1 youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
3 - [INSTALLATION](#installation)
4 - [DESCRIPTION](#description)
6 - [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
7 - [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
8 - [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
9 - [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
11 - [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
12 - [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
14 - [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
18 To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
20 sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
21 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
23 If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
25 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
26 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
28 Windows users can
[download a .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in their home directory or any other location on their
[PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29).
30 OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with
[Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
32 brew install youtube-dl
36 sudo pip install youtube-dl
38 Alternatively, refer to the
[developer instructions](#developer-instructions) for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see the [youtube-dl Download Page](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html).
41 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
42 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
43 2.6,
2.7, or
3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
44 your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
45 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
47 youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
50 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
51 --version Print program version and exit
52 -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
53 sure that you have sufficient permissions
54 (run with sudo if needed)
55 -i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
56 skip unavailable videos in a playlist
57 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
58 playlist or the command line) if an error
60 --dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
61 --list-extractors List all supported extractors
62 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
64 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
66 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
67 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
68 from google videos for youtube-dl "large
69 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
70 youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
71 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
72 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
73 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
74 this is not possible instead of searching.
75 --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
76 in the global configuration file /etc
77 /youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
78 configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
79 dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
81 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
83 --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
86 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
87 an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
89 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
90 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
92 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
94 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
96 --cn-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
97 some Chinese sites. The default proxy
98 specified by --proxy (or none, if the
99 options is not present) is used for the
100 actual downloading. (experimental)
103 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is
1)
104 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
105 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
106 indices of the videos in the playlist
107 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
108 1,
2,
5,
8" if you want to download videos
109 indexed
1,
2,
5,
8 in the playlist. You can
110 specify range: "--playlist-items
111 1-
3,
7,
10-
13", it will download the videos
112 at index
1,
2,
3,
7,
10,
11,
12 and
13.
113 --match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
115 --reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
117 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
118 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
119 SIZE (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
120 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
122 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date
123 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
124 this date (i.e. inclusive)
125 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
126 this date (i.e. inclusive)
127 --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
129 --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
131 --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter (experimental).
132 Specify any key (see help for -o for a list
133 of available keys) to match if the key is
134 present, !key to check if the key is not
135 present,key > NUMBER (like "comment_count >
136 12", also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to
137 compare against a number, and & to require
138 multiple matches. Values which are not
139 known are excluded unless you put a
140 question mark (?) after the operator.For
141 example, to only match videos that have
142 been liked more than
100 times and disliked
143 less than
50 times (or the dislike
144 functionality is not available at the given
145 service), but who also have a description,
146 use --match-filter "like_count >
100 &
147 dislike_count <?
50 & description" .
148 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
149 to a video and a playlist.
150 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
151 a video and a playlist.
152 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
154 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
155 archive file. Record the IDs of all
156 downloaded videos in it.
157 --include-ads Download advertisements as well
161 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT Maximum download rate in bytes per second
163 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
165 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
167 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
168 size. By default, the buffer size is
169 automatically resized from an initial value
171 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
172 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
173 expected filesize (experimental)
174 --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
175 ffmpeg (experimental)
176 --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
178 aria2c,axel,curl,httpie,wget
179 --external-downloader-args ARGS Give these arguments to the external
182 ## Filesystem Options:
183 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
185 --id Use only video ID in file name
186 -o, --output TEMPLATE Output filename template. Use %(title)s to
187 get the title, %(uploader)s for the
188 uploader name, %(uploader_id)s for the
189 uploader nickname if different,
190 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
191 incremented number, %(ext)s for the
192 filename extension, %(format)s for the
193 format description (like "
22 -
1280x720" or
194 "HD"), %(format_id)s for the unique id of
195 the format (like YouTube's itags: "
137"),
196 %(upload_date)s for the upload date
197 (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
198 (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
199 video id, %(playlist_title)s,
200 %(playlist_id)s, or %(playlist)s (=title if
201 present, ID otherwise) for the playlist the
202 video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
203 position in the playlist. %(height)s and
204 %(width)s for the width and height of the
205 video format. %(resolution)s for a textual
206 description of the resolution of the video
207 format. %% for a literal percent. Use - to
208 output to stdout. Can also be used to
209 download to a different directory, for
210 example with -o '/my/downloads/%(uploader)s
211 /%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
212 --autonumber-size NUMBER Specify the number of digits in
213 %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
214 filename template or --auto-number option
216 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
217 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
219 -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
220 "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] Number
221 downloaded files starting from
00000
222 -t, --title [deprecated] Use title in file name
224 -l, --literal [deprecated] Alias of --title
225 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite files
226 -c, --continue Force resume of partially downloaded files.
