1 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
4 [](#readme)
6 [](#release-files "Release")
7 []
(https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp "PyPi")
8 [](Collaborators.md#collaborators "Donate")
9 []
(https://matrix.to/#/#yt-dlp:matrix.org "Matrix")
10 []
(https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r "Discord")
11 [](supportedsites.md "Supported Sites")
12 [](LICENSE "License")
13 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/actions "CI Status")
14 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
15 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
18 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
20 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
22 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "USAGE AND OPTIONS" SECTION HERE -->
24 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
25 * [NEW FEATURES](#new-features)
26 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
27 * [INSTALLATION](#installation)
29 * [Release Files](#release-files)
30 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
32 * [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
33 * [General Options](#general-options)
34 * [Network Options](#network-options)
35 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
36 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
37 * [Download Options](#download-options)
38 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
39 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
40 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
41 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
42 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
43 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
44 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
45 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
46 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
47 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
48 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
49 * [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
50 * [Authentication with .netrc file](#authentication-with-netrc-file)
51 * [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
52 * [Output template and Windows batch files](#output-template-and-windows-batch-files)
53 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
54 * [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
55 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
56 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
57 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
58 * [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
59 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
60 * [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
62 * [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](#embedding-yt-dlp)
63 * [Embedding examples](#embedding-examples)
64 * [DEPRECATED OPTIONS](#deprecated-options)
65 * [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp)
66 * [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue)
67 * [Developer Instructions](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
69 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
74 * Based on **youtube-dl
2021.12.17 [commit/6508688](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/6508688e88c83bb811653083db9351702cd39a6a)** (
[exceptions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21)) and **youtube-dlc
2020.11.11-
3 [commit/f9401f2](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/commit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee)**: You get all the features and patches of
[youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) in addition to the latest
[youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
76 * **
[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
78 * **[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))
80 * **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 livestreams are not available. See
[#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
82 * **Youtube improvements**:
83 * All Feeds (
`:ytfav`,
`:ytwatchlater`,
`:ytsubs`,
`:ythistory`,
`:ytrec`,
`:ytnotif`) and private playlists supports downloading multiple pages of content
84 * Search (
`ytsearch:`,
`ytsearchdate:`), search URLs and in-channel search works
85 * Mixes supports downloading multiple pages of content
86 * Some (but not all) age-gated content can be downloaded without cookies
87 * Fix for
[n-sig based throttling](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326)
88 * Redirect channel's home URL automatically to
`/video` to preserve the old behaviour
89 * `255kbps` audio is extracted (if available) from youtube music when premium cookies are given
90 * Youtube music Albums, channels etc can be downloaded (
[except self-uploaded music](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723))
91 * Download livestreams from the start using
`--live-from-start` (experimental)
92 * Support for downloading stories (
`ytstories:<channel UCID>`)
94 * **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using
`--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]`
96 * **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
`--split-chapters`
98 * **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
100 * **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use
`aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
102 * **New and fixed extractors**: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the [changelog](Changelog.md) or the [list of supported sites](supportedsites.md)
104 * **New MSOs**: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN
106 * **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
108 * **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`)
110 * **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [configuration](#configuration) for details
112 * **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`
114 * **Other new options**: Many new options have been added such as
`--concat-playlist`,
`--print`,
`--wait-for-video`,
`--sleep-requests`,
`--convert-thumbnails`,
`--write-link`,
`--force-download-archive`,
`--force-overwrites`,
`--break-on-reject` etc
116 * **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in
`--format`/
`--match-filter`, multiple
`--postprocessor-args` and
`--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection), merge multi-video/audio, multiple
`--config-locations`,
`--exec` at different stages, etc
118 * **Plugins**: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
120 * **Self-updater**: The releases can be updated using
`yt-dlp -U`
122 See
[changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
124 ### Differences in default behavior
126 Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
128 * The options
`--auto-number` (
`-A`),
`--title` (
`-t`) and
`--literal` (
`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
129 * `avconv` is not supported as an alternative to
`ffmpeg`
130 * yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See [configuration](#configuration) for a list of correct locations
131 * 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`
132 * 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
133 * 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 preferred. Use
`-f bv+ba/b` or
`--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
134 * 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
135 * `--no-abort-on-error` is enabled by default. Use
`--abort-on-error` or
`--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
136 * 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
137 * `--add-metadata` attaches the
`infojson` to
`mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with
`--write-info-json`. Use
`--no-embed-info-json` or
`--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
138 * Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using
`--add-metadata` as compared to youtube-dl. Most notably,
`comment` field contains the
`webpage_url` and
`synopsis` contains the
`description`. You can [use
`--parse-metadata`](#modifying-metadata) to modify this to your liking or use
`--compat-options embed-metadata` to revert this
139 * `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
140 * The output of
`-F` is listed in a new format. Use
`--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
141 * 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
142 * 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
143 * 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. For all other tabs, if the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised. 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
144 * Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use
`--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
145 * 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
146 * Thumbnail embedding in
`mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use
`--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
147 * 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
148 * 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 separate 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
149 * `certifi` will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use system certificates (e.g. self-signed), use
`--compat-options no-certifi`
150 * youtube-dl tries to remove some superfluous punctuations from filenames. While this can sometimes be helpfull, it is often undesirable. So yt-dlp tries to keep the fields in the filenames as close to their original values as possible. You can use
`--compat-options filename-sanitization` to revert to youtube-dl's behavior
152 For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
154 * `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options
155 * `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-multistreams`
156 * `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as
`--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect`
161 You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
163 ### Using the release binary
165 You can simply download the [correct binary file](#release-files) for your OS
167 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
168 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)
169 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)
170 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)
171 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
172 [](#release-files)
173 []
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases)
174 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
176 Note: The manpages, shell completion files etc. are available in the
[source tarball](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
178 <!-- TODO: Move to Wiki -->
179 In UNIX-like OSes (MacOS, Linux, BSD), you can also install the same in one of the following ways:
182 sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
183 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
187 sudo wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
188 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
192 sudo aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp --dir /usr/local/bin -o yt-dlp
193 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
