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| .github | ||
| bundle | ||
| devscripts | ||
| test | ||
| yt_dlp | ||
| .editorconfig | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .pre-commit-config.yaml | ||
| .pre-commit-hatch.yaml | ||
| Changelog.md | ||
| Collaborators.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTORS | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| Makefile | ||
| public.key | ||
| pyproject.toml | ||
| README.md | ||
| setup.cfg | ||
| supportedsites.md | ||
| yt-dlp.cmd | ||
| yt-dlp.sh | ||
yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with support for thousands of sites. The project is a fork of youtube-dl based on the now inactive youtube-dlc.
- INSTALLATION
- USAGE AND OPTIONS
- General Options
- Network Options
- Geo-restriction
- Video Selection
- Download Options
- Filesystem Options
- Thumbnail Options
- Internet Shortcut Options
- Verbosity and Simulation Options
- Workarounds
- Video Format Options
- Subtitle Options
- Authentication Options
- Post-processing Options
- SponsorBlock Options
- Extractor Options
- CONFIGURATION
- OUTPUT TEMPLATE
- FORMAT SELECTION
- MODIFYING METADATA
- EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
- PLUGINS
- EMBEDDING YT-DLP
- CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL
- CONTRIBUTING
- WIKI
INSTALLATION
You can install yt-dlp using the binaries, pip or one using a third-party package manager. See the wiki for detailed instructions
RELEASE FILES
Recommended
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp | Platform-independent zipimport binary. Needs Python (recommended for Linux/BSD) |
| yt-dlp.exe | Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for Windows) |
| yt-dlp_macos | Universal MacOS (10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for MacOS) |
Alternatives
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp_x86.exe | Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x86 (32-bit) binary |
| yt-dlp_min.exe | Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary built with py2exe(Not recommended) |
| yt-dlp_linux | Linux standalone x64 binary |
| yt-dlp_linux_armv7l | Linux standalone armv7l (32-bit) binary |
| yt-dlp_linux_aarch64 | Linux standalone aarch64 (64-bit) binary |
| yt-dlp_win.zip | Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_macos.zip | Unpackaged MacOS (10.15+) executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_macos_legacy | MacOS (10.9+) standalone x64 executable |
Misc
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp.tar.gz | Source tarball |
| SHA2-512SUMS | GNU-style SHA512 sums |
| SHA2-512SUMS.sig | GPG signature file for SHA512 sums |
| SHA2-256SUMS | GNU-style SHA256 sums |
| SHA2-256SUMS.sig | GPG signature file for SHA256 sums |
The public key that can be used to verify the GPG signatures is available here Example usage:
curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/raw/master/public.key | gpg --import
gpg --verify SHA2-256SUMS.sig SHA2-256SUMS
gpg --verify SHA2-512SUMS.sig SHA2-512SUMS
Note: The manpages, shell completion (autocomplete) files etc. are available inside the source tarball
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the release binaries
If you installed with pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
For other third-party package managers, see the wiki or refer their documentation
There are currently three release channels for binaries: stable, nightly and master.
stableis the default channel, and many of its changes have been tested by users of thenightlyandmasterchannels.- The
nightlychannel has releases scheduled to build every day around midnight UTC, for a snapshot of the project's new patches and changes. This is the recommended channel for regular users of yt-dlp. Thenightlyreleases are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds or as development releases of theyt-dlpPyPI package (which can be installed with pip's--preflag). - The
masterchannel features releases that are built after each push to the master branch, and these will have the very latest fixes and additions, but may also be more prone to regressions. They are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds.
When using --update/-U, a release binary will only update to its current channel.
--update-to CHANNEL can be used to switch to a different channel when a newer version is available. --update-to [CHANNEL@]TAG can also be used to upgrade or downgrade to specific tags from a channel.
You may also use --update-to <repository> (<owner>/<repository>) to update to a channel on a completely different repository. Be careful with what repository you are updating to though, there is no verification done for binaries from different repositories.
Example usage:
yt-dlp --update-to masterswitch to themasterchannel and update to its latest releaseyt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.07.06upgrade/downgrade to release tostablechannel tag2023.07.06yt-dlp --update-to 2023.10.07upgrade/downgrade to tag2023.10.07if it exists on the current channelyt-dlp --update-to example/yt-dlp@2023.09.24upgrade/downgrade to the release from theexample/yt-dlprepository, tag2023.09.24
Important: Any user experiencing an issue with the stable release should install or update to the nightly release before submitting a bug report:
# To update to nightly from stable executable/binary:
yt-dlp --update-to nightly
# To install nightly with pip:
python3 -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"
DEPENDENCIES
Python versions 3.8+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
While all the other dependencies are optional, ffmpeg and ffprobe are highly recommended
Strongly recommended
-
ffmpeg and ffprobe - Required for merging separate video and audio files as well as for various post-processing tasks. License depends on the build
There are bugs in ffmpeg that cause various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide custom builds with patches for some of these issues at yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds. See the readme for details on the specific issues solved by these builds
Important: What you need is ffmpeg binary, NOT the Python package of the same name
Networking
- certifi* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under MPLv2
- brotli* or brotlicffi - Brotli content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT 1 2
- websockets* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
- requests* - HTTP library. For HTTPS proxy and persistent connections support. Licensed under Apache-2.0
Impersonation
The following provide support for impersonating browser requests. This may be required for some sites that employ TLS fingerprinting.
- curl_cffi (recommended) - Python binding for curl-impersonate. Provides impersonation targets for Chrome, Edge and Safari. Licensed under MIT
- Can be installed with the
curl-cffigroup, e.g.pip install "yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]" - Currently only included in
yt-dlp.exeandyt-dlp_macosbuilds
- Can be installed with the
Metadata
- mutagen* - For
--embed-thumbnailin certain formats. Licensed under GPLv2+ - AtomicParsley - For
--embed-thumbnailinmp4/m4afiles whenmutagen/ffmpegcannot. Licensed under GPLv2+ - xattr, pyxattr or setfattr - For writing xattr metadata (
--xattr) on Mac and BSD. Licensed under MIT, LGPL2.1 and GPLv2+ respectively
Misc
- pycryptodomex* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause
- phantomjs - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
- secretstorage* - For
--cookies-from-browserto access the Gnome keyring while decrypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause - Any external downloader that you want to use with
--downloader
Deprecated
- avconv and avprobe - Now deprecated alternative to ffmpeg. License depends on the build
- sponskrub - For using the now deprecated sponskrub options. Licensed under GPLv3+
- rtmpdump - For downloading
rtmpstreams. ffmpeg can be used instead with--downloader ffmpeg. Licensed under GPLv2+ - mplayer or mpv - For downloading
rstp/mmsstreams. ffmpeg can be used instead with--downloader ffmpeg. Licensed under GPLv2+
To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with * included.
If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are attempting, yt-dlp will warn you. All the currently available dependencies are visible at the top of the --verbose output
COMPILE
Standalone PyInstaller Builds
To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and pyinstaller (plus any of yt-dlp's optional dependencies if needed). The executable will be built for the same CPU architecture as the Python used.
You can run the following commands:
python3 devscripts/install_deps.py --include pyinstaller
python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
python3 -m bundle.pyinstaller
On some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3.
python -m bundle.pyinstaller accepts any arguments that can be passed to pyinstaller, such as --onefile/-F or --onedir/-D, which is further documented here.
Note: Pyinstaller versions below 4.4 do not support Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment.
Important: Running pyinstaller directly instead of using python -m bundle.pyinstaller is not officially supported. This may or may not work correctly.
Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
You will need the build tools python (3.8+), zip, make (GNU), pandoc* and pytest*.
After installing these, simply run make.
You can also run make yt-dlp instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files. (The build tools marked with * are not needed for this)
Standalone Py2Exe Builds (Windows)
While we provide the option to build with py2exe, it is recommended to build using PyInstaller instead since the py2exe builds cannot contain pycryptodomex/certifi/requests and need VC++14 on the target computer to run.
