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

youtube-dlc is a fork of youtube-dl with the intention of getting features tested by the community merged in the tool faster, since youtube-dl's development seems to be slowing down. (https://web.archive.org/web/20201014194602/https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/26462)

• INSTALLATION
• UPDATE
• DESCRIPTION
• OPTIONS
  • Network Options:
  • Geo Restriction:
  • Video Selection:
  • Download Options:
  • Filesystem Options:
  • Thumbnail images:
  • Verbosity / Simulation Options:
  • Workarounds:
  • Video Format Options:
  • Subtitle Options:
  • Authentication Options:
  • Adobe Pass Options:
  • Post-processing Options:
  • Extractor Options:
• CONFIGURATION
  • Authentication with .netrc file
• OUTPUT TEMPLATE - Output template and Windows batch files - Output template examples
• FORMAT SELECTION
  • Filtering Formats
  • Sorting Formats
  • Default Format Selection
  • Format Selection examples
• VIDEO SELECTION

INSTALLATION

How to update

All Platforms
Preferred way using pip:
You may want to use python3 instead of python

python -m pip install --upgrade youtube-dlc

If you want to install the current master branch

python -m pip install git+https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc

UNIX (Linux, macOS, etc.)
Using wget:

sudo wget https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/releases/latest/download/youtube-dlc -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlc
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlc

Using curl:

sudo curl -L https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/releases/latest/download/youtube-dlc -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlc
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlc

Windows users can download youtube-dlc.exe (do not put in C:\Windows\System32!).

Compile To build the Windows executable yourself (without version info!)

python -m pip install --upgrade pyinstaller
pyinstaller.exe youtube_dlc\__main__.py --onefile --name youtube-dlc

Or simply execute the make_win.bat if pyinstaller is installed. There will be a youtube-dlc.exe in /dist

New way to build Windows is to use python pyinst.py (please use python3 64Bit)
For 32Bit Version use a 32Bit Version of python (3 preferred here as well) and run python pyinst32.py

For Unix: You will need the required build tools
python, make (GNU), pandoc, zip, nosetests
Then simply type this

make

UPDATE

DO NOT UPDATE using -U ! instead download binaries again or when installed with pip use a described above when installing.
I will add some memorable short links to the binaries so you can download them easier.

DESCRIPTION

youtube-dlc is a 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 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS. It is released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.

youtube-dlc [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]

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
                                 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
--list-extractors                List all supported extractors
--extractor-descriptions         Output descriptions of all supported
                                 extractors
--force-generic-extractor        Force extraction to use the generic
                                 extractor
--default-search PREFIX          Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
                                 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
                                 from google videos for youtube-dlc "large
                                 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
                                 youtube-dlc 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                  Do not read configuration files. When given
                                 in the global configuration file
                                 /etc/youtube-dlc.conf: Do not read the user
                                 configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
                                 dlc/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-
                                 dlc/config.txt on Windows)
--config-location PATH           Location of the configuration file; either
                                 the path to the config or its containing
                                 directory.
--flat-playlist                  Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
                                 only list them.
--mark-watched                   Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
--no-mark-watched                Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
--no-color                       Do not emit color codes in output

Network Options:

--proxy URL                      Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
                                 To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
                                 scheme. For example
                                 socks5://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
-4, --force-ipv4                 Make all connections via IPv4
-6, --force-ipv6                 Make all connections via IPv6

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.
--geo-bypass                     Bypass geographic restriction via faking
                                 X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
--no-geo-bypass                  Do not bypass geographic restriction via
                                 faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
--geo-bypass-country CODE        Force bypass geographic restriction with
                                 explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
                                 country code
--geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK   Force bypass geographic restriction with
                                 explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
                                 notation

Video Selection:

--playlist-start NUMBER          Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
--playlist-end NUMBER            Playlist video to end at (default is last)
--playlist-items ITEM_SPEC       Playlist video items to download. Specify
                                 indices of the videos in the playlist
                                 separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
                                 1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
                                 indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
                                 specify range: "--playlist-items
                                 1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
                                 at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
--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
--match-filter FILTER            Generic video filter. Specify any key (see
                                 the "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a list of
                                 available keys) to match if the key is
                                 present, !key to check if the key is not
                                 present, key > NUMBER (like "comment_count
                                 > 12", also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to
                                 compare against a number, key = 'LITERAL'
                                 (like "uploader = 'Mike Smith'", also works
                                 with !=) to match against a string literal
                                 and & to require multiple matches. Values
                                 which are not known are excluded unless you
                                 put a question mark (?) after the operator.
                                 For example, to only match videos that have
                                 been liked more than 100 times and disliked
                                 less than 50 times (or the dislike
                                 functionality is not available at the given
                                 service), but who also have a description,
                                 use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
                                 dislike_count <? 50 & description" .
--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.
--break-on-existing              Stop the download process after attempting
                                 to download a file that's in the archive.
--include-ads                    Download advertisements as well
                                 (experimental)

Download Options:

-r, --limit-rate RATE            Maximum download rate in bytes per second
                                 (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
-R, --retries RETRIES            Number of retries (default is 10), or
                                 "infinite".
--fragment-retries RETRIES       Number of retries for a fragment (default
                                 is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
                                 ISM)
--skip-unavailable-fragments     Skip unavailable fragments (DASH, hlsnative
                                 and ISM)
--abort-on-unavailable-fragment  Abort downloading when some fragment is not
                                 available
--keep-fragments                 Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
                                 downloading is finished; fragments are
                                 erased by default
--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.
--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-reverse               Download playlist videos in reverse order
--playlist-random                Download playlist videos in random order
--xattr-set-filesize             Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
                                 expected file size
--hls-prefer-native              Use the native HLS downloader instead of
                                 ffmpeg
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg              Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
                                 downloader
--hls-use-mpegts                 Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
                                 allowing to play the video while
                                 downloading (some players may not be able
                                 to play it)
--external-downloader COMMAND    Use the specified external downloader.
                                 Currently supports
                                 aria2c,avconv,axel,curl,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
--external-downloader-args ARGS  Give these arguments to the external
                                 downloader

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.
--id                             Use only video ID in file name
-o, --output TEMPLATE            Output filename template, see the "OUTPUT
                                 TEMPLATE" for all the info
--autonumber-start NUMBER        Specify the start value for %(autonumber)s
                                 (default is 1)
--restrict-filenames             Restrict filenames to only ASCII
                                 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
                                 filenames
-w, --no-overwrites              Do not overwrite files
-c, --continue                   Force resume of partially downloaded files.
                                 By default, youtube-dlc will resume
                                 downloads if possible.
--no-continue                    Do not resume partially downloaded files
                                 (restart from beginning)
--no-part                        Do not use .part files - write directly
                                 into output file
--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
                                 .annotations.xml file
--load-info-json FILE            JSON file containing the video information
                                 (created with the "--write-info-json"
                                 option)
--cookies FILE                   File to read cookies from and dump cookie
                                 jar in
--cache-dir DIR                  Location in the filesystem where youtube-
                                 dlc can store some downloaded information
                                 permanently. By default
                                 $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dlc or
                                 ~/.cache/youtube-dlc . At the moment, only
                                 YouTube player files (for videos with
                                 obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
                                 may change.
--no-cache-dir                   Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir                   Delete all filesystem cache files
--trim-file-name                 Limit the filename length (extension
                                 excluded)

Thumbnail images:

--write-thumbnail                Write thumbnail image to disk
--write-all-thumbnails           Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
--list-thumbnails                Simulate and list all available thumbnail
                                 formats

Internet Shortcut Options:

--write-link                     Write an internet shortcut file, depending on 
                                 the current platform (.url/.webloc/.desktop). 
                                 The URL may be cached by the OS.
--write-url-link                 Write a Windows internet shortcut file (.url). 
                                 Note that the OS caches the URL based on the file path.
--write-webloc-link              Write a macOS internet shortcut file (.webloc)
--write-desktop-link             Write a Linux internet shortcut file (.desktop)

Verbosity / Simulation Options:

-q, --quiet                      Activate quiet mode
--no-warnings                    Ignore warnings
-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.
                                 See the "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a description
                                 of available keys.
-J, --dump-single-json           Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
                                 for each command-line argument. If the URL
                                 refers to a playlist, dump the whole
                                 playlist information in a single line.
--print-json                     Be quiet and print the video information as
                                 JSON (video is still being downloaded).
--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-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
-C, --call-home                  Contact the youtube-dlc server for
                                 debugging
--no-call-home                   Do NOT contact the youtube-dlc server for
                                 debugging

Workarounds:

--encoding ENCODING              Force the specified encoding (experimental)
--no-check-certificate           Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure                Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
                                 information about the video. (Currently
                                 supported only for YouTube)
--user-agent UA                  Specify a custom user agent
--referer URL                    Specify a custom referer, use if the video
                                 access is restricted to one domain
--add-header 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-interval SECONDS         Number of seconds to sleep before each
                                 download when used alone or a lower bound
                                 of a range for randomized sleep before each
                                 download (minimum possible number of
                                 seconds to sleep) when used along with
                                 --max-sleep-interval.
--max-sleep-interval SECONDS     Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep
                                 before each download (maximum possible
                                 number of seconds to sleep). Must only be
                                 used along with --min-sleep-interval.
--sleep-subtitles                Enforce sleep interval on subtitles as well.

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
--S-force, --format-sort-force   Force user specified sort order to have 
                                 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting 
                                 Formats" for more details
--no-format-sort-force           Some fields have precedence over the user
                                 specified sort order, see "Sorting Formats"
                                 for more details (default)
--video-multistreams             Allow multiple video streams to be merged into a single file (default)
--no-video-multistreams          Only one video stream is downloaded for each output file
--audio-multistreams             Allow multiple audio streams to be merged into a single file (default)
--no-audio-multistreams          Only one audio stream is downloaded for each output file
--all-formats                    Download all available video formats
--prefer-free-formats            Prefer free video formats unless a specific
                                 one is requested
-F, --list-formats               List all available formats of requested
                                 videos
--youtube-skip-dash-manifest     Do not download the DASH manifests and
                                 related data on YouTube videos
--youtube-skip-hls-manifest      Do not download the HLS manifests and
                                 related data on YouTube videos
--merge-output-format FORMAT     If a merge is required (e.g.
                                 bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
                                 container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
                                 webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required

Subtitle Options:

--write-sub                      Write subtitle file
--write-auto-sub                 Write automatically generated subtitle file
                                 (YouTube only)
--all-subs                       Download all the available subtitles of the
                                 video
--list-subs                      List all available subtitles for the video
--sub-format FORMAT              Subtitle format, accepts formats
                                 preference, for example: "srt" or
                                 "ass/srt/best"
--sub-lang LANGS                 Languages of the subtitles to download
                                 (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
                                 subs for available language tags

Authentication Options:

-u, --username USERNAME          Login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD          Account password. If this option is left
                                 out, youtube-dlc will ask interactively.
-2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR        Two-factor authentication code
-n, --netrc                      Use .netrc authentication data
--video-password PASSWORD        Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)

Adobe Pass Options:

--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, youtube-dlc
                                 will ask interactively.
--ap-list-mso                    List all supported multiple-system
                                 operators

Post-processing Options:

-x, --extract-audio              Convert video files to audio-only files
                                 (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
                                 avprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT            Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
                                 "flac", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", "vorbis", or
                                 "wav"; "best" by default; No effect without
                                 -x
--audio-quality QUALITY          Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert
                                 a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse)
                                 for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
                                 (default 5)
--remux-video FORMAT             Remux the video to another container format
                                 if necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv,
                                 target container format must support video
                                 / audio encoding, remuxing may fail)
--recode-video FORMAT            Encode the video to another format if
                                 necessary (currently supported:
                                 mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
--postprocessor-args ARGS        Give these arguments to the postprocessor
-k, --keep-video                 Keep 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,
                                 webm and mkv videos)
--embed-thumbnail                Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
--add-metadata                   Write metadata to the video file
--metadata-from-title FORMAT     Parse additional metadata like song title /
                                 artist from the video title. The format
                                 syntax is the same as --output. Regular
                                 expression with named capture groups may
                                 also be used. The parsed parameters replace
                                 existing values. Example: --metadata-from-
                                 title "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a
                                 title like "Coldplay - Paradise". Example
                                 (regex): --metadata-from-title
                                 "(?P<artist>.+?) - (?P<title>.+)"
--xattrs                         Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
                                 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
--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)
--prefer-avconv                  Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
                                 postprocessors
--prefer-ffmpeg                  Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
                                 postprocessors (default)
--ffmpeg-location PATH           Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary;
                                 either the path to the binary or its
                                 containing directory.
--exec CMD                       Execute a command on the file after
                                 downloading and post-processing, similar to
                                 find's -exec syntax. Example: --exec 'adb
                                 push {} /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
--convert-subs FORMAT            Convert the subtitles to other format
                                 (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt|lrc)