197 ### With [PIP](https://pypi.org/project/pip)
199 You can install the
[PyPI package](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) with:
201 python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp
204 You can install without any of the optional dependencies using:
206 python3 -m pip install --no-deps -U yt-dlp
209 If you want to be on the cutting edge, you can also install the master branch with:
211 python3 -m pip install --force-reinstall https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/archive/master.tar.gz
214 Note that on some systems, you may need to use
`py` or
`python` instead of
`python3`
216 <!-- TODO: Add to Wiki, Remove Taps -->
217 ### With [Homebrew](https://brew.sh)
219 macOS or Linux users that are using Homebrew can also install it by:
222 brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
226 You can use
`yt-dlp -U` to update if you are [using the provided release](#using-the-release-binary)
228 If you [installed with pip](#with-pip), simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
230 If you [installed using Homebrew](#with-homebrew), run
`brew upgrade yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp`
232 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
239 [yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)|Platform-independant binary. Needs Python (recommended for **Linux/BSD**)
240 [yt-dlp.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for **Windows**)
241 [yt-dlp_macos](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)|MacOS (
10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for **MacOS**)
247 [yt-dlp_x86.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86.exe)|Windows (Vista SP2+) standalone x86 (
32-bit) binary
248 [yt-dlp_min.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_min.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary built with
`py2exe`.<br/> Does not contain
`pycryptodomex`/
`certifi`, needs VC++
14
249 [yt-dlp_win.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_win.zip)|Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update)
250 [yt-dlp_macos.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos.zip)|Unpackaged MacOS (
10.15+) executable (no auto-update)
256 [yt-dlp.tar.gz](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)|Source tarball. Also contains manpages, completions, etc
257 [SHA2-512SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-512SUMS)|GNU-style SHA512 sums
258 [SHA2-256SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-256SUMS)|GNU-style SHA256 sums
259 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
262 Python versions
3.6+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
264 <!-- Python
3.5+ uses VC++
14 and it is already embedded in the binary created
265 <!x-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=
26999 --x>
266 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.
269 While all the other dependencies are optional,
`ffmpeg` and
`ffprobe` are highly recommended
271 * [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for
[merging separate video and audio files](#format-selection) as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. License [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
272 * [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)\* - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
273 * [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)\* - For decrypting AES-
128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under
[BSD-2-Clause](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
274 * [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)\* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
275 * [**secretstorage**](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage) - For accessing the Gnome keyring while decrypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
276 * [**brotli**](https://github.com/google/brotli)\* or
[**brotlicffi**](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) -
[Brotli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT <sup>
[1](https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) [2](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE) </sup>
277 * [**certifi**](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)\* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under
[MPLv2](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
278 * [**xattr**](https://github.com/xattr/xattr),
[**pyxattr**](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or
[**setfattr**](http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr metadata on Linux. Licensed under
[MIT](https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt),
[LGPL2.1](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and
[GPLv2+](http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING) respectively
279 * [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For embedding thumbnail in mp4/m4a if mutagen/ffmpeg cannot. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
280 * [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading
`rtmp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
281 * [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or
[**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading
`rstp` streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licensed under
[GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
282 * [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under
[BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
283 * [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated**
[sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licensed under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
284 * Any external downloader that you want to use with
`--downloader`
286 To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
288 The Windows and MacOS standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with \* included.
290 <!-- TODO: ffmpeg has merged this patch. Remove this note once there is new release -->
291 **Note**: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide
[custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) 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 specific issues solved by these builds
297 To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and any of yt-dlp's optional dependencies if needed). Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, (optionally) build lazy extractors using
`devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py`, and then just run
`pyinst.py`. The executable will be built for the same architecture (
32/
64 bit) as the python used to build it.
299 py -m pip install -U pyinstaller -r requirements.txt
300 py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
303 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
306 You will need the required build tools:
`python`,
`make` (GNU),
`pandoc`,
`zip`,
`pytest`
307 Then simply run
`make`. You can also run
`make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
309 **Note**: In either platform,
`devscripts/update-version.py` can be used to automatically update the version number
311 You can also fork the project on github and run your fork's [build workflow](.github/workflows/build.yml) to automatically build a release
315 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
316 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
318 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
319 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
321 <!-- Auto generated -->
323 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
324 --version Print program version and exit
325 -U, --update Update this program to latest version
326 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
327 The download will be considered successful
328 even if the postprocessing fails
329 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download errors;
330 e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a
332 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
333 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
334 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
335 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
336 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
338 --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
340 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. Eg:
341 "gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from
342 google videos for the search term "python".
343 Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
344 ("auto_warning" to emit a warning when
345 guessing). "error" just throws an error. The
346 default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
347 URLs, but emits an error if this is not
348 possible instead of searching
349 --ignore-config Don't load any more configuration files
350 except those given by --config-locations.
351 For backward compatibility, if this option
352 is found inside the system configuration
353 file, the user configuration is not loaded.
355 --no-config-locations Do not load any custom configuration files
356 (default). When given inside a configuration
357 file, ignore all previous --config-locations
358 defined in the current file
359 --config-locations PATH Location of the main configuration file;
360 either the path to the config or its
361 containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be
362 used multiple times and inside other
364 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
366 --no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
367 --live-from-start Download livestreams from the start.
368 Currently only supported for YouTube
370 --no-live-from-start Download livestreams from the current time
372 --wait-for-video MIN[-MAX] Wait for scheduled streams to become
373 available. Pass the minimum number of
374 seconds (or range) to wait between retries
375 --no-wait-for-video Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
376 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
377 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
378 --no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
379 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
380 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
381 configurations by reverting some of the
382 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
383 default behavior" for details
384 --alias ALIASES OPTIONS Create aliases for an option string. Unless
385 an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
386 prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
387 according to the Python string formatting
388 mini-language. Eg: --alias get-audio,-X
389 "-S=aext:{
0},abr -x --audio-format {
0}"
390 creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that
391 takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
392 "-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
393 All defined aliases are listed in the --help
394 output. Alias options can trigger more
395 aliases; so be carefull to avoid defining
396 recursive options. As a safety measure, each
397 alias may be triggered a maximum of
100
398 times. This option can be used multiple
402 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To
403 enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme.