227 By default, youtube-dl will resume
228 downloads if possible.
229 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded files
230 (restart from beginning)
231 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
233 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
234 the file modification time
235 --write-description Write video description to a .description
237 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
238 --write-annotations Write video annotations to a
239 .annotations.xml file
240 --load-info FILE JSON file containing the video information
241 (created with the "--write-info-json"
243 --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
245 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
246 can store some downloaded information
247 permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
248 /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
249 moment, only YouTube player files (for
250 videos with obfuscated signatures) are
251 cached, but that may change.
252 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
253 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
256 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
257 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
258 --list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
261 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
262 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
263 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
264 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
266 --skip-download Do not download the video
267 -g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
268 -e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
269 --get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
270 --get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
271 --get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
272 --get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
273 --get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
274 --get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
275 -j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
276 See --output for a description of available
278 -J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
279 for each command-line argument. If the URL
280 refers to a playlist, dump the whole
281 playlist information in a single line.
282 --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
283 JSON (video is still being downloaded).
284 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
285 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
286 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
287 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
288 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
289 to debug problems (very verbose)
290 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
291 files in the current directory to debug
293 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
294 -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
295 --no-call-home Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for
299 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
300 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
301 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
302 information about the video. (Currently
303 supported only for YouTube)
304 --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
305 --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
306 access is restricted to one domain
307 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
308 separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
309 option multiple times
310 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
311 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
312 or fribidi executable in PATH
313 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
316 ## Video Format Options:
317 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see the "FORMAT
318 SELECTION" for all the info
319 --all-formats Download all available video formats
320 --prefer-free-formats Prefer free video formats unless a specific
322 -F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
324 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
325 related data on YouTube videos
326 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
327 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
328 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
329 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
332 --write-sub Write subtitle file
333 --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file
335 --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
337 --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
338 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
339 preference, for example: "srt" or
341 --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
342 (optional) separated by commas, use IETF
343 language tags like 'en,pt'
345 ## Authentication Options:
346 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
347 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
348 out, youtube-dl will ask interactively.
349 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor auth code
350 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
351 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
353 ## Post-processing Options:
354 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
355 (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
357 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
358 "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or "wav";
360 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert
361 a value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse)
362 for VBR or a specific bitrate like
128K
364 --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
365 necessary (currently supported:
366 mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
367 --postprocessor-args ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessor
368 -k, --keep-video Keep the video file on disk after the post-
369 processing; the video is erased by default
370 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files; the
371 post-processed files are overwritten by
373 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mkv
375 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
376 --add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
377 --metadata-from-title FORMAT Parse additional metadata like song title /
378 artist from the video title. The format
379 syntax is the same as --output, the parsed
380 parameters replace existing values.
381 Additional templates: %(album)s,
382 %(artist)s. Example: --metadata-from-title
383 "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a title
384 like "Coldplay - Paradise"
385 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
386 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
387 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
388 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
389 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
390 default; fix file if we can, warn
392 --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
393 postprocessors (default)
394 --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
396 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary;
397 either the path to the binary or its
398 containing directory.
