yt-dlp(1) yt-dlp(1)
NAME
yt-dlp - A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader
SYNOPSIS
yt-dlp [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
DESCRIPTION
yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with
support for thousands of sites. The project is a fork of youtube-dl
(https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) based on the now inactive
youtube-dlc (https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc).
OPTIONS
General Options:
-h, --help
Print this help text and exit
--version
Print program version and exit
-U, --update
Update this program to the latest version
--no-update
Do not check for updates (default)
--update-to [CHANNEL]@[TAG]
Upgrade/downgrade to a specific version. CHANNEL can be a
repository as well. CHANNEL and TAG default to "stable" and
"latest" respectively if omitted; See "UPDATE" for details.
Supported channels: stable, nightly, master
-i, --ignore-errors
Ignore download and postprocessing errors. The download will be
considered successful even if the postprocessing fails
--no-abort-on-error
Continue with next video on download errors; e.g. to skip
unavailable videos in a playlist (default)
--abort-on-error
Abort downloading of further videos if an error occurs (Alias:
--no-ignore-errors)
--dump-user-agent
Display the current user-agent and exit
--list-extractors
List all supported extractors and exit
--extractor-descriptions
Output descriptions of all supported extractors and exit
--use-extractors NAMES
Extractor names to use separated by commas. You can also use
regexes, "all", "default" and "end" (end URL matching); e.g.
--ies "holodex.*,end,youtube". Prefix the name with a "-" to
exclude it, e.g. --ies default,-generic. Use --list-extractors
for a list of extractor names. (Alias: --ies)
--default-search PREFIX
Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g. "gvsearch2:python"
downloads two videos from google videos for the search term
"python". Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
("auto_warning" to emit a warning when guessing). "error" just
throws an error. The default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
URLs, but emits an error if this is not possible instead of
searching
--ignore-config
Don't load any more configuration files except those given to
--config-locations. For backward compatibility, if this option
is found inside the system configuration file, the user
configuration is not loaded. (Alias: --no-config)
--no-config-locations
Do not load any custom configuration files (default). When
given inside a configuration file, ignore all previous --config-
locations defined in the current file
--config-locations PATH
Location of the main configuration file; either the path to the
config or its containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be used
multiple times and inside other configuration files
--plugin-dirs PATH
Path to an additional directory to search for plugins. This
option can be used multiple times to add multiple directories.
Use "default" to search the default plugin directories (default)
--no-plugin-dirs
Clear plugin directories to search, including defaults and those
provided by previous --plugin-dirs
--flat-playlist
Do not extract a playlist's URL result entries; some entry
metadata may be missing and downloading may be bypassed
--no-flat-playlist
Fully extract the videos of a playlist (default)
--live-from-start
Download livestreams from the start. Currently only supported
for YouTube (Experimental)
--no-live-from-start
Download livestreams from the current time (default)
--wait-for-video MIN[-MAX]
Wait for scheduled streams to become available. Pass the
minimum number of seconds (or range) to wait between retries
--no-wait-for-video
Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
--mark-watched
Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
--no-mark-watched
Do not mark videos watched (default)
--color [STREAM:]POLICY
Whether to emit color codes in output, optionally prefixed by
the STREAM (stdout or stderr) to apply the setting to. Can be
one of "always", "auto" (default), "never", or "no_color" (use
non color terminal sequences). Use "auto-tty" or "no_color-tty"
to decide based on terminal support only. Can be used multiple
times
--compat-options OPTS
Options that can help keep compatibility with youtube-dl or
youtube-dlc configurations by reverting some of the changes made
in yt-dlp. See "Differences in default behavior" for details
--alias ALIASES OPTIONS
Create aliases for an option string. Unless an alias starts
with a dash "-", it is prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
according to the Python string formatting mini-language. E.g.
--alias get-audio,-X "-S=aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}"
creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that takes an argument
(ARG0) and expands to "-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
All defined aliases are listed in the --help output. Alias
options can trigger more aliases; so be careful to avoid
defining recursive options. As a safety measure, each alias may
be triggered a maximum of 100 times. This option can be used
multiple times
-t, --preset-alias PRESET
Applies a predefined set of options. e.g. --preset-alias mp3.
The following presets are available: mp3, aac, mp4, mkv, sleep.