404 Eg: socks5://user:pass@
127.0.0.1:
1080/. Pass
405 in an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
407 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
408 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
409 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
410 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
413 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
414 some geo-restricted sites. The default proxy
415 specified by --proxy (or none, if the option
416 is not present) is used for the actual
418 --geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
419 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (default)
420 --no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
421 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
422 --geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
423 explicitly provided two-letter ISO
3166-
2
425 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
426 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
430 --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is
1)
431 --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
432 --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
433 indices of the videos in the playlist
434 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
435 1,
2,
5,
8" if you want to download videos
436 indexed
1,
2,
5,
8 in the playlist. You can
437 specify range: "--playlist-items
438 1-
3,
7,
10-
13", it will download the videos at
439 index
1,
2,
3,
7,
10,
11,
12 and
13
440 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than SIZE
442 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
444 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded on this date.
445 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
446 [now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]].
447 Eg: --date today-
2weeks
448 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
449 this date. The date formats accepted is the
451 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
452 this date. The date formats accepted is the
454 --match-filters FILTER Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE"
455 field can be compared with a number or a
456 string using the operators defined in
457 "Filtering formats". You can also simply
458 specify a field to match if the field is
459 present, use "!field" to check if the field
460 is not present, and "&" to check multiple
461 conditions. Use a "
\" to escape "&" or
462 quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
463 the filter matches if atleast one of the
464 conditions are met. Eg: --match-filter
465 !is_live --match-filter "like_count>?
100 &
466 description~='(?i)
\bcats \& dogs
\b'" matches
467 only videos that are not live OR those that
468 have a like count more than
100 (or the like
469 field is not available) and also has a
470 description that contains the phrase "cats &
471 dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filter -" to
472 interactively ask whether to download each
474 --no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
475 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
476 to a video and a playlist
477 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
478 a video and a playlist
479 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
481 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
482 archive file. Record the IDs of all
483 downloaded videos in it
484 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
485 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
486 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
487 a file that is in the archive
488 --break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
489 a file that has been filtered out
490 --break-per-input Make --break-on-existing, --break-on-reject
491 and --max-downloads act only on the current
493 --no-break-per-input --break-on-existing and similar options
494 terminates the entire download queue
495 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest of
496 the playlist is skipped
499 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
500 video that should be downloaded concurrently
502 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
504 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
505 below which throttling is assumed and the
506 video data is re-extracted (e.g.
100K)
507 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is
10), or
509 --file-access-retries RETRIES Number of times to retry on file access
510 error (default is
3), or "infinite"
511 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default is
512 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
513 --retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR An expression for the time to sleep between
514 retries in seconds (optionally) prefixed by
515 the type of retry (file_access, fragment,
516 http (default)) to apply the sleep to. EXPR
517 can be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=
1]]
518 or exp=START[:END[:BASE=
2]]. This option can
519 be used multiple times to set the sleep for
520 the different retry types. Eg: --retry-sleep
521 linear=
1::
2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=
1:
20
522 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
523 hlsnative and ISM downloads (default)
524 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
525 --abort-on-unavailable-fragment
526 Abort download if a fragment is unavailable
527 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
528 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
529 downloading is finished
530 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
531 downloading is finished (default)
532 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g.
1024 or
16K)
534 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
535 from an initial value of --buffer-size
537 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
538 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
539 downloading (e.g.
10485760 or
10M) (default
540 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
541 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
543 --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
544 --no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
546 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
547 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
549 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
550 allowing some players to play the video
551 while downloading, and reducing the chance
552 of file corruption if download is
553 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
555 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
556 videos. This is default when not downloading
558 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
559 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
560 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
561 use it for. Currently supports native,
562 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
563 wget. You can use this option multiple times
564 to set different downloaders for different
565 protocols. For example, --downloader aria2c
566 --downloader "dash,m3u8:native" will use
567 aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and the
568 native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
569 (Alias: --external-downloader)
570 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
571 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
572 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
573 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different
574 positions using the same syntax as
575 --postprocessor-args. You can use this
576 option multiple times to give different
577 arguments to different downloaders (Alias:
578 --external-downloader-args)
580 ## Filesystem Options:
581 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ("-" for
582 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
583 with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
585 --no-batch-file Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
586 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
587 downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
588 path separated by a colon ":". All the same
589 TYPES as --output are supported.
590 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
591 (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
592 files are first downloaded to the temp path
593 and then the final files are moved over to
594 the home path after download is finished.
595 This option is ignored if --output is an
597 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
598 TEMPLATE" for details
599 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder for unavailable fields in
600 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" (default: "NA")
601 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
602 and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
603 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
605 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
606 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
607 using Windows (default)
608 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
609 extension) to the specified number of
611 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
612 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
613 option includes --no-continue
614 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
615 related files (default)
616 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
618 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
619 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
620 restart download of the entire file
621 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
622 into output file (default)
623 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly into
625 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the file
626 modification time (default)
627 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
628 the file modification time
629 --write-description Write video description to a .description
631 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
632 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
633 (this may contain personal information)
634 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
635 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
636 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
637 --write-description etc. (default)
638 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
639 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
640 --clean-info-json Remove some private fields such as filenames
641 from the infojson. Note that it could still
642 contain some personal information (default)
643 --no-clean-info-json Write all fields to the infojson
644 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
645 infojson. The comments are fetched even
646 without this option if the extraction is
647 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
648 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
649 extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
651 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
652 (created with the "--write-info-json"
654 --cookies FILE Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
655 and dump cookie jar in
656 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
658 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]
659 The name of the browser and (optionally) the
660 name/path of the profile to load cookies
661 from, separated by a ":". Currently
662 supported browsers are: brave, chrome,
663 chromium, edge, firefox, opera, safari,
664 vivaldi. By default, the most recently
665 accessed profile is used. The keyring used
666 for decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux can
667 be (optionally) specified after the browser
668 name separated by a "+". Currently supported
669 keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring,
671 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
672 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
673 can store some downloaded information (such
674 as client ids and signatures) permanently.