Extractor Options:

--ignore-dynamic-mpd             Do not process dynamic DASH manifests

CONFIGURATION

You can configure youtube-dlc by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux and macOS, the system wide configuration file is located at /etc/youtube-dlc.conf and the user wide configuration file at ~/.config/youtube-dlc/config. On Windows, the user wide configuration file locations are %APPDATA%\youtube-dlc\config.txt or C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dlc.conf. Note that by default configuration file may not exist so you may need to create it yourself.

For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dlc will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under Movies 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 Movies directory in your home directory
-o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s

Note that options in configuration file are just the same options aka switches used in regular command line calls thus there must be no whitespace after - or --, e.g. -o or --proxy but not - o or -- proxy.

You can use --ignore-config if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dlc run.

You can also use --config-location if you want to use custom configuration file for a particular youtube-dlc run.

Authentication with .netrc file

You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password with --username and --password) in order not to pass credentials as command line arguments on every youtube-dlc 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 your $HOME and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:

touch $HOME/.netrc
chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc

After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where extractor is the name of the extractor in lowercase:

machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>

For example:

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 youtube-dlc or place it in the configuration file.

On Windows you may also need to setup the %HOME% environment variable manually. For example:

set HOME=%USERPROFILE%

OUTPUT TEMPLATE

The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names.

tl;dr: navigate me to examples.

The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in youtube-dlc -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video". However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to python string formatting operations. For example, %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations. Allowed names along with sequence type are:

• id (string): Video identifier
• title (string): Video title
• url (string): Video URL
• ext (string): Video filename extension
• alt_title (string): A secondary title of the video
• display_id (string): An alternative identifier for the video
• uploader (string): Full name of the video uploader
• license (string): License name the video is licensed under
• creator (string): The creator of the video
• release_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
• timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
• upload_date (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
• uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
• channel (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
• channel_id (string): Id of the channel
• location (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
• duration (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
• view_count (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
• like_count (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
• dislike_count (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
• repost_count (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
• average_rating (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
• comment_count (numeric): Number of comments on the video
• age_limit (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
• is_live (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
• start_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
• end_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
• format (string): A human-readable description of the format
• format_id (string): Format code specified by --format
• format_note (string): Additional info about the format
• width (numeric): Width of the video
• height (numeric): Height of the video
• resolution (string): Textual description of width and height
• tbr (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
• abr (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• acodec (string): Name of the audio codec in use
• asr (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
• vbr (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• fps (numeric): Frame rate
• vcodec (string): Name of the video codec in use
• container (string): Name of the container format
• filesize (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
• filesize_approx (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
• protocol (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
• extractor (string): Name of the extractor
• extractor_key (string): Key name of the extractor
• epoch (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
• autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at --autonumber-start
• playlist (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
• playlist_index (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
• playlist_id (string): Playlist identifier
• playlist_title (string): Playlist title
• playlist_uploader (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
• playlist_uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader

Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:

• chapter (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
• chapter_number (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
• chapter_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 to
• season (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
• season_number (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
• season_id (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
• episode (string): Title of the video episode
• episode_number (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
• episode_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 track
• track_number (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
• track_id (string): Id of the track
• artist (string): Artist(s) of the track
• genre (string): Genre(s) of the track
• album (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
• album_type (string): Type of the album
• album_artist (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
• disc_number (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
• release_year (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released

Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with NA.

For example for -o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s and an mp4 video with title youtube-dlc test video and id BaW_jenozKcj, this will result in a youtube-dlc test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4 file created in the current directory.

