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, RCN 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, ciscowebex, Gettr, GoPro, N1, Theta, Veo, Vupload, NovaPlay
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, bbc, Bilibili, LinkedInLearning, parliamentlive, PolskieRadio, Streamable, vidme, francetv
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 <!-- Python
3.5+ uses VC++
14 and it is already embedded in the binary created
197 <!x-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=
26999 --x>
198 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.
201 While all the other dependancies are optional,
`ffmpeg` and
`ffprobe` are highly recommended
202 * [**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)
203 * [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen) - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
204 * [**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)
205 * [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets) - For downloading over websocket. Licenced under
[BSD3](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
206 * [**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)
207 * [**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)
208 * [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading
`rtmp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licenced under
[GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
209 * [**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)
210 * [**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)
211 * [**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)
212 * Any external downloader that you want to use with
`--downloader`
214 To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
216 The windows releases are already built with the python interpreter, mutagen, pycryptodomex and websockets included.
218 **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
224 To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and optionally mutagen, pycryptodomex, websockets)
226 python3 -m pip install -U -r requirements.txt
228 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.
230 You can also build the executable without any version info or metadata by using:
232 pyinstaller.exe yt_dlp\__main__.py --onefile --name yt-dlp
234 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
237 You will need the required build tools:
`python`,
`make` (GNU),
`pandoc`,
`zip`,
`pytest`
238 Then simply run
`make`. You can also run
`make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
240 **Note**: In either platform,
`devscripts\update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
244 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
246 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
247 <!-- Auto generated -->
250 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
251 --version Print program version and exit
252 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
253 sure that you have sufficient permissions
254 (run with sudo if needed)
255 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
256 The download will be considered successfull
257 even if the postprocessing fails
258 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download
259 errors; e.g. to skip unavailable videos in
261 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
262 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
263 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
264 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
265 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
267 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
269 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
270 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
271 from google videos for the search term
272 "large apple". Use the value "auto" to let
273 yt-dlp guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
274 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
275 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
276 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
277 this is not possible instead of searching
278 --ignore-config, --no-config Disable loading any configuration files
279 except the one provided by --config-location.
280 When given inside a configuration
281 file, no further configuration files are
282 loaded. Additionally, (for backward
283 compatibility) if this option is found
284 inside the system configuration file, the
285 user configuration is not loaded
286 --config-location PATH Location of the main configuration file;
287 either the path to the config or its
289 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
291 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
292 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate).
293 Currently only supported for YouTube
294 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
295 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
296 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
297 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
298 configurations by reverting some of the
299 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
300 default behavior" for details
303 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
304 To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
306 socks5://
127.0.0.1:
1080/. Pass in an empty
307 string (--proxy "") for direct connection
308 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
309 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
310 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
311 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
314 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
315 some geo-restricted sites. The default
316 proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
317 option is not present) is used for the
319 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
320 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
321 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
322 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
323 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
324 explicitly provided two-letter ISO
3166-
2
326 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
327 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
331 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is
1)
332 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
333 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
334 indices of the videos in the playlist
335 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
336 1,
2,
5,
8" if you want to download videos
337 indexed
1,
2,
5,
8 in the playlist. You can
338 specify range: "--playlist-items
339 1-
3,
7,
10-
13", it will download the videos
340 at index
1,
2,
3,
7,
10,
11,
12 and
13
341 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
342 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
343 SIZE (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
344 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
346 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date.
347 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
348 "(now|today)[+-][
0-
9](day|week|month|year)(s)?"
349 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
350 this date. The date formats accepted is the
352 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
353 this date. The date formats accepted is the
355 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Any field (see
356 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE") can be compared with a
357 number or a string using the operators
358 defined in "Filtering formats". You can
359 also simply specify a field to match if the
360 field is present and "!field" to check if
361 the field is not present. In addition,
362 Python style regular expression matching
363 can be done using "~=", and multiple
364 filters can be checked with "&". Use a "
\"
365 to escape "&" or quotes if needed. Eg:
366 --match-filter "!is_live & like_count>?