399 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
400 downloading, similar to find's -exec
401 syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
402 /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
403 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
404 (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt)
408 You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux, the system wide configuration file is located at
`/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and the user wide configuration file at
`~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the user wide configuration file locations are
`%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` or
`C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf`. For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime and use a proxy:
412 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
415 You can use
`--ignore-config` if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
417 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
419 You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password with
`--username` and
`--password`) in order not to pass credentials as command line arguments on every youtube-dl execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a
[`.netrc` file](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a
`.netrc` file in your
`$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by you only:
422 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
424 After that you can add credentials for extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of extractor in lowercase:
426 machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
430 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
431 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
433 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
435 On Windows you may also need to setup the
`%HOME%` environment variable manually.
439 The
`-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in
`youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format
`%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
441 - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
442 - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
443 - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
444 - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
445 - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
446 - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
447 - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
448 - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
449 - `playlist`: The sequence will be replaced by the name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
450 - `playlist_index`: The sequence will be replaced by the index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist.
451 - `format_id`: The sequence will be replaced by the format code specified by
`--format`.
452 - `duration`: The sequence will be replaced by the length of the video in seconds.
454 The current default template is
`%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
456 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:
459 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
460 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
461 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
462 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
467 By default youtube-dl tries to download the best quality, but sometimes you may want to download in a different format.
468 The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example
`-f 22`. You can get the list of available formats using
`--list-formats`, you can also use a file extension (currently it supports aac, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm) or the special names
`best`,
`bestvideo`,
`bestaudio` and
`worst`.
470 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, as in
`-f 22/17/18`. You can also filter the video results by putting a condition in brackets, as in
`-f "best[height=720]"` (or
`-f "[filesize>10M]"`). This works for filesize, height, width, tbr, abr, vbr, asr, and fps and the comparisons <, <=, >, >=, =, != and for ext, acodec, vcodec, container, and protocol and the comparisons =, != . 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. Use commas to download multiple formats, such as
`-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`. You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file using
`-f <video-format>+<audio-format>` (requires ffmpeg or avconv), for example
`-f bestvideo+bestaudio`. 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]'`.
472 Since the end of April
2015 and version
2015.04.26 youtube-dl uses
`-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best` as default format selection (see #
5447, #
5456). If ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading
`bestvideo` and
`bestaudio` separately and muxing them together into a single file giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to
`best` and results in downloading the best available quality served as a single file.
`best` is also needed for videos that don't come from YouTube because they don't provide the audio and video in two different files. If you want to only download some dash formats (for example if you are not interested in getting videos with a resolution higher than
1080p), you can add
`-f bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best` to your configuration file. Note that if you use youtube-dl to stream to
`stdout` (and most likely to pipe it to your media player then), i.e. you explicitly specify output template as
`-o -`, youtube-dl still uses
`-f best` format selection in order to start content delivery immediately to your player and not to wait until
`bestvideo` and
`bestaudio` are downloaded and muxed.
474 If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (prior to youtube-dl
2015.04.26), i.e. you want to download the best available quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify your choice with
`-f best`. You may want to add it to the [configuration file](#configuration) in order not to type it every time you run youtube-dl.
478 Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options
`--date`,
`--datebefore` or
`--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
480 - Absolute dates: Dates in the format
`YYYYMMDD`.
481 - Relative dates: Dates in the format
`(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
486 # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
487 $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
489 # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
490 $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
492 $ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
493 $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
498 ### How do I update youtube-dl?
500 If you've followed
[our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run
`youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux,
`sudo youtube-dl -U`).
502 If you have used pip, a simple
`sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
504 If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distribution serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
506 As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
508 sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
510 Afterwards, simply follow
[our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
513 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
514 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
518 Again, from then on you'll be able to update with
`sudo youtube-dl -U`.
520 ### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
522 YouTube changed their playlist format in March
2014 and later on, so you'll need at least youtube-dl
2014.07.25 to download all YouTube videos.
524 If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to
[report bugs](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug) to the [Ubuntu packaging guys](mailto:ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com?subject=outdated%
20version%
20of%
20youtube-dl) - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
526 ### Do I always have to pass `-citw`?