See the "Preset Aliases" section at the end for more info. This
option can be used multiple times
Network Options:
--proxy URL
Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To enable SOCKS
proxy, specify a proper scheme, e.g.
socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty string
(--proxy "") for direct connection
--socket-timeout SECONDS
Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--source-address IP
Client-side IP address to bind to
--impersonate CLIENT[:OS]
Client to impersonate for requests. E.g. chrome, chrome-110,
chrome:windows-10. Pass --impersonate="" to impersonate any
client. Note that forcing impersonation for all requests may
have a detrimental impact on download speed and stability
--list-impersonate-targets
List available clients to impersonate.
-4, --force-ipv4
Make all connections via IPv4
-6, --force-ipv6
Make all connections via IPv6
--enable-file-urls
Enable file:// URLs. This is disabled by default for security
reasons.
Geo-restriction:
--geo-verification-proxy URL
Use this proxy to verify the IP address for some geo-restricted
sites. The default proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
option is not present) is used for the actual downloading
--xff VALUE
How to fake X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to try bypassing
geographic restriction. One of "default" (only when known to be
useful), "never", an IP block in CIDR notation, or a two-letter
ISO 3166-2 country code
Video Selection:
-I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC
Comma separated playlist_index of the items to download. You
can specify a range using "[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward
compatibility, START-STOP is also supported. Use negative
indices to count from the right and negative STEP to download in
reverse order. E.g. "-I 1:3,7,-5::2" used on a playlist of
size 15 will download the items at index 1,2,3,7,11,13,15
--min-filesize SIZE
Abort download if filesize is smaller than SIZE, e.g. 50k or
44.6M
--max-filesize SIZE
Abort download if filesize is larger than SIZE, e.g. 50k or
44.6M
--date DATE
Download only videos uploaded on this date. The date can be
"YYYYMMDD" or in the format
[now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]]. E.g. "--date
today-2weeks" downloads only videos uploaded on the same day two
weeks ago
--datebefore DATE
Download only videos uploaded on or before this date. The date
formats accepted are the same as --date
--dateafter DATE
Download only videos uploaded on or after this date. The date
formats accepted are the same as --date
--match-filters FILTER
Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" field can be
compared with a number or a string using the operators defined
in "Filtering Formats". You can also simply specify a field to
match if the field is present, use "!field" to check if the
field is not present, and "&" to check multiple conditions. Use
a "" to escape "&" or quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
the filter matches if at least one of the conditions is met.
E.g. --match-filters !is_live --match-filters "like_count>?100
& description~='(?i)& dogs" matches only videos that are not
live OR those that have a like count more than 100 (or the like
field is not available) and also has a description that contains
the phrase "cats & dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filters -" to
interactively ask whether to download each video
--no-match-filters
Do not use any --match-filters (default)
--break-match-filters FILTER
Same as "--match-filters" but stops the download process when a
video is rejected
--no-break-match-filters
Do not use any --break-match-filters (default)
--no-playlist
Download only the video, if the URL refers to a video and a
playlist
--yes-playlist
Download the playlist, if the URL refers to a video and a
playlist
--age-limit YEARS
Download only videos suitable for the given age
--download-archive FILE
Download only videos not listed in the archive file. Record the
IDs of all downloaded videos in it
--no-download-archive
Do not use archive file (default)
--max-downloads NUMBER
Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--break-on-existing
Stop the download process when encountering a file that is in
the archive supplied with the --download-archive option
--no-break-on-existing
Do not stop the download process when encountering a file that
is in the archive (default)
--break-per-input
Alters --max-downloads, --break-on-existing, --break-match-
filters, and autonumber to reset per input URL
--no-break-per-input
--break-on-existing and similar options terminates the entire
download queue
--skip-playlist-after-errors N
Number of allowed failures until the rest of the playlist is
skipped
Download Options:
-N, --concurrent-fragments N
Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative video that should be
downloaded concurrently (default is 1)
-r, --limit-rate RATE
Maximum download rate in bytes per second, e.g. 50K or 4.2M
--throttled-rate RATE
Minimum download rate in bytes per second below which throttling
is assumed and the video data is re-extracted, e.g. 100K
-R, --retries RETRIES
Number of retries (default is 10), or "infinite"
--file-access-retries RETRIES
Number of times to retry on file access error (default is 3), or
"infinite"
--fragment-retries RETRIES
Number of retries for a fragment (default is 10), or "infinite"
(DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
--retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR
Time to sleep between retries in seconds (optionally) prefixed
by the type of retry (http (default), fragment, file_access,
extractor) to apply the sleep to. EXPR can be a number,
linear=START[:END[:STEP=1]] or exp=START[:END[:BASE=2]]. This
option can be used multiple times to set the sleep for the
different retry types, e.g. --retry-sleep linear=1::2 --retry-
