1292 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`.
1294 **Tip**: You can use the
`-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1296 ## Format Selection examples
1298 Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1301 # Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1302 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1303 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv+ba/b'
1305 # Download best format that contains video,
1306 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1307 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba/b'
1312 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1313 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1314 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1315 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv,ba' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
1317 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1318 # and all audio-only formats into one file
1319 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]' --audio-multistreams
1321 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1322 # and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1323 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba+ba.2' --audio-multistreams
1326 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1327 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
1329 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1330 $ yt-dlp -f 'wv*+wa/w'
1332 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1335 # Download the smallest video available
1336 $ yt-dlp -S '+size,+br'
1340 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1341 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b'
1343 # Download the best video with the best extension
1344 # (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1349 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1350 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1351 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w'
1353 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1354 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1355 $ yt-dlp -S 'height:480'
1357 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1358 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1359 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1360 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1361 $ yt-dlp -S 'res:480'
1365 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1366 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1367 $ yt-dlp -f 'b[filesize<50M] / w'
1369 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1370 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1371 $ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize:50M'
1373 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1374 $ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize~50M'
1378 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1379 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1380 $ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1382 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1383 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1388 # Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
1389 $ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[vcodec^=avc1] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1391 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1392 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1393 $ yt-dlp -S 'codec:h264'
1395 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1396 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1397 $ yt-dlp -S '+codec:h264'
1401 # More complex examples
1403 # Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1404 # or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1405 $ yt-dlp -f '((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)'
1407 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1408 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1409 # preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1410 $ yt-dlp -S 'res:720,fps'
1414 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1415 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1416 # preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1417 $ yt-dlp -S '+res:480,codec,br'
1420 # MODIFYING METADATA
1422 The metadata obtained the the extractors can be modified by using
`--parse-metadata` and
`--replace-in-metadata`
1424 `--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.
1426 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.
1428 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`.
1430 This option also has a few special uses:
1431 * 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
1432 * 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"
1434 For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1436 Metadata fields|From
1438 `title`|
`track` or
`title`
1439 `date`|
`upload_date`
1440 `description`,
`synopsis`|
`description`
1441 `purl`,
`comment`|
`webpage_url`
1442 `track`|
`track_number`
1443 `artist`|
`artist`,
`creator`,
`uploader` or
`uploader_id`
1446 `album_artist`|
`album_artist`
1447 `disc`|
`disc_number`
1449 `season_number`|
`season_number`
1450 `episode_id`|
`episode` or
`episode_id`
1451 `episode_sort`|
`episode_number`
1452 `language` of each stream|From the format's
`language`
1453 **Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1456 ## Modifying metadata examples
1458 Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1461 # Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
1462 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'title:%(artist)s - %(title)s'
1465 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)'
1467 # Set title as "Series name S01E05"
1468 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata '%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s'
1470 # Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url
1471 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)' --add-metadata
1473 # Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1474 $ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata 'title,uploader' '[ _]' '-'
1478 # EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1480 Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using
`--extractor-args KEY:ARGS`.
`ARGS` is a
`;` (semicolon) seperated string of
`ARG=VAL1,VAL2`. Eg:
`--extractor-args "youtube:player_client=android_agegate,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"`
1482 The following extractors use this feature:
1484 * `skip`:
`hls` or
`dash` (or both) to skip download of the respective manifests
1485 * `player_client`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are
`web`,
`android`,
`ios`,
`mweb`. These also have
`_music`,
`_embedded`,
`_agegate`, and
`_creator` variants (Eg:
`web_embedded`) (
`mweb` has only
`_agegate`). By default,
`android,web` is used, but the agegate and creator variants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for
`music.youtube.com` urls. You can also use
`all` to use all the clients
1486 * `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
1487 * `include_live_dash`: Include live dash formats (These formats don't download properly)
1488 * `comment_sort`:
`top` or
`new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side).
1489 * `max_comments`: Maximum amount of comments to download (default all).
1490 * `max_comment_depth`: Maximum depth for nested comments. YouTube supports depths
1 or
2 (default).
1492 (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1493 * `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)
1496 * `language`: Languages to extract. Eg:
`funimation:language=english,japanese`
1497 * `version`: The video version to extract -
`uncut` or
`simulcast`
1500 * `video_types`: Types of videos to download - one or more of
`episodes`,
`movies`,
`clips`,
`trailers`
1502 NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
1507 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
1509 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`.
1511 See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1513 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
1515 If you are a plugin author, add
[ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
1521 yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1523 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.
1525 From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1531 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1532 ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
1535 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#L154-L452).
1537 Here's a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors (and a short message after the download is finished), converts the video to an mp3 file, implements a custom postprocessor and prints the final info_dict as json:
1543 from yt_dlp.postprocessor.common import PostProcessor
1547 def debug(self, msg):
1548 # For compatability with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
1549 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
1550 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
1555 def info(self, msg):
1558 def warning(self, msg):
1561 def error(self, msg):
1565 class MyCustomPP(PostProcessor):
1566 def run(self, info):
1567 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
1572 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1573 print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
1577 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
1578 'postprocessors': [{
1579 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1580 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
1581 'preferredquality': '192',
1583 'logger': MyLogger(),
1584 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1587 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1588 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP())
1589 info = ydl.extract_info('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc')
1590 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1593 See the public functions in [
`yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py`](yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py) for other available functions. Eg:
`ydl.download`,
`ydl.download_with_info_file`
1596 # DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1598 These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1600 #### Redundant options
1601 While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
1603 --get-description --print description
1604 --get-duration --print duration_string
1605 --get-filename --print filename
1606 --get-format --print format
1608 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1609 -e, --get-title --print title
1610 -g, --get-url --print urls
1611 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
1612 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1613 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
1614 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
1615 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
1618 #### Not recommended
1619 While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
1621 --all-formats -f all
1622 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
1623 --print-json -j --no-simulate
1624 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)
03d
1625 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
1626 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
1627 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
1628 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
1629 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
1630 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
1631 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
1632 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
1633 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
1634 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
1637 #### Developer options
1638 These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
1640 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
1641 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
1642 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
1643 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
1647 These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
1649 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
1650 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
1651 --dump-headers --print-traffic
1652 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
1653 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
1654 --load-info --load-info-json
1655 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
1656 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
1657 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
1658 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
1659 --split-tracks --split-chapters
1660 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
1661 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
1662 --write-srt --write-subs
1663 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
1665 #### Sponskrub Options
1666 Support for
[SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of
`--sponsorblock`
1668 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
1669 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
1670 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
1671 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
1672 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
1673 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
1674 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
1675 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
1677 #### No longer supported
1678 These options may no longer work as intended
1680 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
1681 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
1682 -C, --call-home Not implemented
1683 --no-call-home Default
1684 --include-ads No longer supported
1685 --no-include-ads Default
1686 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
1687 --no-write-annotations Default
1690 These options were deprecated since
2014 and have now been entirely removed
1692 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1693 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1694 -t, --title -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1695 -l, --literal -o accepts literal names
1698 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)
1701 For FAQ see the
[youtube-dl README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
projects / yt-dlp.git / blob