If you wish to build it anyway, install Python (if it is not already installed) and you can run the following commands:
py devscripts/install_deps.py --include py2exe
py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
py -m bundle.py2exe
Related scripts
devscripts/install_deps.py- Install dependencies for yt-dlp.devscripts/update-version.py- Update the version number based on current date.devscripts/set-variant.py- Set the build variant of the executable.devscripts/make_changelog.py- Create a markdown changelog using short commit messages and updateCONTRIBUTORSfile.devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py- Create lazy extractors. Running this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the environment variableYTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS=1if you wish to forcefully disable lazy extractor loading.
Note: See their --help for more info.
Forking the project
If you fork the project on GitHub, you can run your fork's build workflow to automatically build the selected version(s) as artifacts. Alternatively, you can run the release workflow or enable the nightly workflow to create full (pre-)releases.
USAGE AND OPTIONS
yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
Ctrl+F is your friend :D
General Options:
-h, --help Print this help text and exit
--version Print program version and exit
-U, --update Update this program to the latest version
--no-update Do not check for updates (default)
--update-to [CHANNEL]@[TAG] Upgrade/downgrade to a specific version.
CHANNEL can be a repository as well. CHANNEL
and TAG default to "stable" and "latest"
respectively if omitted; See "UPDATE" for
details. Supported channels: stable,
nightly, master
-i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
The download will be considered successful
even if the postprocessing fails
--no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download errors;
e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a
playlist (default)
--abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
--dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
--list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
--extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
extractors and exit
--use-extractors NAMES Extractor names to use separated by commas.
You can also use regexes, "all", "default"
and "end" (end URL matching); e.g. --ies
"holodex.*,end,youtube". Prefix the name
with a "-" to exclude it, e.g. --ies
default,-generic. Use --list-extractors for
a list of extractor names. (Alias: --ies)
--default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g.
"gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from
google videos for the search term "python".
Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
("auto_warning" to emit a warning when
guessing). "error" just throws an error. The
default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
URLs, but emits an error if this is not
possible instead of searching
--ignore-config Don't load any more configuration files
except those given to --config-locations.
For backward compatibility, if this option
is found inside the system configuration
file, the user configuration is not loaded.
(Alias: --no-config)
--no-config-locations Do not load any custom configuration files
(default). When given inside a configuration
file, ignore all previous --config-locations
defined in the current file
--config-locations PATH Location of the main configuration file;
either the path to the config or its
containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be
used multiple times and inside other
configuration files
--flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
only list them
--no-flat-playlist Fully extract the videos of a playlist
(default)
--live-from-start Download livestreams from the start.
Currently only supported for YouTube
(Experimental)
--no-live-from-start Download livestreams from the current time
(default)
--wait-for-video MIN[-MAX] Wait for scheduled streams to become
available. Pass the minimum number of
seconds (or range) to wait between retries
--no-wait-for-video Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
--mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
--no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
--color [STREAM:]POLICY Whether to emit color codes in output,
optionally prefixed by the STREAM (stdout or
stderr) to apply the setting to. Can be one
of "always", "auto" (default), "never", or
"no_color" (use non color terminal
sequences). Can be used multiple times
--compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
configurations by reverting some of the
changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
default behavior" for details
--alias ALIASES OPTIONS Create aliases for an option string. Unless
an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
according to the Python string formatting
mini-language. E.g. --alias get-audio,-X
"-S=aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}"
creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that
takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
"-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
All defined aliases are listed in the --help
output. Alias options can trigger more
aliases; so be careful to avoid defining
recursive options. As a safety measure, each
alias may be triggered a maximum of 100
times. This option can be used multiple times
Network Options:
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To
enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme,
e.g. socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/.
Pass in an empty string (--proxy "") for
direct connection
--socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
--impersonate CLIENT[:OS] Client to impersonate for requests. E.g.
chrome, chrome-110, chrome:windows-10. Pass
--impersonate="" to impersonate any client.
Note that forcing impersonation for all
requests may have a detrimental impact on
download speed and stability
--list-impersonate-targets List available clients to impersonate.
-4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
-6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
--enable-file-urls Enable file:// URLs. This is disabled by
default for security reasons.
Geo-restriction:
--geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
some geo-restricted sites. The default proxy
specified by --proxy (or none, if the option
is not present) is used for the actual
downloading
--xff VALUE How to fake X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to
try bypassing geographic restriction. One of
"default" (only when known to be useful),
"never", an IP block in CIDR notation, or a
two-letter ISO 3166-2 country code
Video Selection:
-I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Comma separated playlist_index of the items
to download. You can specify a range using
"[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward
compatibility, START-STOP is also supported.
Use negative indices to count from the right
and negative STEP to download in reverse
order. E.g. "-I 1:3,7,-5::2" used on a
playlist of size 15 will download the items
at index 1,2,3,7,11,13,15
--min-filesize SIZE Abort download if filesize is smaller than
SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
--max-filesize SIZE Abort download if filesize is larger than
SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
--date DATE Download only videos uploaded on this date.
The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
[now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]].
E.g. "--date today-2weeks" downloads only
videos uploaded on the same day two weeks ago
--datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
this date. The date formats accepted is the
same as --date
--dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
this date. The date formats accepted is the
same as --date
--match-filters FILTER Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE"
field can be compared with a number or a
string using the operators defined in
"Filtering Formats". You can also simply
specify a field to match if the field is
present, use "!field" to check if the field
is not present, and "&" to check multiple
conditions. Use a "\" to escape "&" or
quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
the filter matches if atleast one of the
conditions are met. E.g. --match-filter
!is_live --match-filter "like_count>?100 &
description~='(?i)\bcats \& dogs\b'" matches
only videos that are not live OR those that
have a like count more than 100 (or the like
field is not available) and also has a
description that contains the phrase "cats &
dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filter -" to
interactively ask whether to download each
video
--no-match-filters Do not use any --match-filter (default)
--break-match-filters FILTER Same as "--match-filters" but stops the
download process when a video is rejected
--no-break-match-filters Do not use any --break-match-filters (default)
--no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
to a video and a playlist
--yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
a video and a playlist
--age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
age
--download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
archive file. Record the IDs of all
downloaded videos in it
--no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
--max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
a file that is in the archive
--no-break-on-existing Do not stop the download process when
encountering a file that is in the archive
(default)
--break-per-input Alters --max-downloads, --break-on-existing,
--break-match-filter, and autonumber to
reset per input URL
--no-break-per-input --break-on-existing and similar options
terminates the entire download queue
--skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest of
the playlist is skipped
Download Options:
-N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
video that should be downloaded concurrently
(default is 1)
-r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second,
e.g. 50K or 4.2M
--throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
below which throttling is assumed and the
video data is re-extracted, e.g. 100K
-R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
"infinite"
--file-access-retries RETRIES Number of times to retry on file access
error (default is 3), or "infinite"
--fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default is
10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
--retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR Time to sleep between retries in seconds
(optionally) prefixed by the type of retry
(http (default), fragment, file_access,
extractor) to apply the sleep to. EXPR can
be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=1]] or
exp=START[:END[:BASE=2]]. This option can be
used multiple times to set the sleep for the
different retry types, e.g. --retry-sleep
linear=1::2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=1:20
--skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
hlsnative and ISM downloads (default)
(Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragments)
--abort-on-unavailable-fragments
Abort download if a fragment is unavailable
(Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
--keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
downloading is finished
--no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
downloading is finished (default)
--buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer, e.g. 1024 or 16K
(default is 1024)
--resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
from an initial value of --buffer-size
(default)
--no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
--http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
downloading, e.g. 10485760 or 10M (default
is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
(experimental)
--playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
--lazy-playlist Process entries in the playlist as they are
received. This disables n_entries,
--playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
--no-lazy-playlist Process videos in the playlist only after
the entire playlist is parsed (default)
--xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
expected file size
--hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
allowing some players to play the video
while downloading, and reducing the chance
of file corruption if download is
interrupted. This is enabled by default for
live streams
--no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
videos. This is default when not downloading
live streams
--download-sections REGEX Download only chapters that match the
regular expression. A "*" prefix denotes
time-range instead of chapter. Negative
timestamps are calculated from the end.