For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for example, %(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 and Windows batch files

If you are using an output template inside a Windows batch file then you must escape plain percent characters (%) by doubling, so that -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" should become -o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s". However you should not touch %'s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for expansion should stay intact: -o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s".

Output template examples

Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.

$ youtube-dlc --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dlc test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4    # All kinds of weird characters

$ youtube-dlc --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dlc_test_video_.mp4          # A simple file name

# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
$ youtube-dlc -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re

# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ youtube-dlc -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
$ youtube-dlc -u user -p password -o '~/MyVideos/%(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
$ youtube-dlc -o "C:/MyVideos/%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617

# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
$ youtube-dlc -o - BaW_jenozKc

FORMAT SELECTION

By default youtube-dlc tries to download the best available quality, i.e. if you want the best quality you don't need to pass any special options, youtube-dlc will guess it for you by default.

But sometimes you may want to download in a different format, for example when you are on a slow or intermittent connection. The key mechanism for achieving this is so-called format selection based on which you can explicitly specify desired format, select formats based on some criterion or criteria, setup precedence and much more.

The general syntax for format selection is --format FORMAT or shorter -f 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, for example with -f 22 you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using --list-formats or -F. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.

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 also use special names to select particular edge case formats:

• b*, best*: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio.

• w*, worst*: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audio.

• b, best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]

• w, worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]

• bv, bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to best*[acodec=none]

• wv, worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to worst*[acodec=none]

• bv*, bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none]

• wv*, worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none]

• ba, bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to best*[vcodec=none]

• wa, worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec=none]

• ba*, bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to best*[acodec!=none]

• wa*, worstaudio*: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to worst*[acodec!=none]

For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use -f worstvideo. It is however recomended to never actually use worst and related options. See sorting formats for more details.

If you want to download multiple videos and they don't have the same formats available, you can specify the order of preference using slashes. Note that formats on the left hand side are preferred, for example -f 22/17/18 will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.

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 or avconv installed), for example -f bestvideo+bestaudio will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg/avconv. If --no-video-multistreams is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, if --no-audio-multistreams is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. For example, -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio will download and merge all 3 given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams will download and merge only bestvideo and bestaudio. best is ignored since another format containing a video stream (bestvideo) has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. -f best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams will download and merge both formats while -f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams will ignore best and download only bestaudio.

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]").

The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons <, <=, >, >=, = (equals), != (not equals):

• filesize: The number of bytes, if known in advance
• width: Width of the video, if known
• height: Height of the video, if known
• tbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
• abr: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• vbr: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• asr: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
• fps: Frame rate

Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *= (contains) and following string meta fields:

• ext: File extension
• acodec: Name of the audio codec in use
• vcodec: Name of the video codec in use
• container: Name of the container format
• protocol: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (http, https, rtsp, rtmp, rtmpe, mms, f4m, ism, http_dash_segments, m3u8, or m3u8_native)
• format_id: A short description of the format

Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. !*= (does not contain).

Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the video hoster. 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 "[height <=? 720][tbr>500]" selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 KBit/s.

Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use -f '(mp4,webm)[height<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:

• video, has_video: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
• audio, has_audio: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
• extractor, preference, extractor_preference: The format preference as given by the extractor
• lang, language_preference: Language preference as given by the extractor
• quality: The quality of the format. This is a metadata field available in some websites
• source, source_preference: Preference of the source as given by the extractor
• proto, protocol: Protocol used for download (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8-native > m3u8 > http-dash-segments > other > mms/rtsp > unknown > f4f/f4m)
• vcodec, video_codec: Video Codec (av01 > vp9 > h265 > h264 > vp8 > h263 > theora > other > unknown)
• acodec, audio_codec: Audio Codec (opus > vorbis > aac > mp4a > mp3 > ac3 > dts > other > unknown)
• codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
• vext, video_ext: Video Extension (mp4 > flv > webm > other > unknown). If --prefer-free-formats is used, webm is prefered.
• aext, audio_ext: Audio Extension (m4a > aac > mp3 > ogg > opus > webm > other > unknown). If --prefer-free-formats is used, the order changes to opus > ogg > webm > m4a > mp3 > aac.
• ext, extension: Equivalent to vext,aext
• filesize: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.
• filesize_approx: Approximate filesize calculated the manifests
• size, filesize_estimate: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
• height: Height of video
• width: Width of video
• res, dimension: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
• fps, framerate: Framerate of video
• tbr, total_bitrate: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
• vbr, video_bitrate: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• abr, audio_bitrate: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• br, bitrate: Equivalent to using tbr,vbr,abr
• samplerate, asr: Audio sample rate in Hz

