% YOUTUBE-DL(1)

NAME

youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms

SYNOPSIS

youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]

DESCRIPTION

youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.

OPTIONS

-h, --help                 print this help text and exit
--version                  print program version and exit
-U, --update               update this program to latest version. Make sure
                           that you have sufficient permissions (run with
                           sudo if needed)
-i, --ignore-errors        continue on download errors, for example to to
                           skip unavailable videos in a playlist
--abort-on-error           Abort downloading of further videos (in the
                           playlist or the command line) if an error occurs
--dump-user-agent          display the current browser identification
--user-agent UA            specify a custom user agent
--referer REF              specify a custom referer, use if the video access
                           is restricted to one domain
--list-extractors          List all supported extractors and the URLs they
                           would handle
--extractor-descriptions   Output descriptions of all supported extractors
--proxy URL                Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in an
                           empty string (--proxy "") for direct connection
--no-check-certificate     Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
--cache-dir DIR            Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl can
                           store some downloaded information permanently. By
                           default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or ~/.cache
                           /youtube-dl . At the moment, only YouTube player
                           files (for videos with obfuscated signatures) are
                           cached, but that may change.
--no-cache-dir             Disable filesystem caching
--socket-timeout None      Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--bidi-workaround          Work around terminals that lack bidirectional
                           text support. Requires bidiv or fribidi
                           executable in PATH

Video Selection:

--playlist-start NUMBER    playlist video to start at (default is 1)
--playlist-end NUMBER      playlist video to end at (default is last)
--match-title REGEX        download only matching titles (regex or caseless
                           sub-string)
--reject-title REGEX       skip download for matching titles (regex or
                           caseless sub-string)
--max-downloads NUMBER     Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--min-filesize SIZE        Do not download any videos smaller than SIZE
                           (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
--max-filesize SIZE        Do not download any videos larger than SIZE (e.g.
                           50k or 44.6m)
--date DATE                download only videos uploaded in this date
--datebefore DATE          download only videos uploaded on or before this
                           date (i.e. inclusive)
--dateafter DATE           download only videos uploaded on or after this
                           date (i.e. inclusive)
--min-views COUNT          Do not download any videos with less than COUNT
                           views
--max-views COUNT          Do not download any videos with more than COUNT
                           views
--no-playlist              download only the currently playing video
--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.
--include-ads              Download advertisements as well (experimental)

Download Options:

-r, --rate-limit LIMIT     maximum download rate in bytes per second (e.g.
                           50K or 4.2M)
-R, --retries RETRIES      number of retries (default is 10)
--buffer-size SIZE         size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
                           (default is 1024)
--no-resize-buffer         do not automatically adjust the buffer size. By
                           default, the buffer size is automatically resized
                           from an initial value of SIZE.

Filesystem Options:

-t, --title                use title in file name (default)
--id                       use only video ID in file name
-l, --literal              [deprecated] alias of --title
-A, --auto-number          number downloaded files starting from 00000
-o, --output TEMPLATE      output filename template. Use %(title)s to get
                           the title, %(uploader)s for the uploader name,
                           %(uploader_id)s for the uploader nickname if
                           different, %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
                           incremented number, %(ext)s for the filename
                           extension, %(format)s for the format description
                           (like "22 - 1280x720" or "HD"), %(format_id)s for
                           the unique id of the format (like Youtube's
                           itags: "137"), %(upload_date)s for the upload
                           date (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
                           (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the video
                           id, %(playlist)s for the playlist the video is
                           in, %(playlist_index)s for the position in the
                           playlist and %% for a literal percent. Use - to
                           output to stdout. Can also be used to download to
                           a different directory, for example with -o '/my/d
                           ownloads/%(uploader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
--autonumber-size NUMBER   Specifies the number of digits in %(autonumber)s
                           when it is present in output filename template or
                           --auto-number option is given
--restrict-filenames       Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and
                           avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
-a, --batch-file FILE      file containing URLs to download ('-' for stdin)
--load-info FILE           json file containing the video information
                           (created with the "--write-json" option)
-w, --no-overwrites        do not overwrite files
-c, --continue             force resume of partially downloaded files. By
                           default, youtube-dl will resume downloads if
                           possible.
--no-continue              do not resume partially downloaded files (restart
                           from beginning)
--cookies FILE             file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
--no-part                  do not use .part files
--no-mtime                 do not use the Last-modified header to set the
                           file modification time
--write-description        write video description to a .description file
--write-info-json          write video metadata to a .info.json file
--write-annotations        write video annotations to a .annotation file
--write-thumbnail          write thumbnail image to disk

Verbosity / Simulation Options:

-q, --quiet                activates quiet mode
-s, --simulate             do not download the video and do not write
                           anything to disk
--skip-download            do not download the video
-g, --get-url              simulate, quiet but print URL
-e, --get-title            simulate, quiet but print title
--get-id                   simulate, quiet but print id
--get-thumbnail            simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
--get-description          simulate, quiet but print video description
--get-duration             simulate, quiet but print video length
--get-filename             simulate, quiet but print output filename
--get-format               simulate, quiet but print output format
-j, --dump-json            simulate, quiet but print JSON information
--newline                  output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress              do not print progress bar
--console-title            display progress in console titlebar
-v, --verbose              print various debugging information
--dump-intermediate-pages  print downloaded pages to debug problems (very
                           verbose)
--write-pages              Write downloaded intermediary pages to files in
                           the current directory to debug problems

Video Format Options:

-f, --format FORMAT        video format code, specify the order of
                           preference using slashes: "-f 22/17/18". "-f mp4"
                           and "-f flv" are also supported
--all-formats              download all available video formats
--prefer-free-formats      prefer free video formats unless a specific one
                           is requested
--max-quality FORMAT       highest quality format to download
-F, --list-formats         list all available formats

Subtitle Options:

--write-sub                write subtitle file
--write-auto-sub           write automatic subtitle file (youtube only)
--all-subs                 downloads all the available subtitles of the
                           video
--list-subs                lists all available subtitles for the video
--sub-format FORMAT        subtitle format (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt] youtube
                           only)
--sub-lang LANGS           languages of the subtitles to download (optional)
                           separated by commas, use IETF language tags like
                           'en,pt'

Authentication Options:

-u, --username USERNAME    account username
-p, --password PASSWORD    account password
-n, --netrc                use .netrc authentication data
--video-password PASSWORD  video password (vimeo, smotri)

Post-processing Options:

-x, --extract-audio        convert video files to audio-only files (requires
                           ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT      "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or
                           "wav"; best by default
--audio-quality QUALITY    ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification, insert
                           a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for VBR
                           or a specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
--recode-video FORMAT      Encode the video to another format if necessary
                           (currently supported: mp4|flv|ogg|webm)
-k, --keep-video           keeps the video file on disk after the post-
                           processing; the video is erased by default
--no-post-overwrites       do not overwrite post-processed files; the post-
                           processed files are overwritten by default
--embed-subs               embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
                           videos)
--add-metadata             write metadata to the video file
--xattrs                   write metadata to the video file's xattrs (using
                           dublin core and xdg standards)
--prefer-avconv            Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
                           postprocessors (default)
--prefer-ffmpeg            Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
                           postprocessors

CONFIGURATION

You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as --extract-audio --no-mtime to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into /etc/youtube-dl.conf and/or ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf. On Windows, the configuration file locations are %APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt and C:\Users\<Yourname>\youtube-dl.conf.

OUTPUT TEMPLATE

The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video". However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format %(NAME)s. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:

• id: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
• url: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
• uploader: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
• upload_date: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
• title: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
• ext: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
• epoch: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
• autonumber: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
• playlist: The name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
• playlist_index: The index of the video in the playlist, a five-digit number.

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:

$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4    # All kinds of weird characters
$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4          # A simple file name

VIDEO SELECTION

Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options --date, --datebefore or --dateafter, they accept dates in two formats:

• Absolute dates: Dates in the format YYYYMMDD.
• Relative dates: Dates in the format (now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?

Examples:

$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months $ # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970 $ youtube-dl --date 19700101 $ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231

FAQ

Can you please put the -b option back?

Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.

I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?

Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We're considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA, but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.

I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?

Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as vlc or mplayer.

The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore

The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the --cookies option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use --dump-user-agent to see the one in use by youtube-dl.

ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info

youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl --update.

ERROR: unable to download video

youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl --update.

SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character

The error

File "youtube-dl", line 2
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...

means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.

What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?

Since June 2012 (#342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to youtube-dl.zip first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the __main__.py file. To recompile the executable, run make youtube-dl.

The exe throws a Runtime error from Visual C++

To run the exe you need to install first the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package.

COPYRIGHT

youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.

This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.

BUGS

Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues . Unless you were prompted so or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email.

Please include the full output of the command when run with --verbose. The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.

For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.

When you submit a request, please re-read it once to avoid a couple of mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):

Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?

We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most cases we eventually get the required information after asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may misread some parts.

So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious

• What the problem is
• How it could be fixed
• How your proposed solution would look like

If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a commiter myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.

For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the complete output of youtube-dl when called with the -v flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.

Site support requests must contain an example URL. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc . There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/ ) is not an example URL.

Are you using the latest version?

Before reporting any issue, type youtube-dl -U. This should report that you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.

Is the issue already documented?

Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or at https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.

Why are existing options not enough?

Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at the list of supported options. Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do not solve your problem.

Is there enough context in your bug report?

People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).

We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing feature would be useful.

Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?

Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.

In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.

Is anyone going to need the feature?

Only post features that you (or an incapicated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.

Is your question about youtube-dl?

It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's own application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.