528 By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different,
[please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular, the only option out of
`-citw` that is regularly useful is
`-i`.
530 ### Can you please put the `-b` option back?
532 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be
1080p or
720p in some cases, so you no longer need the
`-b` option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the
`-f` option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
534 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
536 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We're
[considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
538 ### Do I need any other programs?
540 youtube-dl works fine on its own on most sites. However, if you want to convert video/audio, you'll need
[avconv](https://libav.org/) or
[ffmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/). On some sites - most notably YouTube - videos can be retrieved in a higher quality format without sound. youtube-dl will detect whether avconv/ffmpeg is present and automatically pick the best option.
542 Videos or video formats streamed via RTMP protocol can only be downloaded when
[rtmpdump](https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/) is installed. Downloading MMS and RTSP videos requires either
[mplayer](http://mplayerhq.hu/) or
[mpv](https://mpv.io/) to be installed.
544 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
546 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as
[vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or
[mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
548 ### I extracted a video URL with `-g`, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
550 It depends a lot on the service. In many cases, requests for the video (to download/play it) must come from the same IP address and with the same cookies. Use the
`--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use
`--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
552 It may be beneficial to use IPv6; in some cases, the restrictions are only applied to IPv4. Some services (sometimes only for a subset of videos) do not restrict the video URL by IP address, cookie, or user-agent, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
554 Please bear in mind that some URL protocols are **not** supported by browsers out of the box, including RTMP. If you are using
`-g`, your own downloader must support these as well.
556 If you want to play the video on a machine that is not running youtube-dl, you can relay the video content from the machine that runs youtube-dl. You can use
`-o -` to let youtube-dl stream a video to stdout, or simply allow the player to download the files written by youtube-dl in turn.
558 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
560 YouTube has switched to a new video info format in July
2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
562 ### ERROR: unable to download video
564 YouTube requires an additional signature since September
2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
566 ### Video URL contains an ampersand and I'm getting some strange output `[1] 2839` or `'v' is not recognized as an internal or external command`
568 That's actually the output from your shell. Since ampersand is one of the special shell characters it's interpreted by the shell preventing you from passing the whole URL to youtube-dl. To disable your shell from interpreting the ampersands (or any other special characters) you have to either put the whole URL in quotes or escape them with a backslash (which approach will work depends on your shell).
570 For example if your URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=
4&v=BaW_jenozKc you should end up with following command:
572 ```youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc'```
576 ```youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4\&v=BaW_jenozKc```
578 For Windows you have to use the double quotes:
580 ```youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc"```
582 ### ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u'OF'
584 In February
2015, the new YouTube player contained a character sequence in a string that was misinterpreted by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
586 ### HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
588 These two error codes indicate that the service is blocking your IP address because of overuse. Contact the service and ask them to unblock your IP address, or - if you have acquired a whitelisted IP address already - use the [
`--proxy` or
`--source-address` options](#network-options) to select another IP address.
590 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
594 File "youtube-dl", line
2
595 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '
\x93' ...
597 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python
2.6 or
2.7.
599 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
601 Since June
2012 (#
342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to
`youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the
`__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run
`make youtube-dl`.
603 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
605 To run the exe you need to install first the
[Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
607 ### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
609 If you put youtube-dl and ffmpeg in the same directory that you're running the command from, it will work, but that's rather cumbersome.
611 To make a different directory work - either for ffmpeg, or for youtube-dl, or for both - simply create the directory (say,
`C:\bin`, or
`C:\Users\<User name>\bin`), put all the executables directly in there, and then
[set your PATH environment variable](https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml) to include that directory.
613 From then on, after restarting your shell, you will be able to access both youtube-dl and ffmpeg (and youtube-dl will be able to find ffmpeg) by simply typing
`youtube-dl` or
`ffmpeg`, no matter what directory you're in.
615 ### How do I put downloads into a specific folder?
617 Use the
`-o` to specify an [output template](#output-template), for example
`-o "/home/user/videos/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"`. If you want this for all of your downloads, put the option into your [configuration file](#configuration).