675 By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or
677 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
678 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
680 ## Thumbnail Options:
681 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
682 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
684 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
685 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
686 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
688 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
689 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
690 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
691 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
692 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
693 OS caches the URL based on the file path
694 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
695 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
697 ## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
698 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
699 print the log to stderr
700 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
701 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
703 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
705 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
706 extracting metadata even if the videos are
707 not actually available for download
709 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
710 formats are found (default)
711 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
712 related files (Alias: --no-download)
713 -O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE Field name or output template to print to
714 screen, optionally prefixed with when to
715 print it, separated by a ":". Supported
716 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
717 --use-postprocessor, and "video" (default).
718 Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
719 --no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
720 used. This option can be used multiple times
721 --print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
722 Append given template to the file. The
723 values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that
724 of --print. FILE uses the same syntax as the
725 output template. This option can be used
727 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
728 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
729 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
730 description of available keys
731 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
732 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
733 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
734 a playlist, the whole playlist information
735 is dumped in a single line
736 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be written
737 as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
738 another simulation option is used (Alias:
739 --force-download-archive)
740 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
741 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
742 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
743 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
744 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
745 Template for progress outputs, optionally
746 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
747 "download-title:" (the console title),
748 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
749 The video's fields are accessible under the
750 "info" key and the progress attributes are
751 accessible under "progress" key. E.g.:
752 --console-title --progress-template
753 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
754 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
755 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
756 to debug problems (very verbose)
757 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
758 in the current directory to debug problems
759 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
762 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
763 --legacy-server-connect Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
764 that do not support RFC
5746 secure
766 --no-check-certificates Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
767 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
768 information about the video (Currently
769 supported only for YouTube)
770 --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
771 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
772 option multiple times
773 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
774 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
775 or fribidi executable in PATH
776 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
777 during data extraction
778 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
779 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
780 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
781 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
782 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
783 be used along with --min-sleep-interval
784 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
787 ## Video Format Options:
788 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
790 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
791 "Sorting Formats" for more details
792 --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
793 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
794 Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
795 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
796 specified sort order (default)
797 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
799 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for each
800 output file (default)
801 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
803 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
804 output file (default)
805 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
806 over non-free ones of same quality. Use with
807 "-S ext" to strictly prefer free containers
808 irrespective of quality
809 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
811 --check-formats Make sure formats are selected only from
812 those that are actually downloadable
813 --check-all-formats Check all formats for whether they are
814 actually downloadable
815 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats are actually
817 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
818 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
819 --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
820 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
821 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
822 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
825 --write-subs Write subtitle file
826 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
827 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
828 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
829 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
830 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
831 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
832 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
833 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format; accepts formats preference,
834 Eg: "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
835 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
836 be regex) or "all" separated by commas. (Eg:
837 --sub-langs "en.*,ja") You can prefix the
838 language code with a "-" to exclude it from
839 the requested languages. (Eg: --sub-langs
840 all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a list
841 of available language tags
843 ## Authentication Options:
844 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
845 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
846 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
847 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
848 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
849 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
850 either the path or its containing directory.
852 --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
853 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
854 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
855 a list of available MSOs
856 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
857 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
858 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
860 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system operators
861 --client-certificate CERTFILE Path to client certificate file in PEM
862 format. May include the private key
863 --client-certificate-key KEYFILE
864 Path to private key file for client
866 --client-certificate-password PASSWORD
867 Password for client certificate private key,
868 if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
869 is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
871 ## Post-Processing Options:
872 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
873 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
874 --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format to convert the audio to
875 when -x is used. Currently supported formats
876 are: best (default) or one of aac, flac,
877 mp3, m4a, opus, vorbis, wav, alac
878 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
879 converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
880 between
0 (best) and
10 (worst) for VBR or a
881 specific bitrate like
128K (default
5)
882 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
883 necessary (currently supported: mp4, mkv,
884 flv, webm, mov, avi, mka, ogg, aac, flac,
885 mp3, m4a, opus, vorbis, wav, alac). If
886 target container does not support the
887 video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
888 can specify multiple rules; Eg.
889 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
890 mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
891 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
892 necessary. The syntax and supported formats
893 are the same as --remux-video
894 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
895 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
896 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
897 to give the argument to the specified
898 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
899 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
900 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
901 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
902 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
903 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
904 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
905 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
906 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
907 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
908 specified executable only when being used by
909 the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
910 for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
911 appended to the prefix optionally followed
912 by a number to pass the argument before the
913 specified input/output file. Eg: --ppa
914 "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
915 this option multiple times to give different
916 arguments to different postprocessors.
918 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
919 after post-processing
920 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
921 post-processing (default)
922 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
923 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
924 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
926 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
927 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
928 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
929 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also
930 embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
931 --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
932 used (Alias: --add-metadata)
933 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
934 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
935 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
936 (Alias: --add-chapters)
937 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
939 --embed-info-json Embed the infojson as an attachment to
941 --no-embed-info-json Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
943 --parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
944 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
946 --replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
947 Replace text in a metadata field using the
948 given regex. This option can be used
950 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
951 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
952 --concat-playlist POLICY Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
953 "never", "always", or "multi_video"
954 (default; only when the videos form a single
955 show). All the video files must have same
956 codecs and number of streams to be
957 concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
958 used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
959 the output filename for the concatenated
960 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
961 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
962 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
963 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
964 default; fix file if we can, warn
965 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
967 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
968 path to the binary or its containing
970 --exec [WHEN:]CMD Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
971 when to execute it (after_move if
972 unspecified), separated by a ":". Supported
973 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
974 --use-postprocessor. Same syntax as the
975 output template can be used to pass any
976 field as arguments to the command. After
977 download, an additional field "filepath"
978 that contains the final path of the
979 downloaded file is also available, and if no
980 fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended
981 to the end of the command. This option can
982 be used multiple times
983 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
984 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
985 (currently supported: srt, vtt, ass, lrc)
986 (Alias: --convert-subtitles)
987 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
988 (currently supported: jpg, png, webp)
989 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
990 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
991 be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
992 the output filename for the split files. See
993 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
994 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters
996 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
997 given regular expression. Time ranges
998 prefixed by a "*" can also be used in place
999 of chapters to remove the specified range.