100
367 & description~='(?i)
\bcats \& dogs
\b'"
368 matches only videos that are not live, has
369 a like count more than
100 (or the like
370 field is not available), and also has a
371 description that contains the phrase "cats
372 & dogs" (ignoring case)
373 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
374 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
375 to a video and a playlist
376 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
377 a video and a playlist
378 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
380 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
381 archive file. Record the IDs of all
382 downloaded videos in it
383 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
384 a file that is in the archive
385 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
386 a file that has been filtered out
387 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest
388 of the playlist is skipped
389 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
392 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
393 video that should be download concurrently
395 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
397 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
398 below which throttling is assumed and the
399 video data is re-extracted (e.g.
100K)
400 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
402 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
403 is
10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
405 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
406 hlsnative and ISM (default)
407 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
408 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading if a fragment is unavailable
409 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
410 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
411 downloading is finished
412 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
413 downloading is finished (default)
414 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
416 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
417 from an initial value of --buffer-size
419 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
420 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
421 downloading (e.g.
10485760 or
10M) (default
422 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
423 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
425 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
426 --no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
428 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
429 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
431 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
432 allowing some players to play the video
433 while downloading, and reducing the chance
434 of file corruption if download is
435 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
437 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
438 videos. This is default when not
439 downloading live streams
440 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
441 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
442 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
443 use it for. Currently supports native,
444 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
445 wget (Recommended: aria2c). You can use
446 this option multiple times to set different
447 downloaders for different protocols. For
448 example, --downloader aria2c --downloader
449 "dash,m3u8:native" will use aria2c for
450 http/ftp downloads, and the native
451 downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
452 (Alias: --external-downloader)
453 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
454 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
455 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
456 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to
457 different positions using the same syntax
458 as --postprocessor-args. You can use this
459 option multiple times to give different
460 arguments to different downloaders
461 (Alias: --external-downloader-args)
463 ## Filesystem Options:
464 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
465 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
466 with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
468 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
469 downloaded. Specify the type of file and
470 the path separated by a colon ":". All the
471 same types as --output are supported.
472 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
473 (default) and "temp" paths. All
474 intermediary files are first downloaded to
475 the temp path and then the final files are
476 moved over to the home path after download
477 is finished. This option is ignored if
478 --output is an absolute path
479 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
480 TEMPLATE" for details
481 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder value for unavailable meta
482 fields in output filename template
484 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
485 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
487 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
489 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be windows compatible
490 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames windows compatible only if
491 using windows (default)
492 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
493 extension) to the specified number of
495 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
496 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files.
497 This option includes --no-continue
498 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
499 related files (default)
500 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
502 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
503 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
504 restart download of the entire file
505 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
506 into output file (default)
507 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
509 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the
510 file modification time (default)
511 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
512 the file modification time
513 --write-description Write video description to a .description
515 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
516 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
517 (this may contain personal information)
518 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
519 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
520 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
521 --write-description etc. (default)
522 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
523 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
524 --clean-infojson Remove some private fields such as
525 filenames from the infojson. Note that it
526 could still contain some personal
527 information (default)
528 --no-clean-infojson Write all fields to the infojson
529 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
530 infojson. The comments are fetched even
531 without this option if the extraction is
532 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
533 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
534 extraction is known to be quick
535 (Alias: --no-get-comments)
536 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
537 (created with the "--write-info-json"
539 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
541 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
543 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[:PROFILE]
544 Load cookies from a user profile of the
545 given web browser. Currently supported
546 browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium,
547 edge, firefox, opera, safari, vivaldi. You
548 can specify the user profile name or
549 directory using "BROWSER:PROFILE_NAME" or
550 "BROWSER:PROFILE_PATH". If no profile is
551 given, the most recently accessed one is
553 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
554 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
555 can store some downloaded information (such
556 as client ids and signatures) permanently.