619 ### How do I download a video starting with a `-`?
621 Either prepend
`http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=` or separate the ID from the options with
`--`:
623 youtube-dl -- -wNyEUrxzFU
624 youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNyEUrxzFU"
626 ### How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl?
628 Use the
`--cookies` option, for example
`--cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt`. Note that the cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and the first line of the cookies file must be either
`# HTTP Cookie File` or
`# Netscape HTTP Cookie File`. Make sure you have correct
[newline format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline) in the cookies file and convert newlines if necessary to correspond with your OS, namely
`CRLF` (
`\r\n`) for Windows,
`LF` (
`\n`) for Linux and
`CR` (
`\r`) for Mac OS.
`HTTP Error 400: Bad Request` when using
`--cookies` is a good sign of invalid newline format.
630 Passing cookies to youtube-dl is a good way to workaround login when a particular extractor does not implement it explicitly.
632 ### Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
634 As a matter of policy (as well as legality), youtube-dl does not include support for services that specialize in infringing copyright. As a rule of thumb, if you cannot easily find a video that the service is quite obviously allowed to distribute (i.e. that has been uploaded by the creator, the creator's distributor, or is published under a free license), the service is probably unfit for inclusion to youtube-dl.
636 A note on the service that they don't host the infringing content, but just link to those who do, is evidence that the service should **not** be included into youtube-dl. The same goes for any DMCA note when the whole front page of the service is filled with videos they are not allowed to distribute. A "fair use" note is equally unconvincing if the service shows copyright-protected videos in full without authorization.
638 Support requests for services that **do** purchase the rights to distribute their content are perfectly fine though. If in doubt, you can simply include a source that mentions the legitimate purchase of content.
640 ### How can I speed up work on my issue?
642 (Also known as: Help, my important issue not being solved!) The youtube-dl core developer team is quite small. While we do our best to solve as many issues as possible, sometimes that can take quite a while. To speed up your issue, here's what you can do:
644 First of all, please do report the issue
[at our issue tracker](https://yt-dl.org/bugs). That allows us to coordinate all efforts by users and developers, and serves as a unified point. Unfortunately, the youtube-dl project has grown too large to use personal email as an effective communication channel.
646 Please read the [bug reporting instructions](#bugs) below. A lot of bugs lack all the necessary information. If you can, offer proxy, VPN, or shell access to the youtube-dl developers. If you are able to, test the issue from multiple computers in multiple countries to exclude local censorship or misconfiguration issues.
648 If nobody is interested in solving your issue, you are welcome to take matters into your own hands and submit a pull request (or coerce/pay somebody else to do so).
650 Feel free to bump the issue from time to time by writing a small comment ("Issue is still present in youtube-dl version ...from France, but fixed from Belgium"), but please not more than once a month. Please do not declare your issue as
`important` or
`urgent`.
652 ### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
654 For one, have a look at the [list of supported sites](docs/supportedsites.md). Note that it can sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from http://example.com/video/
1234567 to http://example.com/v/
1234567 ) and youtube-dl reports an URL of a service in that list as unsupported. In that case, simply report a bug.
656 It is *not* possible to detect whether a URL is supported or not. That's because youtube-dl contains a generic extractor which matches **all** URLs. You may be tempted to disable, exclude, or remove the generic extractor, but the generic extractor not only allows users to extract videos from lots of websites that embed a video from another service, but may also be used to extract video from a service that it's hosting itself. Therefore, we neither recommend nor support disabling, excluding, or removing the generic extractor.
658 If you want to find out whether a given URL is supported, simply call youtube-dl with it. If you get no videos back, chances are the URL is either not referring to a video or unsupported. You can find out which by examining the output (if you run youtube-dl on the console) or catching an
`UnsupportedError` exception if you run it from a Python program.
660 # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
662 Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can
[download the builds](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.