All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in decending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. Eg: +res prefers the smallest resolution format. Additionally, you can suffix a prefered value for the fields, seperated by a :. Eg: res:720 prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p. For codec and ext, you can provide two prefered values, the first for video and the second for audio. Eg: +codec:avc:m4a (equivalent to +vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a) sets the video codec preference to h264 > h265 > vp9 > av01 > vp8 > h263 > theora and audio codec preference to mp4a > aac > vorbis > opus > mp3 > ac3 > dts. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using ~ as the delimiter. Eg: filesize~1G prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.

The fields has_video, extractor_preference, language_preference, quality are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behaviour can be changed by using --force-format-sort. Apart from these, the default order used by youtube-dlc is: tbr,filesize,vbr,height,width,protocol,vext,abr,aext,fps,filesize_approx,source_preference,format_id. Note that the extractors may override this default order (currently no extractor does this), but not the user-provided order.

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 repects. 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).

Default Format Selection

Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26, youtube-dlc uses -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best as the default format selection (see #5447, #5456). If ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading bestvideo and bestaudio separately and muxing them together into a single file giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to best and results in downloading the best available quality served as a single file. best is also needed for videos that don't come from YouTube because they don't provide the audio and video in two different files. Note that if you use youtube-dlc to stream to stdout (and most likely to pipe it to your media player then), i.e. you explicitly specify output template as -o -, youtube-dlc still uses -f best format selection in order to start content delivery immediately to your player and not to wait until bestvideo and bestaudio are downloaded and muxed.

If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (prior to youtube-dlc 2015.04.26), i.e. you want to download the best available quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify your choice with -f best. You may want to add it to the configuration file in order not to type it every time you run youtube-dlc.

Format Selection examples

Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.

# Download and merge the best best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
$ youtube-dlc

# Same as above
$ youtube-dlc -f 'bestvideo+bestaudio/best'

# Download best format that contains video,
# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
$ youtube-dlc -f 'bestvideo*+bestaudio/best' --no-audio-multistreams



# Download the worst video available
$ youtube-dlc -f 'worstvideo+worstaudio/worst'

# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
$ youtube-dlc -S '+res'

# Download the smallest video available
$ youtube-dlc -S '+size,+bitrate'



# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
$ youtube-dlc -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/bestvideo+bestaudio / best'

# Download the best video with the best extension
# (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
$ youtube-dlc -S 'ext'



# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
$ youtube-dlc -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480] / worstvideo+bestaudio/worst'

# 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
$ youtube-dlc -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
$ youtube-dlc -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
$ youtube-dlc -f 'best[filesize<50M] / worst'

# 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
$ youtube-dlc -f 'best' -S 'filesize:50M'

# Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
$ youtube-dlc -f 'best' -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
$ youtube-dlc -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / bestvideo+bestaudio/best'

# Download best video available via the best protocol
# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
$ youtube-dlc -S 'protocol'



# 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.
$ youtube-dlc -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'



# Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
$ youtube-dlc -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[vcodec^=avc1] / bestvideo+bestaudio/best'

# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
$ youtube-dlc -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
$ youtube-dlc -S '+codec:h264'



# More complex examples

# Download the best video no better than 720p prefering framerate greater than 30,
# or the worst video (prefering framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
$ youtube-dlc -f '((bestvideo[fps>30]/bestvideo)[height<=720]/(worstvideo[fps>30]/worstvideo)) + bestaudio / (best[fps>30]/best)[height<=720]/(worst[fps>30]/worst)'

# 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,
# prefering larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
$ youtube-dlc -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,
# prefering better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
$ youtube-dlc -S '+res:480,codec,br'

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-dlc --dateafter now-6months

# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
$ youtube-dlc --date 19700101

$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
$ youtube-dlc --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231