557 By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
559 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
560 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
562 ## Thumbnail Options:
563 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
564 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
566 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
567 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
568 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
570 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
571 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
572 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
573 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
574 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
575 OS caches the URL based on the file path
576 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
577 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
579 ## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
580 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with
581 --verbose, print the log to stderr
582 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
583 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
585 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
587 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Usefull
588 for extracting metadata even if the videos
589 are not actually available for download
591 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
592 formats are found (default)
593 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
594 related files (Alias: --no-download)
595 -O, --print TEMPLATE Quiet, but print the given fields for each
596 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
597 used. Either a field name or same syntax as
598 the output template can be used
599 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
600 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
601 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
602 description of available keys
603 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
604 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
605 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
606 a playlist, the whole playlist information
607 is dumped in a single line
608 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be
609 written as far as no errors occur, even if
610 -s or another simulation option is used
611 (Alias: --force-download-archive)
612 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
613 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
614 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
615 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
616 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
617 Template for progress outputs, optionally
618 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
619 "download-title:" (the console title),
620 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
621 The video's fields are accessible under the
622 "info" key and the progress attributes are
623 accessible under "progress" key. Eg:
624 --console-title --progress-template
625 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
626 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
627 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
628 to debug problems (very verbose)
629 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
630 files in the current directory to debug
632 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
635 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
636 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
637 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
638 information about the video (Currently
639 supported only for YouTube)
640 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
641 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
642 access is restricted to one domain
643 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
644 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
645 option multiple times
646 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
647 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
648 or fribidi executable in PATH
649 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
650 during data extraction
651 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
652 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
653 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
654 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
655 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can
656 only be used along with --min-sleep-interval
657 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
660 ## Video Format Options:
661 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
663 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
664 "Sorting Formats" for more details
665 --S-force, --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
666 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
667 Formats" for more details
668 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
669 specified sort order (default), see
670 "Sorting Formats" for more details
671 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
673 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for
674 each output file (default)
675 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
677 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for
678 each output file (default)
679 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
680 over non-free ones of same quality. Use
681 with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
682 containers irrespective of quality
683 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
685 --check-formats Check that the formats selected are
686 actually downloadable
687 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats selected are
688 actually downloadable
689 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
690 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
691 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
692 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
693 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
694 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
697 --write-subs Write subtitle file
698 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
699 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
700 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
701 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
702 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
703 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
704 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
705 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
706 preference, for example: "srt" or
708 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
709 be regex) or "all" separated by commas.
710 (Eg: --sub-langs en.*,ja) You can prefix
711 the language code with a "-" to exempt it
712 from the requested languages. (Eg: --sub-
713 langs all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a
714 list of available language tags
716 ## Authentication Options:
717 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
718 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
719 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
720 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
721 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
722 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
723 either the path or its containing
724 directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
725 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
726 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
727 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
728 a list of available MSOs
729 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
730 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
731 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
733 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
736 ## Post-Processing Options:
737 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
738 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
739 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format to convert the audio
740 to when -x is used. Currently supported
741 formats are: best (default) or one of
742 best|aac|flac|mp3|m4a|opus|vorbis|wav
743 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality, insert a
744 value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse) for
745 VBR or a specific bitrate like
128K
747 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
748 necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv|flv
749 |webm|mov|avi|mp3|mka|m4a|ogg|opus). If
750 target container does not support the
751 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
752 can specify multiple rules; Eg.
753 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to
754 m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
755 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
756 re-encoding is necessary. The syntax and
757 supported formats are the same as --remux-video
758 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
759 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
760 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
761 to give the argument to the specified
762 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
763 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
764 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
765 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
766 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
767 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
768 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
769 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
770 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
771 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
772 specified executable only when being used
773 by the specified postprocessor.