1000 Eg: --remove-chapters "*
10:
15-
15:
00"
1001 --remove-chapters "intro". This option can
1002 be used multiple times
1003 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
1005 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes around chapters when
1006 removing/splitting them. The resulting video
1007 may have fewer artifacts around the cuts,
1008 but is very slow due to needing a re-encode
1009 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
1010 when cutting/splitting (default)
1011 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
1012 The (case sensitive) name of plugin
1013 postprocessors to be enabled, and
1014 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
1015 separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
1016 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
1017 The "when" argument determines when the
1018 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
1019 "pre_process" (after video extraction),
1020 "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
1021 "before_dl" (before each video download),
1022 "post_process" (after each video download;
1023 default), "after_move" (after moving video
1024 file to it's final locations), "after_video"
1025 (after downloading and processing all
1026 formats of a video), or "playlist" (at end
1027 of playlist). This option can be used
1028 multiple times to add different
1031 ## SponsorBlock Options:
1032 Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
1033 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
1034 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
1036 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
1037 for, separated by commas. Available
1038 categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
1039 selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
1040 music_offtopic, poi_highlight, all and
1041 default (=all). You can prefix the category
1042 with a "-" to exclude it. See [
1] for
1043 description of the categories. Eg:
1044 --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
1045 [
1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
1046 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
1047 the video file, separated by commas. If a
1048 category is present in both mark and remove,
1049 remove takes precedence. The syntax and
1050 available categories are the same as for
1051 --sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
1052 refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight is
1054 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
1055 An output template for the title of the
1056 SponsorBlock chapters created by
1057 --sponsorblock-mark. The only available
1058 fields are start_time, end_time, category,
1059 categories, name, category_names. Defaults
1060 to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
1061 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
1062 --sponsorblock-remove
1063 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
1064 https://sponsor.ajay.app
1066 ## Extractor Options:
1067 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor errors
1068 (default is
3), or "infinite"
1069 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
1070 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
1071 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
1072 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
1073 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
1074 discontinuities such as ad breaks
1075 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
1076 formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
1078 --extractor-args KEY:ARGS Pass these arguments to the extractor. See
1079 "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can
1080 use this option multiple times to give
1081 arguments for different extractors
1085 You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
1087 1. **Main Configuration**: The file given by
`--config-location`
1088 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.
1089 1. **Home Configuration**:
`yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given by
`-P`, or in the current directory if no such path is given
1090 1. **User Configuration**:
1091 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
1092 * `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf`
1093 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
1094 * `%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt`
1096 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
1098 `%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%` defaults to
`~/.config` if undefined. On windows,
`%APPDATA%` generally points to
`C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming` and
`~` points to
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`), or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
1100 1. **System Configuration**:
`/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
1102 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:
1104 # Lines starting with # are comments
1106 # Always extract audio
1109 # Do not copy the mtime
1113 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
1115 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
1116 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
1119 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`.
1121 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 home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if
`--ignore-config` is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
1123 ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
1125 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:
1128 chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
1130 After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
1132 machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
1136 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
1137 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
1139 To activate authentication with the
`.netrc` file you should pass
`--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
1141 The default location of the .netrc file is
`$HOME` (
`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is
`%HOME%` if present,
`%USERPROFILE%` (generally
`C:\Users\<user name>`) or
`%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
1145 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.
1147 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1148 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
1149 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1151 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).
1153 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.
1155 The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
1157 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
1159 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`
1161 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`
1163 1. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a
`,`. Eg:
`%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
1165 1. **Replacement**: A replacement value can specified using a
`&` separator. If the field is *not* empty, this replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if *any* of the alternative fields is *not* empty.
1167 1. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a
`|` separator. This overrides
`--output-na-template`. Eg:
`%(uploader|Unknown)s`
1169 1. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types
`diouxXeEfFgGcrs`,
`B`,
`j`,
`l`,
`q`,
`D`,
`S` can be used for converting to **B**ytes, **j**son (flag
`#` for pretty-printing), a comma separated **l**ist (flag
`#` for
`\n` newline-separated), a string **q**uoted for the terminal (flag
`#` to split a list into different arguments), to add **D**ecimal suffixes (Eg:
10M) (flag
`#` to use
1024 as factor), and to **S**anitize as filename (flag
`#` for restricted), respectively
1171 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
1173 To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1175 %(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
1178 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`,
`link`,
`pl_thumbnail`,
`pl_description`,
`pl_infojson`,
`chapter`,
`pl_video`. 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 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.