"*from-url" can be used to download between
the "start_time" and "end_time" extracted
from the URL. Needs ffmpeg. This option can
be used multiple times to download multiple
sections, e.g. --download-sections
"*10:15-inf" --download-sections "intro"
--downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
(http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
use it for. Currently supports native,
aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
wget. You can use this option multiple times
to set different downloaders for different
protocols. E.g. --downloader aria2c
--downloader "dash,m3u8:native" will use
aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and the
native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
(Alias: --external-downloader)
--downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
downloader. Specify the downloader name and
the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different
positions using the same syntax as
--postprocessor-args. You can use this
option multiple times to give different
arguments to different downloaders (Alias:
--external-downloader-args)
Filesystem Options:
-a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ("-" for
stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
comments and ignored
--no-batch-file Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
-P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
path separated by a colon ":". All the same
TYPES as --output are supported.
Additionally, you can also provide "home"
(default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
files are first downloaded to the temp path
and then the final files are moved over to
the home path after download is finished.
This option is ignored if --output is an
absolute path
-o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
TEMPLATE" for details
--output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder for unavailable fields in
--output (default: "NA")
--restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
--no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
filenames (default)
--windows-filenames Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
--no-windows-filenames Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
using Windows (default)
--trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
extension) to the specified number of
characters
-w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
--force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
option includes --no-continue
--no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
related files (default)
-c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
(default)
--no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
restart download of the entire file
--part Use .part files instead of writing directly
into output file (default)
--no-part Do not use .part files - write directly into
output file
--mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the file
modification time (default)
--no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
the file modification time
--write-description Write video description to a .description file
--no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
--write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
(this may contain personal information)
--no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
--write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
video metadata when using --write-info-json,
--write-description etc. (default)
--no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
--write-info-json, --write-description etc.
--clean-info-json Remove some internal metadata such as
filenames from the infojson (default)
--no-clean-info-json Write all fields to the infojson
--write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
infojson. The comments are fetched even
without this option if the extraction is
known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
--no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
--no-get-comments)
--load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
(created with the "--write-info-json" option)
--cookies FILE Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
and dump cookie jar in
--no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
(default)
--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
The name of the browser to load cookies
from. Currently supported browsers are:
brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox,
opera, safari, vivaldi, whale. Optionally,
the KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium
cookies on Linux, the name/path of the
PROFILE to load cookies from, and the
CONTAINER name (if Firefox) ("none" for no
container) can be given with their
respective seperators. By default, all
containers of the most recently accessed
profile are used. Currently supported
keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring,
kwallet, kwallet5, kwallet6
--no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
--cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can
store some downloaded information (such as
client ids and signatures) permanently. By
default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/yt-dlp
--no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
Thumbnail Options:
--write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
--no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
--write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
--list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
Internet Shortcut Options:
--write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
.desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
--write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
OS caches the URL based on the file path
--write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
--write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
Verbosity and Simulation Options:
-q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
print the log to stderr
--no-quiet Deactivate quiet mode. (Default)
--no-warnings Ignore warnings
-s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
anything to disk
--no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
options are used
--ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
extracting metadata even if the videos are
not actually available for download
(experimental)
--no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
formats are found (default)
--skip-download Do not download the video but write all
related files (Alias: --no-download)
-O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE Field name or output template to print to
screen, optionally prefixed with when to
print it, separated by a ":". Supported
values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
--use-postprocessor (default: video).
Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
--no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
used. This option can be used multiple times
--print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
Append given template to the file. The
values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that
of --print. FILE uses the same syntax as the
output template. This option can be used
multiple times
-j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
description of available keys
-J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
--no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
a playlist, the whole playlist information
is dumped in a single line
--force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be written
as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
another simulation option is used (Alias:
--force-download-archive)
--newline Output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress Do not print progress bar
--progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
--console-title Display progress in console titlebar
--progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
Template for progress outputs, optionally
prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
"download-title:" (the console title),
"postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
The video's fields are accessible under the
"info" key and the progress attributes are
accessible under "progress" key. E.g.
--console-title --progress-template
"download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
--progress-delta SECONDS Time between progress output (default: 0)
-v, --verbose Print various debugging information
--dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
to debug problems (very verbose)
--write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
in the current directory to debug problems
--print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
Workarounds:
--encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
--legacy-server-connect Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
that do not support RFC 5746 secure
renegotiation
--no-check-certificates Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
information about the video (Currently
supported only for YouTube)
--add-headers FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
separated by a colon ":". You can use this
option multiple times
--bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
or fribidi executable in PATH
--sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
during data extraction
--sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
download. This is the minimum time to sleep
when used along with --max-sleep-interval
(Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
--max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
be used along with --min-sleep-interval
--sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
subtitle download
Video Format Options:
-f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
for more details
-S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
"Sorting Formats" for more details
--format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
--no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
specified sort order (default)
--video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
into a single file
--no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for each
output file (default)
--audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
into a single file
--no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
output file (default)
--prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
over non-free ones of same quality. Use with
"-S ext" to strictly prefer free containers
irrespective of quality
--no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
containers (default)
--check-formats Make sure formats are selected only from
those that are actually downloadable
--check-all-formats Check all formats for whether they are
actually downloadable
--no-check-formats Do not check that the formats are actually
downloadable
-F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--merge-output-format FORMAT Containers that may be used when merging
formats, separated by "/", e.g. "mp4/mkv".
Ignored if no merge is required. (currently
supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)
Subtitle Options:
--write-subs Write subtitle file
--no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
--write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
(Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
--no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
(default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
--list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format; accepts formats preference,
e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
be regex) or "all" separated by commas, e.g.
--sub-langs "en.*,ja". You can prefix the
language code with a "-" to exclude it from
the requested languages, e.g. --sub-langs
all,-live_chat. Use --list-subs for a list
of available language tags
Authentication Options:
-u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
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
--netrc-cmd NETRC_CMD Command to execute to get the credentials
for an extractor.
--video-password PASSWORD Video-specific password
--ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
a list of available MSOs
--ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
--ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
interactively
--ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system operators
--client-certificate CERTFILE Path to client certificate file in PEM
format. May include the private key
--client-certificate-key KEYFILE
Path to private key file for client
certificate
--client-certificate-password PASSWORD
Password for client certificate private key,
if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
Post-Processing Options:
-x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
(requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT Format to convert the audio to when -x is
used. (currently supported: best (default),
aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis,
wav). You can specify multiple rules using
similar syntax as --remux-video
--audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR or a
specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
--remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
necessary (currently supported: avi, flv,
gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac,
flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis,
wav). If target container does not support
the video/audio codec, remuxing will fail.
You can specify multiple rules; e.g.
"aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
--recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
necessary. The syntax and supported formats
are the same as --remux-video
--postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
Specify the postprocessor/executable name
and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
to give the argument to the specified
postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
"PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
specified executable only when being used by
the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
appended to the prefix optionally followed
by a number to pass the argument before the
specified input/output file, e.g. --ppa
"Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
this option multiple times to give different
arguments to different postprocessors.
(Alias: --ppa)
-k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
after post-processing
--no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
post-processing (default)
--post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
--no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
--embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
webm and mkv videos)
--no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
--embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
--no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
--embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also
embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
--no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
used (Alias: --add-metadata)
--no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
(Alias: --no-add-metadata)
--embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
(Alias: --add-chapters)
--no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
--no-add-chapters)
--embed-info-json Embed the infojson as an attachment to
mkv/mka video files
--no-embed-info-json Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
to the video file
--parse-metadata [WHEN:]FROM:TO
Parse additional metadata like title/artist
from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
for details. Supported values of "WHEN" are
the same as that of --use-postprocessor
(default: pre_process)
--replace-in-metadata [WHEN:]FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
Replace text in a metadata field using the
given regex. This option can be used
multiple times. Supported values of "WHEN"
are the same as that of --use-postprocessor
(default: pre_process)
--xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
(using dublin core and xdg standards)
--concat-playlist POLICY Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
"never", "always", or "multi_video"
(default; only when the videos form a single
show). All the video files must have same
codecs and number of streams to be
concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
the output filename for the concatenated
files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
default; fix file if we can, warn
otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
already exists)
--ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
path to the binary or its containing directory
--exec [WHEN:]CMD Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
when to execute it, separated by a ":".
Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as
that of --use-postprocessor (default:
after_move). Same syntax as the output
template can be used to pass any field as
arguments to the command. If no fields are
passed, %(filepath,_filename|)q is appended
to the end of the command. This option can
be used multiple times
--no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
--convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
(currently supported: ass, lrc, srt, vtt)
(Alias: --convert-subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
(currently supported: jpg, png, webp). You
can specify multiple rules using similar
syntax as --remux-video
--split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
the output filename for the split files. See
"OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters (default)
--remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
given regular expression. The syntax is the
same as --download-sections. This option can
be used multiple times
--no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
(default)
--force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes at cuts when
downloading/splitting/removing sections.
This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but
the resulting video may have fewer artifacts
around the cuts
--no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
when cutting/splitting (default)
--use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
The (case sensitive) name of plugin
postprocessors to be enabled, and
(optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
The "when" argument determines when the
postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
"pre_process" (after video extraction),
"after_filter" (after video passes filter),
"video" (after --format; before
--print/--output), "before_dl" (before each
video download), "post_process" (after each
video download; default), "after_move"
(after moving video file to it's final
locations), "after_video" (after downloading
and processing all formats of a video), or
"playlist" (at end of playlist). This option
can be used multiple times to add different
postprocessors
SponsorBlock Options:
Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor, introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the SponsorBlock API
--sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
for, separated by commas. Available
categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
music_offtopic, poi_highlight, chapter, all
and default (=all). You can prefix the
category with a "-" to exclude it. See [1]
for description of the categories. E.g.
--sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
[1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
--sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
the video file, separated by commas. If a
category is present in both mark and remove,
remove takes precedence. The syntax and
available categories are the same as for
--sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight,
chapter are not available
--sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
An output template for the title of the
SponsorBlock chapters created by
--sponsorblock-mark. The only available
fields are start_time, end_time, category,
categories, name, category_names. Defaults
to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
--no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
--sponsorblock-remove
--sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
https://sponsor.ajay.app
Extractor Options:
--extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor errors
(default is 3), or "infinite"
--allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
(Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
--ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
(Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
--hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
discontinuities such as ad breaks
--no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
(default)
--extractor-args IE_KEY:ARGS Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY extractor.
See "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You
can use this option multiple times to give
arguments for different extractors
CONFIGURATION
You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
-
Main Configuration:
- The file given to
--config-location
- The file given to
-
Portable Configuration: (Recommended for portable installations)
- If using a binary,
yt-dlp.confin the same directory as the binary - If running from source-code,
yt-dlp.confin the parent directory ofyt_dlp
- If using a binary,
-
Home Configuration:
yt-dlp.confin the home path given to-P- If
-Pis not given, the current directory is searched
-
User Configuration:
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp.conf${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config(recommended on Linux/macOS)${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config.txt${APPDATA}/yt-dlp.conf${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config(recommended on Windows)${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config.txt~/yt-dlp.conf~/yt-dlp.conf.txt~/.yt-dlp/config~/.yt-dlp/config.txt
See also: Notes about environment variables
-
System Configuration:
/etc/yt-dlp.conf/etc/yt-dlp/config/etc/yt-dlp/config.txt
E.g. 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:
# Lines starting with # are comments
# Always extract audio
-x
# Do not copy the mtime
--no-mtime
# Use this proxy
--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
# Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
-o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
Note: 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. They must also be quoted when necessary as-if it were a UNIX shell.
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.
Configuration file encoding
The configuration files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if present, and in the encoding from system locale otherwise.
If you want your file to be decoded differently, add # coding: ENCODING to the beginning of the file (e.g. # coding: shift-jis). There must be no characters before that, even spaces or BOM.
Authentication with netrc
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 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 <username> password <password>
E.g.
machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
To activate authentication with the .netrc file you should pass --netrc to yt-dlp or place it in the configuration file.
The default location of the .netrc file is ~ (see below).
As an alternative to using the .netrc file, which has the disadvantage of keeping your passwords in a plain text file, you can configure a custom shell command to provide the credentials for an extractor. This is done by providing the --netrc-cmd parameter, it shall output the credentials in the netrc format and return 0 on success, other values will be treated as an error. {} in the command will be replaced by the name of the extractor to make it possible to select the credentials for the right extractor.
E.g. To use an encrypted .netrc file stored as .authinfo.gpg
yt-dlp --netrc-cmd 'gpg --decrypt ~/.authinfo.gpg' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc
Notes about environment variables
- Environment variables are normally specified as
${VARIABLE}/$VARIABLEon UNIX and%VARIABLE%on Windows; but is always shown as${VARIABLE}in this documentation - yt-dlp also allow using UNIX-style variables on Windows for path-like options; e.g.
--output,--config-location - If unset,
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}defaults to~/.configand${XDG_CACHE_HOME}to~/.cache - On Windows,
~points to${HOME}if present; or,${USERPROFILE}or${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH}otherwise - On Windows,
${USERPROFILE}generally points toC:\Users\<user name>and${APPDATA}to${USERPROFILE}\AppData\Roaming
OUTPUT TEMPLATE
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.
tl;dr: navigate me to examples.
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).
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, e.g. %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations.
The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
-
Object traversal: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a dot
.separator; e.g.%(tags.0)s,%(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s. You can do Python slicing with colon:; E.g.%(id.3:7:-1)s,%(formats.:.format_id)s. Curly braces{}can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys; e.g.%(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j. An empty field name%()srefers to the entire infodict; e.g.%(.{id,title})s. Note that all the fields that become available using this method are not listed below. Use-jto see such fields -
Arithmetic: Simple arithmetic can be done on numeric fields using
+,-and*. E.g.%(playlist_index+10)03d,%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d -
Date/time Formatting: Date/time fields can be formatted according to strftime formatting by specifying it separated from the field name using a
>. E.g.%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s,%(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s,%(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s -
Alternatives: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a
,. E.g.%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s -
Replacement: A replacement value can be specified using a
&separator according to thestr.formatmini-language. 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. E.g.%(chapters&has chapters|no chapters)s,%(title&TITLE={:>20}|NO TITLE)s -
Default: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a
|separator. This overrides--output-na-placeholder. E.g.%(uploader|Unknown)s -
More Conversions: In addition to the normal format types
diouxXeEfFgGcrs, yt-dlp additionally supports converting toB= Bytes,j= json (flag#for pretty-printing,+for Unicode),h= HTML escaping,l= a comma separated list (flag#for\nnewline-separated),q= a string quoted for the terminal (flag#to split a list into different arguments),D= add Decimal suffixes (e.g. 10M) (flag#to use 1024 as factor), andS= Sanitize as filename (flag#for restricted) -
Unicode normalization: The format type
Ucan be used for NFC Unicode normalization. The alternate form flag (#) changes the normalization to NFD and the conversion flag+can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility equivalence normalization. E.g.%(title)+.100Uis NFKC
To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
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. E.g. -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. E.g. --write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:" will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
Note: Due to post-processing (i.e. merging etc.), the actual output filename might differ. Use --print after_move:filepath to get the name after all post-processing is complete.