774 Additionally, for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o"
775 can be appended to the prefix optionally
776 followed by a number to pass the argument
777 before the specified input/output file. Eg:
778 --ppa "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can
779 use this option multiple times to give
780 different arguments to different
781 postprocessors. (Alias: --ppa)
782 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
783 after post-processing
784 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
785 post-processing (default)
786 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
787 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
788 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
790 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
791 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
792 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
793 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also adds
794 chapters to file unless --no-add-chapters
795 is used (Alias: --add-metadata)
796 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
797 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
798 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
799 (Alias: --add-chapters)
800 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default)
801 (Alias: --no-add-chapters)
802 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
803 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
805 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
806 Replace text in a metadata field using the
807 given regex. This option can be used
809 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
810 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
811 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
812 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
813 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
814 default; fix file if we can, warn
815 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
817 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
818 path to the binary or its containing
820 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
821 downloading and post-processing. Same
822 syntax as the output template can be used
823 to pass any field as arguments to the
824 command. An additional field "filepath"
825 that contains the final path of the
826 downloaded file is also available. If no
827 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
828 to the end of the command. This option can
829 be used multiple times
830 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
831 --exec-before-download CMD Execute a command before the actual
832 download. The syntax is the same as --exec
833 but "filepath" is not available. This
834 option can be used multiple times
835 --no-exec-before-download Remove any previously defined
836 --exec-before-download
837 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
838 (currently supported: srt|vtt|ass|lrc)
839 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
840 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
841 (currently supported: jpg|png)
842 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
843 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix
844 can be used with "--paths" and "--output"
845 to set the output filename for the split
846 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
847 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters
849 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
850 given regular expression. This option can
851 be used multiple times
852 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
854 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes around the chapters before
855 removing/splitting them. Requires a
856 reencode and thus is very slow, but the
857 resulting video may have fewer artifacts
859 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
860 when cutting/splitting (default)
861 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS] The (case sensitive) name of plugin
862 postprocessors to be enabled, and
863 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
864 seperated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
865 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
866 The "when" argument determines when the
867 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
868 "pre_process" (after extraction),
869 "before_dl" (before video download),
870 "post_process" (after video download;
871 default) or "after_move" (after moving file
872 to their final locations). This option can
873 be used multiple times to add different
876 ## SponsorBlock Options:
877 Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
878 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
879 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
881 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
882 for, separated by commas. Available
883 categories are all, sponsor, intro, outro,
884 selfpromo, interaction, preview,
885 music_offtopic. You can prefix the category
886 with a "-" to exempt it. See
887 https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/index.php/Segment_Categories
888 for description of the categories. Eg:
889 --sponsorblock-query all,-preview
890 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
891 the video file, separated by commas. If a
892 category is present in both mark and
893 remove, remove takes precedence. The syntax
894 and available categories are the same as
895 for --sponsorblock-mark
896 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
897 The title template for SponsorBlock
898 chapters created by --sponsorblock-mark.
899 The same syntax as the output template is
900 used, but the only available fields are
901 start_time, end_time, category, categories,
902 name, category_names. Defaults to
903 "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
904 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
905 --sponsorblock-remove
906 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
907 https://sponsor.ajay.app
909 ## Extractor Options:
910 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor
911 errors (default is
3), or "infinite"
912 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
913 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
914 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
915 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
916 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
917 discontinuities such as ad breaks
918 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
919 formats at discontinuities such as ad
921 --extractor-args KEY:ARGS Pass these arguments to the extractor. See
922 "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can
923 use this option multiple times to give
924 arguments for different extractors
928 You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
930 1. **Main Configuration**: The file given by
`--config-location`
931 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.
932 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
933 1. **User Configuration**:
934 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
935 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
936 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
937 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
939 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
941 `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to
`~/.config` if undefined. On windows,
`~` points to %HOME% if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`.
942 1. **System Configuration**:
`/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
944 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:
946 # Lines starting with # are comments
948 # Always extract audio
951 # Do not copy the mtime
955 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
957 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
958 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
961 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`.
963 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.
965 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
967 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:
970 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
972 After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
974 machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
978 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
979 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
981 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
983 The default location of the .netrc file is
`$HOME` (
`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
987 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.
989 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
991 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).
993 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.
995 The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
996 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
997 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`
998 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`
999 1. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified seperated with a
`,`. Eg:
`%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
1000 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`
1001 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
1002 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
1004 To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1006 %(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
1009 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.