1180 The available fields are:
1182 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1183 - `title` (string): Video title
1184 - `fulltitle` (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
1185 - `url` (string): Video URL
1186 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1187 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
1188 - `description` (string): The description of the video
1189 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1190 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1191 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1192 - `creator` (string): The creator of the video
1193 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1194 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
1195 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
1196 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
1197 - `modified_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
1198 - `modified_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
1199 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1200 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1201 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1202 - `channel_follower_count` (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
1203 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1204 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
1205 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
1206 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1207 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1208 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1209 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1210 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
1211 - `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)
1212 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
1213 - `live_status` (string): One of "is_live", "was_live", "is_upcoming", "not_live"
1214 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
1215 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
1216 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
1217 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"
1218 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1219 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
1220 - `format` (string): A human-readable description of the format
1221 - `format_id` (string): Format code specified by
`--format`
1222 - `format_note` (string): Additional info about the format
1223 - `width` (numeric): Width of the video
1224 - `height` (numeric): Height of the video
1225 - `resolution` (string): Textual description of width and height
1226 - `tbr` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1227 - `abr` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1228 - `acodec` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
1229 - `asr` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1230 - `vbr` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1231 - `fps` (numeric): Frame rate
1232 - `dynamic_range` (string): The dynamic range of the video
1233 - `vcodec` (string): Name of the video codec in use
1234 - `container` (string): Name of the container format
1235 - `filesize` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
1236 - `filesize_approx` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
1237 - `protocol` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
1238 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1239 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1240 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
1241 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at
`--autonumber-start`
1242 - `video_autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
1243 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
1244 - `playlist_id` (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
1245 - `playlist_title` (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
1246 - `playlist` (string):
`playlist_id` or
`playlist_title`
1247 - `playlist_count` (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
1248 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1249 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
1250 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1251 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
1252 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result again
1253 - `webpage_url_basename` (string): The basename of the webpage URL
1254 - `webpage_url_domain` (string): The domain of the webpage URL
1255 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as
`webpage_url` for playlist entries)
1257 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1259 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1260 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1261 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1263 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
1265 - `series` (string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
1266 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1267 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1268 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1269 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1270 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1271 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1273 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1275 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1276 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1277 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1278 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track
1279 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track
1280 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1281 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1282 - `album_artist` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
1283 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1284 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
1286 Available for
`chapter:` prefix when using
`--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
1288 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1289 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1290 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1291 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1293 Available only when used in
`--print`:
1295 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1296 - `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
1297 - `formats_table` (table): The video format table as printed by
`--list-formats`
1298 - `thumbnails_table` (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by
`--list-thumbnails`
1299 - `subtitles_table` (table): The subtitle format table as printed by
`--list-subs`
1300 - `automatic_captions_table` (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by
`--list-subs`
1303 Available only in
`--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1305 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1306 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1307 - `categories` (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
1308 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1309 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1310 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
1312 Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. 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.
1314 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).
1316 **Tip**: Look at the
`-j` output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
1318 For numeric sequences you can use
[numeric related formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting), for example,
`%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to
5 characters, like in
`00042`.
1320 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.
1322 To use percent literals in an output template use
`%%`. To output to stdout use
`-o -`.
1324 The current default template is
`%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
1326 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.
1328 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1329 #### Output template and Windows batch files
1331 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"`.
1332 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1334 #### Output template examples
1337 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1338 test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
1340 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1341 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
1343 $ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1344 youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
1346 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
1347 $ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1349 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
1350 $ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1352 # Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
1353 $ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist_index|)s%(playlist_index& - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1355 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
1356 $ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1358 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
1359 $ 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"
1361 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
1362 $ 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"
1364 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
1365 # and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
1366 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
1368 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
1369 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
1371 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
1372 $ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
1377 By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1378 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`.
1380 **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.
1382 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.
1384 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1385 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1386 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1388 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.
1390 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.
1392 You can use
`-f -` to interactively provide the format selector *for each video*
1394 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1396 - `all`: Select **all formats** separately
1397 - `mergeall`: Select and **merge all formats** (Must be used with
`--audio-multistreams`,
`--video-multistreams` or both)
1398 - `b*`,
`best*`: Select the best quality format that **contains either** a video or an audio
1399 - `b`,
`best`: Select the best quality format that **contains both** video and audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1400 - `bv`,
`bestvideo`: Select the best quality **video-only** format. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec=none]`
1401 - `bv*`,
`bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that **contains video**. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec!=none]`
1402 - `ba`,
`bestaudio`: Select the best quality **audio-only** format. Equivalent to
`best*[vcodec=none]`
1403 - `ba*`,
`bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that **contains audio**. It may also contain video. Equivalent to
`best*[acodec!=none]` ([Do not use!](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/979#issuecomment-919629354))
1404 - `w*
`, `worst*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
1405 - `w
`, `worst
`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
`
1406 - `wv
`, `worstvideo
`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec=none]
`
1407 - `wv*
`, `worstvideo*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none]
`
1408 - `wa
`, `worstaudio
`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec=none]
`
1409 - `wa*
`, `worstaudio*
`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec!=none]
`
1411 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 `-S +size
` or more rigorously, `-S +size,+br,+res,+fps
` instead of `-f worst
`. See [sorting formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
1413 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.
1415 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.
1417 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
`.
1419 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.
1421 **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
1423 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
`.
1425 ## Filtering Formats
1427 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=
720]"
` (or `-f "[filesize>
10M]"
`).
1429 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<
`, `<=
`, `>
`, `>=
`, `=
` (equals), `!=
` (not equals):
1431 - `filesize
`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1432 - `width
`: Width of the video, if known
1433 - `height
`: Height of the video, if known
1434 - `tbr
`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
1435 - `abr
`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1436 - `vbr
`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1437 - `asr
`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1440 Also filtering work for comparisons `=
` (equals), `^=
` (starts with), `$=
` (ends with), `*=
` (contains), `~=
` (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
1442 - `ext
`: File extension
1443 - `acodec
`: Name of the audio codec in use
1444 - `vcodec
`: Name of the video codec in use
1445 - `container
`: Name of the container format
1446 - `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
`)
1447 - `format_id
`: A short description of the format
1448 - `language
`: Language code
1450 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation `!
` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. `!*=
` (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than `._-
`.
1452 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.
1454 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.
1456 Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use `-f "(mp4,webm)[height<
480]"
`.
1460 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...
`.
1462 The available fields are:
1464 - `hasvid
`: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
1465 - `hasaud
`: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
1466 - `ie_pref
`: The format preference
1467 - `lang
`: The language preference
1468 - `quality
`: The quality of the format
1469 - `source
`: The preference of the source
1470 - `proto
`: Protocol used for download (`https
`/`ftps
` > `http
`/`ftp
` > `m3u8_native
`/`m3u8
` > `http_dash_segments
`> `websocket_frag
` > `mms
`/`rtsp
` > `f4f
`/`f4m
`)
1471 - `vcodec
`: Video Codec (`av01
` > `vp9.2
` > `vp9
` > `h265
` > `h264
` > `vp8
` > `h263
` > `theora
` > other)
1472 - `acodec
`: Audio Codec (`flac
`/`alac
` > `wav
`/`aiff
` > `opus
` > `vorbis
` > `aac
` > `mp4a
` > `mp3
` > `eac3
` > `ac3
` > `dts
` > other)
1473 - `codec
`: Equivalent to `vcodec,acodec
`
1474 - `vext
`: Video Extension (`mp4
` > `webm
` > `flv
` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats
` is used, `webm
` is preferred.