The available fields are:
id(string): Video identifiertitle(string): Video titlefulltitle(string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic titleext(string): Video filename extensionalt_title(string): A secondary title of the videodescription(string): The description of the videodisplay_id(string): An alternative identifier for the videouploader(string): Full name of the video uploaderuploader_id(string): Nickname or id of the video uploaderuploader_url(string): URL to the video uploader's profilelicense(string): License name the video is licensed undercreators(list): The creators of the videocreator(string): The creators of the video; comma-separatedtimestamp(numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became availableupload_date(string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)release_timestamp(numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was releasedrelease_date(string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTCrelease_year(numeric): Year (YYYY) when the video or album was releasedmodified_timestamp(numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modifiedmodified_date(string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTCchannel(string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded onchannel_id(string): Id of the channelchannel_url(string): URL of the channelchannel_follower_count(numeric): Number of followers of the channelchannel_is_verified(boolean): Whether the channel is verified on the platformlocation(string): Physical location where the video was filmedduration(numeric): Length of the video in secondsduration_string(string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)view_count(numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platformconcurrent_view_count(numeric): How many users are currently watching the video on the platform.like_count(numeric): Number of positive ratings of the videodislike_count(numeric): Number of negative ratings of the videorepost_count(numeric): Number of reposts of the videoaverage_rating(numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpagecomment_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)age_limit(numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)live_status(string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming", "was_live", "post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)is_live(boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length videowas_live(boolean): Whether this video was originally a live streamplayable_in_embed(string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sitesavailability(string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"media_type(string): The type of media as classified by the site, e.g. "episode", "clip", "trailer"start_time(numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URLend_time(numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URLextractor(string): Name of the extractorextractor_key(string): Key name of the extractorepoch(numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completedautonumber(numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at--autonumber-start, padded with leading zeros to 5 digitsvideo_autonumber(numeric): Number that will be increased with each videon_entries(numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlistplaylist_id(string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the videoplaylist_title(string): Name of the playlist that contains the videoplaylist(string):playlist_idorplaylist_titleplaylist_count(numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extractedplaylist_index(numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final indexplaylist_autonumber(numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlistplaylist_uploader(string): Full name of the playlist uploaderplaylist_uploader_id(string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploaderplaylist_channel(string): Display name of the channel that uploaded the playlistplaylist_channel_id(string): Identifier of the channel that uploaded the playlistwebpage_url(string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same result againwebpage_url_basename(string): The basename of the webpage URLwebpage_url_domain(string): The domain of the webpage URLoriginal_url(string): The URL given by the user (or same aswebpage_urlfor playlist entries)categories(list): List of categories the video belongs totags(list): List of tags assigned to the videocast(list): List of cast members
All the fields in Filtering Formats can also be used
Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
chapter(string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs tochapter_number(numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs tochapter_id(string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
series(string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs toseries_id(string): Id of the series or programme the video episode belongs toseason(string): Title of the season the video episode belongs toseason_number(numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs toseason_id(string): Id of the season the video episode belongs toepisode(string): Title of the video episodeepisode_number(numeric): Number of the video episode within a seasonepisode_id(string): Id of the video episode
Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
track(string): Title of the tracktrack_number(numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disctrack_id(string): Id of the trackartists(list): Artist(s) of the trackartist(string): Artist(s) of the track; comma-separatedgenres(list): Genre(s) of the trackgenre(string): Genre(s) of the track; comma-separatedcomposers(list): Composer(s) of the piececomposer(string): Composer(s) of the piece; comma-separatedalbum(string): Title of the album the track belongs toalbum_type(string): Type of the albumalbum_artists(list): All artists appeared on the albumalbum_artist(string): All artists appeared on the album; comma-separateddisc_number(numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
Available only when using --download-sections and for chapter: prefix when using --split-chapters for videos with internal chapters:
section_title(string): Title of the chaptersection_number(numeric): Number of the chapter within the filesection_start(numeric): Start time of the chapter in secondssection_end(numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
Available only when used in --print:
urls(string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each linefilename(string): Name of the video file. Note that the actual filename may differformats_table(table): The video format table as printed by--list-formatsthumbnails_table(table): The thumbnail format table as printed by--list-thumbnailssubtitles_table(table): The subtitle format table as printed by--list-subsautomatic_captions_table(table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by--list-subs
Available only after the video is downloaded (post_process/after_move):
filepath: Actual path of downloaded video file
Available only in --sponsorblock-chapter-title:
start_time(numeric): Start time of the chapter in secondsend_time(numeric): End time of the chapter in secondscategories(list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs tocategory(string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs tocategory_names(list): Friendly names of the categoriesname(string): Friendly name of the smallest categorytype(string): The SponsorBlock action type of the chapter
Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. E.g. 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.
Note: 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).
Tip: Look at the -j output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting; e.g. %(view_count)05d will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in 00042.
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.
To use percent literals in an output template use %%. To output to stdout use -o -.
The current default template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s.
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.
Output template examples
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
$ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
# Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist_index&{} - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
$ 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"
# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
$ 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"
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
# and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
$ 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
# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
FORMAT SELECTION
By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you don't pass any options.
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.
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.
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.
tl;dr: navigate me to examples.
The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. 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.
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.
You can use -f - to interactively provide the format selector for each video
You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
all: Select all formats separatelymergeall: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with--audio-multistreams,--video-multistreamsor both)b*,best*: Select the best quality format that contains either a video or an audio or both (ie;vcodec!=none or acodec!=none)b,best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]bv,bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent tobest*[acodec=none]bv*,bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec!=none]ba,bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec=none]ba*,bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent tobest*[acodec!=none](Do not use!)w*,worst*: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audiow,worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]wv,worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent toworst*[acodec=none]wv*,worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec!=none]wa,worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec=none]wa*,worstaudio*: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent toworst*[acodec!=none]
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 for more details.
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.
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; e.g. -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.
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.
You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using -f <format1>+<format2>+... (requires ffmpeg installed); e.g. -f bestvideo+bestaudio will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.
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
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. E.g. -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 only best while -f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams will ignore best and download only bestaudio.
Filtering Formats
You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in -f "best[height=720]" (or -f "[filesize>10M]" since filters without a selector are interpreted as best).
The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons <, <=, >, >=, = (equals), != (not equals):
filesize: The number of bytes, if known in advancefilesize_approx: An estimate for the number of byteswidth: Width of the video, if knownheight: Height of the video, if knownaspect_ratio: Aspect ratio of the video, if knowntbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in kbpsabr: Average audio bitrate in kbpsvbr: Average video bitrate in kbpsasr: Audio sampling rate in Hertzfps: Frame rateaudio_channels: The number of audio channelsstretched_ratio:width:heightof the video's pixels, if not square
Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *= (contains), ~= (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
url: Video URLext: File extensionacodec: Name of the audio codec in usevcodec: Name of the video codec in usecontainer: Name of the container formatprotocol: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (http,https,rtsp,rtmp,rtmpe,mms,f4m,ism,http_dash_segments,m3u8, orm3u8_native)language: Language codedynamic_range: The dynamic range of the videoformat_id: A short description of the formatformat: A human-readable description of the formatformat_note: Additional info about the formatresolution: Textual description of width and height
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 ._-.
Note: 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.
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 "bv[height<=?720][tbr>500]" selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 kbps. You can also use the filters with all to download all formats that satisfy the filter, e.g. -f "all[vcodec=none]" selects all audio-only formats.
Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. -f "(mp4,webm)[height<480]" will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480.
Sorting Formats
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....