1011 The available fields are:
1013 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1014 - `title` (string): Video title
1015 - `url` (string): Video URL
1016 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1017 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
1018 - `description` (string): The description of the video
1019 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1020 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1021 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1022 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
1023 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1024 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
1025 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
1026 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
1027 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1028 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1029 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1030 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1031 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
1032 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
1033 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1034 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1035 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1036 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1037 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
1038 - `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)
1039 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
1040 - `live_status` (string): One of 'is_live', 'was_live', 'is_upcoming', 'not_live'
1041 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
1042 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
1043 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
1044 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is 'private', 'premium_only', 'subscriber_only', 'needs_auth', 'unlisted' or 'public'
1045 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1046 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
1047 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
1048 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by
`--format`
1049 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
1050 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
1051 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
1052 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
1053 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1054 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1055 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
1056 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1057 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1058 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
1059 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
1060 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
1061 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
1062 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
1063 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
1064 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1065 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1066 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
1067 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at
`--autonumber-start`
1068 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
1069 - `playlist` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
1070 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1071 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
1072 - `playlist_id` (string): Playlist identifier
1073 - `playlist_title` (string): Playlist title
1074 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1075 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
1076 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
1077 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as
`webpage_url` for playlist entries)
1079 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1081 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1082 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1083 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1085 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1087 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1088 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1089 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1090 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1091 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1092 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1093 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1095 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1097 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1098 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1099 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1100 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1101 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1102 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1103 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1104 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1105 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1106 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1108 Available for
`chapter:` prefix when using
`--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
1110 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1111 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1112 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1113 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1115 Available only when used in
`--print`:
1117 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1118 - `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
1120 Available only in
`--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1122 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1123 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1124 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1125 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1126 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1127 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
1129 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).
1131 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.
1133 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`.
1135 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.
1137 To use percent literals in an output template use
`%%`. To output to stdout use
`-o -`.
1139 The current default template is
`%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
1141 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:
1143 #### Output template and Windows batch files
1145 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"`.
1147 #### Output template examples
1149 Note that on Windows you need to use double quotes instead of single.
1152 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
1153 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
1155 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1156 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
1158 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
1159 $ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
1161 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
1162 $ yt-dlp -o '%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
1164 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
1165 $ yt-dlp -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
1167 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
1168 $ 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/
1170 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
1171 $ 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
1173 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
1174 $ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
1179 By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1180 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`.
1182 **Deprecation warning**: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to
`-f bv*+ba/b` similar to normal downloads. If you want to preserve the
`-f b/bv+ba` setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.
1184 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.
1186 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1188 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.
1190 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.
1192 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1194 - `all`: Select all formats
1195 - `mergeall`: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with
`--audio-multistreams`,
`--video-multistreams` or both)
1196 - `b*`,
`best*`: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
1197 - `w*`,
`worst*`: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio
1198 - `b`,
`best`: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1199 - `w`,
`worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1200 - `bv`,
`bestvideo`: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec=none]`
1201 - `wv`,
`worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec=none]`
1202 - `bv*`,
`bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none]`
1203 - `wv*`,
`worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec!=none]`
1204 - `ba`,
`bestaudio`: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec=none]`
1205 - `wa`,
`worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to
`worst*[vcodec=none]`
1206 - `ba*`,
`bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec!=none]`
1207 - `wa*`,
`worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`worst*[acodec!=none]`
1209 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.
1211 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.
1213 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.
1215 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`.
1217 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.
1219 **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
1221 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`.
1223 ## Filtering Formats
1225 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in
`-f "best[height=720]"` (or
`-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
1227 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons
`<`,
`<=`,
`>`,
`>=`,
`=` (equals),
`!=` (not equals):
1229 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1230 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
1231 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
1232 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1233 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1234 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1235 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1238 Also filtering work for comparisons
`=` (equals),
`^=` (starts with),
`$=` (ends with),
`*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
1240 - `ext`: File extension
1241 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
1242 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
1243 - `container`: Name of the container format
1244 - `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`)
1245 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
1246 - `language`: Language code
1248 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation
`!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g.