1475 - `aext
`: Audio Extension (`m4a
` > `aac
` > `mp3
` > `ogg
` > `opus
` > `webm
` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats
` is used, the order changes to `opus
` > `ogg
` > `webm
` > `m4a
` > `mp3
` > `aac
`.
1476 - `ext
`: Equivalent to `vext,aext
`
1477 - `filesize
`: Exact filesize, if known in advance
1478 - `fs_approx
`: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
1479 - `size
`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1480 - `height
`: Height of video
1481 - `width
`: Width of video
1482 - `res
`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1483 - `fps
`: Framerate of video
1484 - `hdr
`: The dynamic range of the video (`DV
` > `HDR12
` > `HDR10+
` > `HDR10
` > `HLG
` > `SDR
`)
1485 - `tbr
`: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
1486 - `vbr
`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
1487 - `abr
`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
1488 - `br
`: Equivalent to using `tbr,vbr,abr
`
1489 - `asr
`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1491 **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.
1493 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.
1495 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,hdr:
12,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.
1497 Note that the default has `codec:vp9.2
`; i.e. `av1
` is not preferred. Similarly, the default for hdr is `hdr:
12`; i.e. dolby vision is not preferred. These choices are made since DV and AV1 formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future as more devices become capable of smoothly playing back these formats.
1499 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
`.
1501 **Tip**: You can use the `-v -F
` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1503 ## Format Selection examples
1506 # Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1507 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1508 $ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
1510 # Download best format that contains video,
1511 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1512 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
1517 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1518 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1519 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1520 $ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
1522 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1523 # and all audio-only formats into one file
1524 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
1526 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1527 # and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1528 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
1531 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1532 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
1534 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1535 $ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
1537 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1540 # Download the smallest video available
1541 $ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
1545 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1546 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
1548 # Download the best video with the best extension
1549 # (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1554 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1555 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1556 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
1558 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1559 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1560 $ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
1562 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1563 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1564 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1565 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1566 $ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
1570 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1571 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1572 $ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
1574 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1575 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1576 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
1578 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1579 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
1583 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1584 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1585 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
1587 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1588 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1593 # Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
1594 # or the best video if there is no such video
1595 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
1597 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1598 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1599 $ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
1601 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1602 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1603 $ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
1607 # More complex examples
1609 # Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1610 # or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1611 $ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
1613 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1614 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1615 # preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1616 $ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
1620 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1621 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1622 # preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1623 $ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
1626 # MODIFYING METADATA
1628 The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using `--parse-metadata
` and `--replace-in-metadata
`
1630 `--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.
1632 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.
1634 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
`.
1636 This option also has a few special uses:
1638 * 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
1640 * 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". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use the `meta<n>_
` prefix (Eg: `meta1_language
`). Any value set to the `meta_
` field will overwrite all default values.
1642 **Note**: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
1644 For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1646 Metadata fields | From
1647 :--------------------------|:------------------------------------------------
1648 `title
` | `track
` or `title
`
1649 `date
` | `upload_date
`
1650 `description
`, `synopsis
` | `description
`
1651 `purl
`, `comment
` | `webpage_url
`
1652 `track
` | `track_number
`
1653 `artist
` | `artist
`, `creator
`, `uploader
` or `uploader_id
`
1656 `album_artist
` | `album_artist
`
1657 `disc
` | `disc_number
`
1659 `season_number
` | `season_number
`
1660 `episode_id
` | `episode
` or `episode_id
`
1661 `episode_sort
` | `episode_number
`
1662 `language
` of each stream | the format's `language
`
1664 **Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1667 ## Modifying metadata examples
1670 # Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
1671 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
1674 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
1676 # Set title as "Series name S01E05"
1677 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
1679 # Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
1680 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --add-metadata
1682 # Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
1683 # handling multiple lines correctly
1684 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --add-metadata
1686 # Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
1687 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<formats>)" -j
1689 # Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1690 $ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
1694 # EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1696 Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using `--extractor-args KEY:ARGS
`. `ARGS
` is a `;
` (semicolon) separated string of `ARG=VAL1,VAL2
`. Eg: `--extractor-args "youtube:player-client=android_embedded,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"
`
1698 The following extractors use this feature:
1701 * `skip
`: One or more of `hls
`, `dash
` or `translated_subs
` to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and auto-translated subtitles respectively
1702 * `player_client
`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are `web
`, `android
` and `ios
` with variants `_music
`, `_embedded
`, `_embedscreen
`, `_creator
` (Eg: `web_embedded
`); and `mweb
` and `tv_embedded
` (agegate bypass) with no variants. By default, `android,web
` is used, but tv_embedded and creator variants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for `music.youtube.com
` urls. You can use `all
` to use all the clients, and `default
` for the default clients.