sleep fragment:exp=1:20
--skip-unavailable-fragments
Skip unavailable fragments for DASH, hlsnative and ISM downloads
(default) (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragments)
--abort-on-unavailable-fragments
Abort download if a fragment is unavailable (Alias: --no-skip-
unavailable-fragments)
--keep-fragments
Keep downloaded fragments on disk after downloading is finished
--no-keep-fragments
Delete downloaded fragments after downloading is finished
(default)
--buffer-size SIZE
Size of download buffer, e.g. 1024 or 16K (default is 1024)
--resize-buffer
The buffer size is automatically resized from an initial value
of --buffer-size (default)
--no-resize-buffer
Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
--http-chunk-size SIZE
Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP downloading, e.g. 10485760
or 10M (default is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver (experimental)
--playlist-random
Download playlist videos in random order
--lazy-playlist
Process entries in the playlist as they are received. This
disables n_entries, --playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
--no-lazy-playlist
Process videos in the playlist only after the entire playlist is
parsed (default)
--xattr-set-filesize
Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with expected file size
--hls-use-mpegts
Use the mpegts container for HLS videos; allowing some players
to play the video while downloading, and reducing the chance of
file corruption if download is interrupted. This is enabled by
default for live streams
--no-hls-use-mpegts
Do not use the mpegts container for HLS videos. This is default
when not downloading live streams
--download-sections REGEX
Download only chapters that match the regular expression. A "*"
prefix denotes time-range instead of chapter. Negative
timestamps are calculated from the end. "*from-url" can be used
to download between the "start_time" and "end_time" extracted
from the URL. Needs ffmpeg. This option can be used multiple
times to download multiple sections, e.g. --download-sections
"*10:15-inf" --download-sections "intro"
--downloader [PROTO:]NAME
Name or path of the external downloader to use (optionally)
prefixed by the protocols (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp,
mms) to use it for. Currently supports native, aria2c, avconv,
axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie, wget. You can use this option
multiple times to set different downloaders for different
protocols. E.g. --downloader aria2c --downloader
"dash,m3u8:native" will use aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and
the native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads (Alias:
--external-downloader)
--downloader-args NAME:ARGS
Give these arguments to the external downloader. Specify the
downloader name and the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different positions using the
same syntax as --postprocessor-args. You can use this option
multiple times to give different arguments to different
downloaders (Alias: --external-downloader-args)
Filesystem Options:
-a, --batch-file FILE
File containing URLs to download ("-" for stdin), one URL per
line. Lines starting with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
comments and ignored
--no-batch-file
Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
-P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH
The paths where the files should be downloaded. Specify the
type of file and the path separated by a colon ":". All the
same TYPES as --output are supported. Additionally, you can
also provide "home" (default) and "temp" paths. All
intermediary files are first downloaded to the temp path and
then the final files are moved over to the home path after
download is finished. This option is ignored if --output is an
absolute path
-o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
Output filename template; see "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--output-na-placeholder TEXT
Placeholder for unavailable fields in --output (default: "NA")
--restrict-filenames
Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and avoid "&" and
spaces in filenames
--no-restrict-filenames
Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in filenames (default)
--windows-filenames
Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
--no-windows-filenames
Sanitize filenames only minimally
--trim-filenames LENGTH
Limit the filename length (excluding extension) to the specified
number of characters
-w, --no-overwrites
Do not overwrite any files
--force-overwrites
Overwrite all video and metadata files. This option includes
--no-continue
--no-force-overwrites
Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite related files
(default)
-c, --continue
Resume partially downloaded files/fragments (default)
--no-continue
Do not resume partially downloaded fragments. If the file is
not fragmented, restart download of the entire file
--part Use .part files instead of writing directly into output file
(default)
--no-part
Do not use .part files - write directly into output file
--mtime
Use the Last-modified header to set the file modification time
(default)
--no-mtime
Do not use the Last-modified header to set the file modification
time
--write-description
Write video description to a .description file
--no-write-description
Do not write video description (default)
--write-info-json
Write video metadata to a .info.json file (this may contain
personal information)
--no-write-info-json
Do not write video metadata (default)
--write-playlist-metafiles
Write playlist metadata in addition to the video metadata when
using --write-info-json, --write-description etc. (default)
--no-write-playlist-metafiles
Do not write playlist metadata when using --write-info-json,
--write-description etc.
