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

• INSTALLATION
• DESCRIPTION
• OPTIONS
• CONFIGURATION
• OUTPUT TEMPLATE
• FORMAT SELECTION
• VIDEO SELECTION
• FAQ
• DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
• EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
• BUGS
• COPYRIGHT

INSTALLATION

To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, macOS, etc.), type:

sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:

sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Windows users can download an .exe file and place it in any location on their PATH except for %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 (e.g. do not put in C:\Windows\System32).

You can also use pip:

sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dl

This command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it. See the pypi page for more information.

macOS users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew:

brew install youtube-dl

Or with MacPorts:

sudo port install youtube-dl

Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see the youtube-dl Download Page.

DESCRIPTION

youtube-dl 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-dl [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-
                                     dl "large apple". Use the value "auto"
                                     to let youtube-dl 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-dl.conf: Do not read the
                                     user configuration in
                                     ~/.config/youtube-dl/config
                                     (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/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.
--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