1703 * `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
1704 * `include_live_dash
`: Include live dash formats even without `--live-from-start
` (These formats don't download properly)
1705 * `comment_sort
`: `top
` or `new
` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
1706 * `max_comments
`: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing `max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread
`. Default is `all,all,all,all
`
1707 * E.g. `all,all,
1000,
10` will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread. `1000,all,
100` will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
1709 #### youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1710 * `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)
1711 * `approximate_date
`: Extract approximate `upload_date
` in flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
1714 * `language
`: Languages to extract. Eg: `funimation:language=english,japanese
`
1715 * `version
`: The video version to extract - `uncut
` or `simulcast
`
1718 * `language
`: Languages to extract. Eg: `crunchyroll:language=jaJp
`
1719 * `hardsub
`: Which hard-sub versions to extract. Eg: `crunchyroll:hardsub=None,enUS
`
1721 #### crunchyrollbeta
1722 * `format
`: Which stream type(s) to extract. Default is `adaptive_hls
` Eg: `crunchyrollbeta:format=vo_adaptive_hls
`
1723 * Potentially useful values include `adaptive_hls
`, `adaptive_dash
`, `vo_adaptive_hls
`, `vo_adaptive_dash
`, `download_hls
`, `trailer_hls
`, `trailer_dash
`
1724 * `hardsub
`: Preference order for which hardsub versions to extract. Default is `None
` (no hardsubs). Eg: `crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,None
`
1727 * `video_types
`: Types of videos to download - one or more of `episodes
`, `movies
`, `clips
`, `trailers
`
1730 * `segment_duration
`: Segment duration in milliseconds for HLS-DMC formats. Use it at your own risk since this feature **may result in your account termination.**
1732 #### youtubewebarchive
1733 * `check_all
`: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more of `thumbnails
`, `captures
`
1736 * `comment_sort
`: `hot
` (default), `you
` (cookies needed), `top
`, `new
` - choose comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
1739 * `res
`: resolution to ignore - one or more of `sd
`, `hd
`, `fhd
`
1740 * `vcodec
`: vcodec to ignore - one or more of `h264
`, `h265
`, `dvh265
`
1741 * `dr
`: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of `sdr
`, `hdr10
`, `dv
`
1744 * `app_version
`: App version to call mobile APIs with - should be set along with `manifest_app_version
`. (e.g. `20.2.1`)
1745 * `manifest_app_version
`: Numeric app version to call mobile APIs with. (e.g. `221`)
1748 * `tab
`: Which tab to download. One of `new
`, `top
`, `videos
`, `podcasts
`, `streams
`, `stacks
`. (E.g. `rokfinchannel:tab=streams
`)
1751 NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
1753 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "INSTALLATION" SECTION HERE -->
1758 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
1760 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
`.
1762 See [ytdlp_plugins](ytdlp_plugins) for example plugins.
1764 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
1766 If you are a plugin author, add [ytdlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability
1772 yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1774 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.
1776 From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1779 from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
1781 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1782 with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1786 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#L181).
1788 **Tip**: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one important point to look out for is that we do not guarantee the return value of `YoutubeDL.extract_info
` to be json serializable, or even be a dictionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it is a serializable dictionary, pass it through `YoutubeDL.sanitize_info
` as shown in the [example below](#extracting-information)
1790 ## Embedding examples
1792 #### Extracting information
1798 URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
1800 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
1802 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1803 info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
1805 # ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
1806 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1808 #### Download using an info-json
1813 INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
1815 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1816 error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
1818 print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
1819 else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
1827 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1830 'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
1831 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
1832 'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
1833 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
1834 'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
1838 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1839 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1847 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1849 def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
1850 """Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
1851 duration = info.get('duration')
1852 if duration and duration < 60:
1853 return 'The video is too short'
1856 'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
1859 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1860 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
1863 #### Adding logger and progress hook
1868 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1871 def debug(self, msg):
1872 # For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
1873 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
1874 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
1879 def info(self, msg):
1882 def warning(self, msg):
1885 def error(self, msg):
1889 # ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
1891 if d['status'] == 'finished':
1892 print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
1896 'logger': MyLogger(),
1897 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
1900 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1904 #### Add a custom PostProcessor
1909 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1911 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
1912 class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
1913 def run(self, info):
1914 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
1918 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1919 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP())
1924 #### Use a custom format selector
1929 URL = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1931 def format_selector(ctx):
1932 """ Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
1933 NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
1935 # formats are already sorted worst to best
1936 formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
1938 # acodec='none' means there is no audio
1939 best_video = next(f for f in formats
1940 if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
1942 # find compatible audio extension
1943 audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
1944 # vcodec='none' means there is no video
1945 best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
1946 f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
1948 # These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
1950 'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
1951 'ext': best_video['ext'],
1952 'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
1953 # Must be + separated list of protocols
1954 'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
1959 'format': format_selector,
1962 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1966 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "NEW FEATURES" SECTION HERE -->
1968 # DEPRECATED OPTIONS
1970 These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
1972 #### Almost redundant options
1973 While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
1975 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
1976 -F, --list-formats --print formats_table
1977 --list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
1978 --list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
1980 #### Redundant options
1981 While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
1983 --get-description --print description
1984 --get-duration --print duration_string
1985 --get-filename --print filename
1986 --get-format --print format
1988 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
1989 -e, --get-title --print title
1990 -g, --get-url --print urls
1991 --match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
1992 --reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
1993 --min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
1994 --max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
1995 --user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
1996 --referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
1999 #### Not recommended
2000 While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
2002 --exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
2003 --no-exec-before-download --no-exec
2004 --all-formats -f all
2005 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
2006 --print-json -j --no-simulate
2007 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)03d
2008 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
2009 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2010 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
2011 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
2012 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
2013 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
2014 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
2015 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
2016 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
2017 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
2018 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
2021 #### Developer options
2022 These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
2024 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
2025 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
2026 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
2027 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
2031 These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
2033 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
2034 --clean-infojson --clean-info-json
2035 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
2036 --dump-headers --print-traffic
2037 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
2038 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
2039 --load-info --load-info-json
2040 --no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
2041 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
2042 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
2043 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
2044 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
2045 --split-tracks --split-chapters
2046 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
2047 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
2048 --write-srt --write-subs
2049 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
2051 #### Sponskrub Options
2052 Support for [SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of the `--sponsorblock
` options
2054 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
2055 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
2056 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
2057 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
2058 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
2059 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
2060 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
2061 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
2063 #### No longer supported
2064 These options may no longer work as intended
2066 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
2067 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
2068 -C, --call-home Not implemented
2069 --no-call-home Default
2070 --include-ads No longer supported
2071 --no-include-ads Default
2072 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
2073 --no-write-annotations Default
2076 These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
2078 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2079 -t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2082 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)
2085 For FAQ see the [youtube-dl README](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
projects / yt-dlp.git / blob