out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
-2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
-n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
+ --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
+ either the path or its containing
+ directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
--video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
--ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
### Authentication with `.netrc` file
-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 your `$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:
+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:
```
touch $HOME/.netrc
chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
```
After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
```
-machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
+machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
```
For example:
```
```
To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
-On Windows you may also need to setup the `%HOME%` environment variable manually. For example:
-```
-set HOME=%USERPROFILE%
-```
+The default location of the .netrc file is `$HOME` (`~`) in UNIX. On Windows, it is `%HOME%` if present, `%USERPROFILE%` (generally `C:\Users\<user name>`) or `%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%`
# OUTPUT TEMPLATE
ydl_opts = {
'usenetrc': opts.usenetrc,
+ 'netrc_location': opts.netrc_location,
'username': opts.username,
'password': opts.password,
'twofactor': opts.twofactor,
compat_cookies_SimpleCookie,
compat_etree_Element,
compat_etree_fromstring,
+ compat_expanduser,
compat_getpass,
compat_http_client,
compat_os_name,
if self.get_param('usenetrc', False):
try:
- info = netrc.netrc().authenticators(netrc_machine)
+ netrc_file = compat_expanduser(self.get_param('netrc_location') or '~')
+ if os.path.isdir(netrc_file):
+ netrc_file = os.path.join(netrc_file, '.netrc')
+ info = netrc.netrc(file=netrc_file).authenticators(netrc_machine)
if info is not None:
username = info[0]
password = info[2]
'-n', '--netrc',
action='store_true', dest='usenetrc', default=False,
help='Use .netrc authentication data')
+ authentication.add_option(
+ '--netrc-location',
+ dest='netrc_location', metavar='PATH',
+ help='Location of .netrc authentication data; either the path or its containing directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc')
authentication.add_option(
'--video-password',
dest='videopassword', metavar='PASSWORD',