The available fields are:
hasvid: Gives priority to formats that have a video streamhasaud: Gives priority to formats that have an audio streamie_pref: The format preferencelang: The language preferencequality: The quality of the formatsource: The preference of the sourceproto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps>http/ftp>m3u8_native/m3u8>http_dash_segments>websocket_frag>mms/rtsp>f4f/f4m)vcodec: Video Codec (av01>vp9.2>vp9>h265>h264>vp8>h263>theora> other)acodec: Audio Codec (flac/alac>wav/aiff>opus>vorbis>aac>mp4a>mp3>ac4>eac3>ac3>dts> other)codec: Equivalent tovcodec,acodecvext: Video Extension (mp4>mov>webm>flv> other). If--prefer-free-formatsis used,webmis preferred.aext: Audio Extension (m4a>aac>mp3>ogg>opus>webm> other). If--prefer-free-formatsis used, the order changes toogg>opus>webm>mp3>m4a>aacext: Equivalent tovext,aextfilesize: Exact filesize, if known in advancefs_approx: Approximate filesizesize: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesizeheight: Height of videowidth: Width of videores: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.fps: Framerate of videohdr: The dynamic range of the video (DV>HDR12>HDR10+>HDR10>HLG>SDR)channels: The number of audio channelstbr: Total average bitrate in kbpsvbr: Average video bitrate in kbpsabr: Average audio bitrate in kbpsbr: Average bitrate in kbps,tbr/vbr/abrasr: Audio sample rate in Hz
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.
All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. E.g. +res prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a :. E.g. 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. E.g. +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. E.g. filesize~1G prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
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,vcodec:vp9.2,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
Note that the default has vcodec: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.
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.
Tip: You can use the -v -F to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
Format Selection examples
# Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
$ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
# Download best format that contains video,
# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
# Same as above
$ yt-dlp
# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
# For this case, an output template should be used since
# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
$ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and all audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
# The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
# and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
# Download the worst video available (old method)
$ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "+res"
# Download the smallest video available
$ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
# Download the best video with the best extension
# (For video, mp4 > mov > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
$ yt-dlp -S "ext"
# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
# Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
# Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
# Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
# So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
$ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
# Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
# Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
# Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
# Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
# or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
# Download best video available via the best protocol
# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
$ yt-dlp -S "proto"
# Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
# or the best video if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
# Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
# or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
# More complex examples
# Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
# or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
# Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
# or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
# preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
# Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
# or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
# preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
MODIFYING METADATA
The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using --parse-metadata and --replace-in-metadata
--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE is used to replace text in any metadata field using Python regular expression. Backreferences can be used in the replace string for advanced use.
The general syntax of --parse-metadata FROM:TO is to give the name of a field or an output template to extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon :. Either a Python regular expression with named capture groups, a single field name, or a similar syntax to the 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.
Note that these options preserve their relative order, allowing replacements to be made in parsed fields and viceversa. Also, any field thus created can be used in the output template and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using --embed-metadata.
This option also has a few special uses:
-
You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of the currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field
additional_urlsto the URL that you want to download. E.g.--parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)"will download the first vimeo video found in the description -
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 tometa_descriptionfield will be added to thedescriptionfield in the file - you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use themeta<n>_prefix (e.g.meta1_language). Any value set to themeta_field will overwrite all default values.
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.
For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
| Metadata fields | From |
|---|---|
title |
track or title |
date |
upload_date |
description, synopsis |
description |
purl, comment |
webpage_url |
track |
track_number |
artist |
artist, artists, creator, creators, uploader or uploader_id |
composer |
composer or composers |
genre |
genre or genres |
album |
album |
album_artist |
album_artist or album_artists |
disc |
disc_number |
show |
series |
season_number |
season_number |
episode_id |
episode or episode_id |
episode_sort |
episode_number |
language of each stream |
the format's language |
Note: The file format may not support some of these fields
Modifying metadata examples
# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
# Regex example
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
# Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --embed-metadata
# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
# handling multiple lines correctly
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --embed-metadata
# Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"
# Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "video::(?P<formats>)" --write-info-json
# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using --extractor-args KEY:ARGS. ARGS is a ; (semicolon) separated string of ARG=VAL1,VAL2. E.g. --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=android_embedded,web;formats=incomplete" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"
Note: In CLI, ARG can use - instead of _; e.g. youtube:player-client" becomes youtube:player_client"
The following extractors use this feature:
youtube
lang: Prefer translated metadata (title,descriptionetc) of this language code (case-sensitive). By default, the video primary language metadata is preferred, with a fallback toentranslated. See youtube.py for list of supported content language codesskip: One or more ofhls,dashortranslated_substo skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and auto-translated subtitles respectivelyplayer_client: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients areweb,iosandandroid, with variants_music,_embedded,_embedscreen,_creator(e.g.web_embedded); andmweb,mweb_embedscreenandtv_embedded(agegate bypass) with no variants. By default,ios,webis used, buttv_embeddedandcreatorvariants are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly, the music variants are added formusic.youtube.comurls. Theandroidclients will always be given lowest priority since their formats are broken. You can useallto use all the clients, anddefaultfor the default clients.player_skip: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more ofconfigs(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 for more detailsplayer_params: YouTube player parameters to use for player requests. Will overwrite any default ones set by yt-dlp.comment_sort:topornew(default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)max_comments: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representingmax-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread. Default isall,all,all,all- E.g.
all,all,1000,10will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread.1000,all,100will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
- E.g.
formats: Change the types of formats to return.dashy(convert HTTP to DASH),duplicate(identical content but different URLs or protocol; includesdashy),incomplete(cannot be downloaded completely - live dash and post-live m3u8)innertube_host: Innertube API host to use for all API requests; e.g.studio.youtube.com,youtubei.googleapis.com. Note that cookies exported from one subdomain will not work on othersinnertube_key: Innertube API key to use for all API requestsraise_incomplete_data:Incomplete Data Receivedraises an error instead of reporting a warning
youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
skip: One or more ofwebpage(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 for more details)approximate_date: Extract approximateupload_dateandtimestampin flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
generic
fragment_query: Passthrough any query in mpd/m3u8 manifest URLs to their fragments if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given asfragment_query=VALUE. Note that if the stream has an HLS AES-128 key, then the query parameters will be passed to the key URI as well, unless thekey_queryextractor-arg is passed, or unless an external key URI is provided via thehls_keyextractor-arg. Does not apply to ffmpegvariant_query: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its variant playlist URLs if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given asvariant_query=VALUEkey_query: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its HLS AES-128 decryption key URI if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given askey_query=VALUE. Note that this will have no effect if the key URI is provided via thehls_keyextractor-arg. Does not apply to ffmpeghls_key: An HLS AES-128 key URI or key (as hex), and optionally the IV (as hex), in the form of(URI|KEY)[,IV]; e.g.generic:hls_key=ABCDEF1234567980,0xFEDCBA0987654321. Passing any of these values will force usage of the native HLS downloader and override the corresponding values found in the m3u8 playlistis_live: Bypass live HLS detection and manually setlive_status- a value offalsewill setnot_live, any other value (or no value) will setis_live
funimation
language: Audio languages to extract, e.g.funimation:language=english,japaneseversion: The video version to extract -uncutorsimulcast
crunchyrollbeta (Crunchyroll)
hardsub: One or more hardsub versions to extract (in order of preference), orall(default:None= no hardsubs will be extracted), e.g.crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,de-DE
vikichannel
video_types: Types of videos to download - one or more ofepisodes,movies,clips,trailers
niconico
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.
