7 **youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
10 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
11 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
12 2.x (x being at least
6), and it is not platform specific. It should work in
13 your Unix box, in Windows or in Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
14 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
17 -h, --help print this help text and exit
18 --version print program version and exit
19 -U, --update update this program to latest version
20 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors
21 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT download rate limit (e.g.
50k or
44.6m)
22 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is
10)
23 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
24 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
25 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs they
29 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is
1)
30 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
31 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or caseless
33 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
35 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
37 ## Filesystem Options:
38 -t, --title use title in file name
39 --id use video ID in file name
40 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
41 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from
00000
42 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to get the
43 title, %(uploader)s for the uploader name,
44 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically incremented
45 number, %(ext)s for the filename extension,
46 %(upload_date)s for the upload date (YYYYMMDD),
47 %(extractor)s for the provider (youtube, metacafe,
48 etc), %(id)s for the video id and %% for a literal
49 percent. Use - to output to stdout.
50 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and
51 avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
52 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for stdin)
53 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
54 -c, --continue resume partially downloaded files
55 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files (restart
57 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
58 --no-part do not use .part files
59 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set the file
61 --write-description write video description to a .description file
62 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
64 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
65 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
66 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write anything
68 --skip-download do not download the video
69 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
70 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
71 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
72 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
73 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
74 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
75 --no-progress do not print progress bar
76 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
77 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
79 ## Video Format Options:
80 -f, --format FORMAT video format code
81 --all-formats download all available video formats
82 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific one is
84 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
85 -F, --list-formats list all available formats (currently youtube only)
86 --write-srt write video closed captions to a .srt file
87 (currently youtube only)
88 --srt-lang LANG language of the closed captions to download
89 (optional) use IETF language tags like 'en'
91 ## Authentication Options:
92 -u, --username USERNAME account username
93 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
94 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
96 ## Post-processing Options:
97 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files (requires
98 ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
99 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", or "wav";
101 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification, insert a
102 value between
0 (better) and
9 (worse) for VBR or a
103 specific bitrate like
128K (default
5)
104 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the post-
105 processing; the video is erased by default
109 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as
`--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into
`/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or
`~/.local/config/youtube-dl.conf`.
113 ### Can you please put the -b option back?
115 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.
117 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
119 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.
121 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
123 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as
[vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or
[mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
125 ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
127 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the
`--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use
`--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
129 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
131 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July
2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
133 ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
135 youtube requires an additional signature since September
2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with
`sudo youtube-dl --update`.
137 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
141 File "youtube-dl", line
2
142 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '
\x93' ...
144 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python
2.6 or
2.7.
146 To run youtube-dl under Python
2.5, you'll have to manually check it out like this:
148 git clone git://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl.git
150 python -m youtube_dl --help
152 Please note that Python
2.5 is not supported anymore.
154 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
156 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`.
158 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
160 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).
164 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
166 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.
170 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>
174 * Your exact command line, like
`youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title"`. A common mistake is not to escape the
`&`. Putting URLs in quotes should solve this problem.
175 * The output of
`youtube-dl --version`
176 * The output of
`python --version`
177 * The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu
11.04 x64" or "Windows
7 x64" is usually enough).