664 To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
668 To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
670 python -m unittest discover
671 python test/test_download.py
674 If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
682 ### Adding support for a new site
684 If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called
`yourextractor`):
686 1.
[Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
687 2. Check out the source code with
`git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
688 3. Start a new git branch with
`cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor`
689 4. Start with this simple template and save it to
`youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
692 from __future__ import unicode_literals
694 from .common import InfoExtractor
697 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
698 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
700 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
701 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
705 'title': 'Video title goes here',
706 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
707 # TODO more properties, either as:
709 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
710 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
711 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
715 def _real_extract(self, url):
716 video_id = self._match_id(url)
717 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
719 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
720 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
725 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
726 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
727 # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
730 5. Add an import in
[`youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py).
731 6. Run
`python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename
``_TEST
`` to
``_TESTS
`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests will then be named
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`,
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`,
`TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
732 7. Have a look at
[`youtube_dl/extractor/common.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a
[detailed description of what your extractor should and may return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L62-L200). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
733 8. If you can, check the code with
[flake8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flake8).
734 9. When the tests pass,
[add](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-add) the new files and
[commit](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit) them and
[push](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-push) the result, like this:
736 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
737 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
738 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
739 $ git push origin yourextractor
741 10. Finally,
[create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
743 In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
745 # EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
747 youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter any problems parsing its output, feel free to
[create a report](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/new).
749 From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
752 from __future__ import unicode_literals
756 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
757 ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
760 Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of what can be done, have a look at
[`youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L121-L269). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a
`logger` object.
762 Here's a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors (and a short message after the download is finished), and downloads/converts the video to an mp3 file:
765 from __future__ import unicode_literals
769 class MyLogger(object):
770 def debug(self, msg):
773 def warning(self, msg):
776 def error(self, msg):
781 if d['status'] == 'finished':
782 print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
786 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
788 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
789 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
790 'preferredquality': '192',
792 'logger': MyLogger(),
793 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
795 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
796 ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
801 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>. Unless you were prompted so or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email. For discussions, join us in the IRC channel
[#youtube-dl](irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl) on freenode ([webchat](http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl)).
803 **Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with
`-v`**, i.e. add
`-v` flag to your command line, copy the **whole** output and post it in the issue body wrapped in \
`\`\
` for better formatting. It should look similar to this:
805 $ youtube-dl -v http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj
806 [debug] System config: []
807 [debug] User config: []
808 [debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
809 [debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
810 [debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
811 [debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
812 [debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
813 [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
814 [debug] Proxy map: {}
817 **Do not post screenshots of verbose log only plain text is acceptable.**
819 The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
821 Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
823 ### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
825 We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most cases we eventually get the required information after asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may misread some parts.
827 So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
829 - What the problem is
830 - How it could be fixed
831 - How your proposed solution would look like
833 If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a committer myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
835 For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the *complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the `-v
` flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
837 If your server has multiple IPs or you suspect censorship, adding `--call-home
` may be a good idea to get more diagnostics. If the error is `ERROR: Unable to extract ...
` and you cannot reproduce it from multiple countries, add `--dump-pages
` (warning: this will yield a rather large output, redirect it to the file `log.txt
` by adding `>log.txt
2>&
1` to your command-line) or upload the `.dump
` files you get when you add `--write-pages
` [somewhere](https://gist.github.com/).
839 **Site support requests must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like `http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc
`. There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. `http://www.youtube.com/
`) is *not* an example URL.
841 ### Are you using the latest version?
843 Before reporting any issue, type `youtube-dl -U
`. This should report that you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.
845 ### Is the issue already documented?
847 Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or browse the [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues) of this repository. If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
849 ### Why are existing options not enough?
851 Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at [the list of supported options](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#synopsis). Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.
853 ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
855 People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
857 We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing feature would be useful.
859 ### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
861 Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.
863 In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.
865 ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
867 Only post features that you (or an incapacitated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.
869 ### Is your question about youtube-dl?
871 It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's own application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
875 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
877 This README file was originally written by [Daniel Bolton](https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.