youtubewebarchive
check_all: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more ofthumbnails,captures
gamejolt
comment_sort:hot(default),you(cookies needed),top,new- choose comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
hotstar
res: resolution to ignore - one or more ofsd,hd,fhdvcodec: vcodec to ignore - one or more ofh264,h265,dvh265dr: dynamic range to ignore - one or more ofsdr,hdr10,dv
niconicochannelplus
max_comments: Maximum number of comments to extract - default is120
tiktok
api_hostname: Hostname to use for mobile API calls, e.g.api22-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.comapp_name: Default app name to use with mobile API calls, e.g.trillapp_version: Default app version to use with mobile API calls - should be set along withmanifest_app_version, e.g.34.1.2manifest_app_version: Default numeric app version to use with mobile API calls, e.g.2023401020aid: Default app ID to use with mobile API calls, e.g.1180app_info: Enable mobile API extraction with one or more app info strings in the format of<iid>/[app_name]/[app_version]/[manifest_app_version]/[aid], whereiidis the unique app install ID.iidis the only required value; all other values and their/separators can be omitted, e.g.tiktok:app_info=1234567890123456789ortiktok:app_info=123,456/trill///1180,789//34.0.1/340001device_id: Enable mobile API extraction with a genuine device ID to be used with mobile API calls. Default is a random 19-digit string
rokfinchannel
tab: Which tab to download - one ofnew,top,videos,podcasts,streams,stacks
api: Select one ofgraphql(default),legacyorsyndicationas the API for tweet extraction. Has no effect if logged in
stacommu, wrestleuniverse
device_id: UUID value assigned by the website and used to enforce device limits for paid livestream content. Can be found in browser local storage
twitch
client_id: Client ID value to be sent with GraphQL requests, e.g.twitch:client_id=kimne78kx3ncx6brgo4mv6wki5h1ko
nhkradirulive (NHK らじる★らじる LIVE)
area: Which regional variation to extract. Valid areas are:sapporo,sendai,tokyo,nagoya,osaka,hiroshima,matsuyama,fukuoka. Defaults totokyo
nflplusreplay
type: Type(s) of game replays to extract. Valid types are:full_game,full_game_spanish,condensed_gameandall_22. You can useallto extract all available replay types, which is the default
jiocinema
refresh_token: TherefreshTokenUUID from browser local storage can be passed to extend the life of your login session when logging in withtokenas username and theaccessTokenfrom browser local storage as password
jiosaavn
bitrate: Audio bitrates to request. One or more of16,32,64,128,320. Default is128,320
afreecatvlive
cdn: One or more CDN IDs to use with the API call for stream URLs, e.g.gcp_cdn,gs_cdn_pc_app,gs_cdn_mobile_web,gs_cdn_pc_web
soundcloud
formats: Formats to request from the API. Requested values should be in the format of{protocol}_{extension}(omitting the bitrate), e.g.hls_opus,http_aac. The*character functions as a wildcard, e.g.*_mp3, and can passed by itself to request all formats. Known protocols includehttp,hlsandhls-aes; known extensions includeaac,opusandmp3. Originaldownloadformats are always extracted. Default ishttp_aac,hls_aac,http_opus,hls_opus,http_mp3,hls_mp3
orfon (orf:on)
prefer_segments_playlist: Prefer a playlist of program segments instead of a single complete video when available. If individual segments are desired, use--concat-playlist never --extractor-args "orfon:prefer_segments_playlist"
Note: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
PLUGINS
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!
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.
- Extractor plugins take priority over builtin extractors.
- Postprocessor plugins can be invoked using
--use-postprocessor NAME.
Plugins are loaded from the namespace packages yt_dlp_plugins.extractor and yt_dlp_plugins.postprocessor.
In other words, the file structure on the disk looks something like:
yt_dlp_plugins/
extractor/
myplugin.py
postprocessor/
myplugin.py
yt-dlp looks for these yt_dlp_plugins namespace folders in many locations (see below) and loads in plugins from all of them.
See the wiki for some known plugins
Installing Plugins
Plugins can be installed using various methods and locations.
-
Configuration directories: Plugin packages (containing a
yt_dlp_pluginsnamespace folder) can be dropped into the following standard configuration locations:- User Plugins
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/(recommended on Linux/macOS)${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/(recommended on Windows)${APPDATA}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/~/.yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/~/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
- System Plugins
/etc/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins//etc/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
- User Plugins
-
Executable location: Plugin packages can similarly be installed in a
yt-dlp-pluginsdirectory under the executable location (recommended for portable installations):- Binary: where
<root-dir>/yt-dlp.exe,<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/ - Source: where
<root-dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py,<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
- Binary: where
-
pip and other locations in
PYTHONPATH- Plugin packages can be installed and managed using
pip. See yt-dlp-sample-plugins for an example.- Note: plugin files between plugin packages installed with pip must have unique filenames.
- Any path in
PYTHONPATHis searched in for theyt_dlp_pluginsnamespace folder.- Note: This does not apply for Pyinstaller/py2exe builds.
- Plugin packages can be installed and managed using
.zip, .egg and .whl archives containing a yt_dlp_plugins namespace folder in their root are also supported as plugin packages.
- e.g.
${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/mypluginpkg.zipwheremypluginpkg.zipcontainsyt_dlp_plugins/<type>/myplugin.py
Run yt-dlp with --verbose to check if the plugin has been loaded.
Developing Plugins
See the yt-dlp-sample-plugins repo for a template plugin package and the Plugin Development section of the wiki for a plugin development guide.
All public classes with a name ending in IE/PP are imported from each file for extractors and postprocessors repectively. This respects underscore prefix (e.g. _MyBasePluginIE is private) and __all__. Modules can similarly be excluded by prefixing the module name with an underscore (e.g. _myplugin.py).
To replace an existing extractor with a subclass of one, set the plugin_name class keyword argument (e.g. class MyPluginIE(ABuiltInIE, plugin_name='myplugin') will replace ABuiltInIE with MyPluginIE). Since the extractor replaces the parent, you should exclude the subclass extractor from being imported separately by making it private using one of the methods described above.
If you are a plugin author, add yt-dlp-plugins as a topic to your repository for discoverability.
See the Developer Instructions on how to write and test an extractor.
EMBEDDING YT-DLP
yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
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.
From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py or help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) in a Python shell. If you are already familiar with the CLI, you can use devscripts/cli_to_api.py to translate any CLI switches to YoutubeDL params.
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
Embedding examples
Extracting information
import json
import yt_dlp
URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
ydl_opts = {}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
# ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
Download using an info-json
import yt_dlp
INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
Extract audio
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
ydl_opts = {
'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
}]
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Filter videos
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
"""Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
duration = info.get('duration')
if duration and duration < 60:
return 'The video is too short'
ydl_opts = {
'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Adding logger and progress hook
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
class MyLogger:
def debug(self, msg):
# For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
# You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
pass
else:
self.info(msg)
def info(self, msg):
pass
def warning(self, msg):
pass
def error(self, msg):
print(msg)
# ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
def my_hook(d):
if d['status'] == 'finished':
print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
ydl_opts = {
'logger': MyLogger(),
'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Add a custom PostProcessor
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
def run(self, info):
self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
return [], info
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
# ℹ️ "when" can take any value in yt_dlp.utils.POSTPROCESS_WHEN
ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP(), when='pre_process')
ydl.download(URLS)
Use a custom format selector
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def format_selector(ctx):
""" Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
# formats are already sorted worst to best
formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
# acodec='none' means there is no audio
best_video = next(f for f in formats
if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
# find compatible audio extension
audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
# vcodec='none' means there is no video
best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
# These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
yield {
'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
'ext': best_video['ext'],
'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
# Must be + separated list of protocols
'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
}
ydl_opts = {
'format': format_selector,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL
New features
-
Forked from yt-dlc@f9401f2 and merged with youtube-dl@a08f2b7 (exceptions)
-
SponsorBlock Integration: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in YouTube videos by utilizing the SponsorBlock API
-
Format Sorting: 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) -
Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl: You get most of the features and improvements from animelover1984/youtube-dl including
--write-comments,BiliBiliSearch,BilibiliChannel, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that NicoNico livestreams are not available. See #31 for details. -
YouTube improvements:
- Supports Clips, Stories (
ytstories:<channel UCID>), Search (including filters)*, YouTube Music Search, Channel-specific search, Search prefixes (ytsearch:,ytsearchdate:)*, Mixes, and Feeds (:ytfav,:ytwatchlater,:ytsubs,:ythistory,:ytrec,:ytnotif) - Fix for n-sig based throttling *
- Supports some (but not all) age-gated content without cookies
- Download livestreams from the start using
--live-from-start(experimental) - Channel URLs download all uploads of the channel, including shorts and live
- Supports Clips, Stories (
-
Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using
--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER] -
Download time range: Videos can be downloaded partially based on either timestamps or chapters using
--download-sections -
Split video by chapters: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
--split-chapters -
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 -
Aria2c with HLS/DASH: You can use
aria2cas the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats -
New and fixed extractors: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the changelog or the list of supported sites
-
New MSOs: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN etc.