`!*=` (does not contain).
1250 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.
1252 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.
1254 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]'`.
1258 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...`.
1260 The available fields are:
1262 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1263 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
1264 - `ie_pref`: The format preference as given by the extractor
1265 - `lang`: Language preference as given by the extractor
1266 - `quality`: The quality of the format as given by the extractor
1267 - `source`: Preference of the source as given by the extractor
1268 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (
`https`/
`ftps` >
`http`/
`ftp` >
`m3u8_native`/
`m3u8` >
`http_dash_segments`>
`websocket_frag` > other >
`mms`/
`rtsp` > unknown >
`f4f`/
`f4m`)
1269 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (
`av01` >
`vp9.2` >
`vp9` >
`h265` >
`h264` >
`vp8` >
`h263` >
`theora` > other > unknown)
1270 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (
`opus` >
`vorbis` >
`aac` >
`mp4a` >
`mp3` >
`ac3` >
`dts` > other > unknown)
1271 - `codec`: Equivalent to
`vcodec,acodec`
1272 - `vext`: Video Extension (
`mp4` >
`webm` >
`flv` > other > unknown). If
`--prefer-free-formats` is used,
`webm` is prefered.
1273 - `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`.
1274 - `ext`: Equivalent to
`vext,aext`
1275 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.
1276 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1277 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1278 - `height`: Height of video
1279 - `width`: Width of video
1280 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1281 - `fps`: Framerate of video
1282 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1283 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1284 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1285 - `br`: Equivalent to using
`tbr,vbr,abr`
1286 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1288 **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.
1290 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.
1292 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.
1294 Note that the default has
`codec:vp9.2`; i.e.
`av1` is not prefered
1296 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`.
1298 **Tip**: You can use the
`-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1300 ## Format Selection examples
1302 Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1305 # Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1306 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1307 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv+ba/b'
1309 # Download best format that contains video,
1310 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1311 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba/b'
1316 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1317 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1318 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1319 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv,ba' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
1321 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1322 # and all audio-only formats into one file
1323 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]' --audio-multistreams
1325 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1326 # and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1327 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba+ba.2' --audio-multistreams
1330 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1331 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
1333 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1334 $ yt-dlp -f 'wv*+wa/w'
1336 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1339 # Download the smallest video available
1340 $ yt-dlp -S '+size,+br'
1344 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1345 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b'
1347 # Download the best video with the best extension
1348 # (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1353 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1354 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1355 $ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w'
1357 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1358 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1359 $ yt-dlp -S 'height:480'
1361 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1362 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1363 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1364 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1365 $ yt-dlp -S 'res:480'
1369 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1370 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1371 $ yt-dlp -f 'b[filesize<50M] / w'
1373 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1374 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1375 $ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize:50M'
1377 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1378 $ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize~50M'
1382 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1383 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1384 $ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1386 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1387 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1392 # Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
1393 $ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[vcodec^=avc1] / (bv*+ba/b)'
1395 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1396 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1397 $ yt-dlp -S 'codec:h264'
1399 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1400 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1401 $ yt-dlp -S '+codec:h264'
1405 # More complex examples
1407 # Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1408 # or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1409 $ yt-dlp -f '((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)'
1411 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1412 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1413 # preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1414 $ yt-dlp -S 'res:720,fps'
1418 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1419 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1420 # preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1421 $ yt-dlp -S '+res:480,codec,br'
1424 # MODIFYING METADATA
1426 The metadata obtained the the extractors can be modified by using
`--parse-metadata` and
`--replace-in-metadata`
1428 `--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.
1430 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.
1432 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`.