-
Subtitle extraction from manifests: Subtitles can be extracted from streaming media manifests. See commit/be6202f for details
-
Multiple paths and output templates: You can give different output templates and download paths for different types of files. You can also set a temporary path where intermediary files are downloaded to using
--paths(-P) -
Portable Configuration: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See CONFIGURATION for details
-
Output template improvements: Output templates can now have date-time formatting, numeric offsets, object traversal etc. See output template for details. Even more advanced operations can also be done with the help of
--parse-metadataand--replace-in-metadata -
Other new options: Many new options have been added such as
--alias,--print,--concat-playlist,--wait-for-video,--retry-sleep,--sleep-requests,--convert-thumbnails,--force-download-archive,--force-overwrites,--break-match-filteretc -
Improvements: Regex and other operators in
--format/--match-filter, multiple--postprocessor-argsand--downloader-args, faster archive checking, more format selection options, merge multi-video/audio, multiple--config-locations,--execat different stages, etc -
Plugins: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external file. See plugins for details
-
Self updater: The releases can be updated using
yt-dlp -U, and downgraded using--update-toif required -
Automated builds: Nightly/master builds can be used with
--update-to nightlyand--update-to master
See changelog or commits for the full list of changes
Features marked with a * have been back-ported to youtube-dl
Differences in default behavior
Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
- yt-dlp supports only Python 3.8+, and may remove support for more versions as they become EOL; while youtube-dl still supports Python 2.6+ and 3.2+
- The options
--auto-number(-A),--title(-t) and--literal(-l), no longer work. See removed options for details avconvis not supported as an alternative toffmpeg- yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See CONFIGURATION for a list of correct locations
- The default 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 - The default format sorting is different from youtube-dl and prefers higher resolution and better codecs rather than higher bitrates. You can use the
--format-sortoption to change this to any order you prefer, or use--compat-options format-sortto use youtube-dl's sorting order - 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/bor--compat-options format-specto revert this - 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-multistreamsand--video-multistreams. You can also use--compat-options multistreamsto enable both --no-abort-on-erroris enabled by default. Use--abort-on-erroror--compat-options abort-on-errorto abort on errors instead- When writing metadata files such as thumbnails, description or infojson, the same information (if available) is also written for playlists. Use
--no-write-playlist-metafilesor--compat-options no-playlist-metafilesto not write these files --add-metadataattaches theinfojsontomkvfiles in addition to writing the metadata when used with--write-info-json. Use--no-embed-info-jsonor--compat-options no-attach-info-jsonto revert this- Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using
--add-metadataas compared to youtube-dl. Most notably,commentfield contains thewebpage_urlandsynopsiscontains thedescription. You can use--parse-metadatato modify this to your liking or use--compat-options embed-metadatato revert this playlist_indexbehaves differently when used with options like--playlist-reverseand--playlist-items. See #302 for details. You can use--compat-options playlist-indexif you want to keep the earlier behavior- The output of
-Fis listed in a new format. Use--compat-options list-formatsto revert this - Live chats (if available) are considered as subtitles. Use
--sub-langs all,-live_chatto download all subtitles except live chat. You can also use--compat-options no-live-chatto prevent any live chat/danmaku from downloading - YouTube channel URLs download all uploads of the channel. To download only the videos in a specific tab, pass the tab's URL. If the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised. Also,
/liveURLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirectto revert all these redirections - Unavailable videos are also listed for YouTube playlists. Use
--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videosto remove this - The upload dates extracted from YouTube are in UTC when available. Use
--compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-dateto prefer the non-UTC upload date. - If
ffmpegis used as the downloader, the downloading and merging of formats happen in a single step when possible. Use--compat-options no-direct-mergeto revert this - Thumbnail embedding in
mp4is done with mutagen if possible. Use--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsleyto force the use of AtomicParsley instead - Some internal metadata such as filenames are removed by default from the infojson. Use
--no-clean-infojsonor--compat-options no-clean-infojsonto revert this - When
--embed-subsand--write-subsare used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use just--embed-substo embed the subs and automatically delete the separate file. See #630 (comment) for more info.--compat-options no-keep-subscan be used to revert this certifiwill be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use system certificates (e.g. self-signed), use--compat-options no-certifi- yt-dlp's sanitization of invalid characters in filenames is different/smarter than in youtube-dl. You can use
--compat-options filename-sanitizationto revert to youtube-dl's behavior yt-dlp tries to parse the external downloader outputs into the standard progress output if possible (Currently implemented: aria2c). You can use--compat-options no-external-downloader-progressto get the downloader output as-is- yt-dlp versions between 2021.09.01 and 2023.01.02 applies
--match-filterto nested playlists. This was an unintentional side-effect of 8f18ac and is fixed in d7b460. Use--compat-options playlist-match-filterto revert this - yt-dlp versions between 2021.11.10 and 2023.06.21 estimated
filesize_approxvalues for fragmented/manifest formats. This was added for convenience in f2fe69, but was reverted in 0dff8e due to the potentially extreme inaccuracy of the estimated values. Use--compat-options manifest-filesize-approxto keep extracting the estimated values - yt-dlp uses modern http client backends such as
requests. Use--compat-options prefer-legacy-http-handlerto prefer the legacy http handler (urllib) to be used for standard http requests. - The sub-modules
swfinterp,casefoldare removed.
For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
--compat-options all: Use all compat options (Do NOT use)--compat-options youtube-dl: Same as--compat-options all,-multistreams,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx--compat-options youtube-dlc: Same as--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx--compat-options 2021: Same as--compat-options 2022,no-certifi,filename-sanitization,no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date--compat-options 2022: Same as--compat-options 2023,playlist-match-filter,no-external-downloader-progress,prefer-legacy-http-handler,manifest-filesize-approx--compat-options 2023: Currently does nothing. Use this to enable all future compat options
Deprecated options
These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
Almost redundant options
While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
-j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
-F, --list-formats --print formats_table
--list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
--list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
Redundant options
While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
--get-description --print description
--get-duration --print duration_string
--get-filename --print filename
--get-format --print format
--get-id --print id
--get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
-e, --get-title --print title
-g, --get-url --print urls
--match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
--reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
--min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
--max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
--break-on-reject Use --break-match-filter
--user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
--referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
--playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
--playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
--playlist-reverse -I ::-1
--no-playlist-reverse Default
--no-colors --color no_color
Not recommended
While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
--force-generic-extractor --ies generic,default
--exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
--no-exec-before-download --no-exec
--all-formats -f all
--all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
--print-json -j --no-simulate
--autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting, e.g. %(autonumber)03d
--autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
--id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
--metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
--hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
--list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
--list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
--youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
--youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
--youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
--youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
--geo-bypass --xff "default"
--no-geo-bypass --xff "never"
--geo-bypass-country CODE --xff CODE
--geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK --xff IP_BLOCK
Developer options
These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
--test Download only part of video for testing extractors
--load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
--youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
--allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
--no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
Old aliases
These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
--avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
--clean-infojson --clean-info-json
--cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
--dump-headers --print-traffic
--dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
--force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
--load-info --load-info-json
--no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
--no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
--no-write-srt --no-write-subs
--prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
--rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
--split-tracks --split-chapters
--srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
--trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
--write-srt --write-subs
--yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
Sponskrub Options
Support for SponSkrub has been deprecated in favor of the --sponsorblock options
--sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
--no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
--sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
--no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
--sponskrub-force Not applicable
--no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
--sponskrub-location Not applicable
--sponskrub-args Not applicable
No longer supported
These options may no longer work as intended
--prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
--prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
-C, --call-home Not implemented
--no-call-home Default
--include-ads No longer supported
--no-include-ads Default
--write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
--no-write-annotations Default
--compat-options seperate-video-versions No longer needed
--compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date No longer supported
Removed
These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
-A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
CONTRIBUTING
See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on Opening an Issue and Contributing code to the project
WIKI
See the Wiki for more information