1434 This option also has a few special uses:
1435 * 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
1436 * 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"
1438 For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1440 Metadata fields|From
1442 `title`|
`track` or
`title`
1443 `date`|
`upload_date`
1444 `description`,
`synopsis`|
`description`
1445 `purl`,
`comment`|
`webpage_url`
1446 `track`|
`track_number`
1447 `artist`|
`artist`,
`creator`,
`uploader` or
`uploader_id`
1450 `album_artist`|
`album_artist`
1451 `disc`|
`disc_number`
1453 `season_number`|
`season_number`
1454 `episode_id`|
`episode` or
`episode_id`
1455 `episode_sort`|
`episode_number`
1456 `language` of each stream|From the format's
`language`
1457 **Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1460 ## Modifying metadata examples
1462 Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
1465 # Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
1466 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'title:%(artist)s - %(title)s'
1469 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)'
1471 # Set title as "Series name S01E05"
1472 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata '%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s'
1474 # Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url
1475 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)' --add-metadata
1477 # Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1478 $ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata 'title,uploader' '[ _]' '-'
1482 # EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1484 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"`
1486 The following extractors use this feature:
1488 * `skip`:
`hls` or
`dash` (or both) to skip download of the respective manifests
1489 * `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
1490 * `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
1491 * `include_live_dash`: Include live dash formats (These formats don't download properly)
1492 * `comment_sort`:
`top` or
`new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side).
1493 * `max_comments`: Maximum amount of comments to download (default all).
1494 * `max_comment_depth`: Maximum depth for nested comments. YouTube supports depths
1 or
2 (default).
1496 (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1497 * `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)
1500 * `language`: Languages to extract. Eg:
`funimation:language=english,japanese`
1501 * `version`: The video version to extract -
`uncut` or
`simulcast`
1504 * `video_types`: Types of videos to download - one or more of
`episodes`,
`movies`,
`clips`,
`trailers`
1506 NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
1511 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
1513 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`.
1515 See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1517 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
1519 If you are a plugin author, add
[ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
1525 yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1527 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.
1529 From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1535 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1536 ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
1539 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).
1541 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:
1547 from yt_dlp.postprocessor.common import PostProcessor
1551 def debug(self, msg):
1552 # For compatability with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
1553 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
1554 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
1559 def info(self, msg):
1562 def warning(self, msg):
1565 def error(self, msg):
1569 class MyCustomPP(PostProcessor):
1570 def run(self, info):
1571 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
1576 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1577 print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
1581 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
1582 'postprocessors': [{
1583 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1584 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
1585 'preferredquality': '192',
1587 'logger': MyLogger(),
1588 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1591 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1592 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP())
1593 info = ydl.extract_info('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc')
1594 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1597 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`
1600 # DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1602 These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1604 #### Redundant options
1605 While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
1607 --get-description --print description
1608 --get-duration --print duration_string
1609 --get-filename --print filename
1610 --get-format --print format
1612 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1613 -e, --get-title --print title
1614 -g, --get-url --print urls
1615 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
1616 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1617 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
1618 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
1619 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
1622 #### Not recommended
1623 While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
1625 --all-formats -f all
1626 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
1627 --print-json -j --no-simulate
1628 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)
03d
1629 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
1630 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
1631 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
1632 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
1633 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
1634 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
1635 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
1636 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
1637 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
1638 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
1641 #### Developer options
1642 These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
1644 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
1645 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
1646 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
1647 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
1651 These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
1653 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
1654 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
1655 --dump-headers --print-traffic
1656 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
1657 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
1658 --load-info --load-info-json
1659 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
1660 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
1661 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
1662 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
1663 --split-tracks --split-chapters
1664 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
1665 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
1666 --write-srt --write-subs
1667 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
1669 #### Sponskrub Options
1670 Support for
[SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of
`--sponsorblock`
1672 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
1673 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
1674 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
1675 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
1676 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
1677 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
1678 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
1679 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
1681 #### No longer supported
1682 These options may no longer work as intended
1684 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
1685 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
1686 -C, --call-home Not implemented
1687 --no-call-home Default
1688 --include-ads No longer supported
1689 --no-include-ads Default
1690 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
1691 --no-write-annotations Default
1694 These options were deprecated since
2014 and have now been entirely removed
1696 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1697 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1698 -t, --title -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
1699 -l, --literal -o accepts literal names
1702 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)
1705 For FAQ see the
[youtube-dl README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
projects / yt-dlp.git / blob