--clean-info-json
Remove some internal metadata such as filenames from the
infojson (default)
--no-clean-info-json
Write all fields to the infojson
--write-comments
Retrieve video comments to be placed in the infojson. The
comments are fetched even without this option if the extraction
is known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
--no-write-comments
Do not retrieve video comments unless the extraction is known to
be quick (Alias: --no-get-comments)
--load-info-json FILE
JSON file containing the video information (created with the
"--write-info-json" option)
--cookies FILE
Netscape formatted file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar
in
--no-cookies
Do not read/dump cookies from/to file (default)
--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
The name of the browser to load cookies from. Currently
supported browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox,
opera, safari, vivaldi, whale. Optionally, the KEYRING used for
decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux, the name/path of the
PROFILE to load cookies from, and the CONTAINER name (if
Firefox) ("none" for no container) can be given with their
respective separators. By default, all containers of the most
recently accessed profile are used. Currently supported
keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring, kwallet, kwallet5,
kwallet6
--no-cookies-from-browser
Do not load cookies from browser (default)
--cache-dir DIR
Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can store some
downloaded information (such as client ids and signatures)
permanently. By default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/yt-dlp
--no-cache-dir
Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir
Delete all filesystem cache files
Thumbnail Options:
--write-thumbnail
Write thumbnail image to disk
--no-write-thumbnail
Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
--write-all-thumbnails
Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
--list-thumbnails
List available thumbnails of each video. Simulate unless --no-
simulate is used
Internet Shortcut Options:
--write-link
Write an internet shortcut file, depending on the current
platform (.url, .webloc or .desktop). The URL may be cached by
the OS
--write-url-link
Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The OS caches the URL
based on the file path
--write-webloc-link
Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
--write-desktop-link
Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
Verbosity and Simulation Options:
-q, --quiet
Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose, print the log to
stderr
--no-quiet
Deactivate quiet mode. (Default)
--no-warnings
Ignore warnings
-s, --simulate
Do not download the video and do not write anything to disk
--no-simulate
Download the video even if printing/listing options are used
--ignore-no-formats-error
Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for extracting metadata
even if the videos are not actually available for download
(experimental)
--no-ignore-no-formats-error
Throw error when no downloadable video formats are found
(default)
--skip-download
Do not download the video but write all related files (Alias:
--no-download)
-O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE
Field name or output template to print to screen, optionally
prefixed with when to print it, separated by a ":". Supported
values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-postprocessor
(default: video). Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
--no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are used. This option can
be used multiple times
--print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
Append given template to the file. The values of WHEN and
TEMPLATE are the same as that of --print. FILE uses the same
syntax as the output template. This option can be used multiple
times
-j, --dump-json
Quiet, but print JSON information for each video. Simulate
unless --no-simulate is used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
description of available keys
-J, --dump-single-json
Quiet, but print JSON information for each URL or infojson
passed. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used. If the URL
refers to a playlist, the whole playlist information is dumped
in a single line
--force-write-archive
Force download archive entries to be written as far as no errors
occur, even if -s or another simulation option is used (Alias:
--force-download-archive)
--newline
Output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress
Do not print progress bar
--progress
Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
--console-title
Display progress in console titlebar
--progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
Template for progress outputs, optionally prefixed with one of
"download:" (default), "download-title:" (the console title),
"postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:". The video's fields are
accessible under the "info" key and the progress attributes are
accessible under "progress" key. E.g. --console-title
--progress-template "download-
title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
--progress-delta SECONDS
Time between progress output (default: 0)
-v, --verbose
Print various debugging information
--dump-pages
Print downloaded pages encoded using base64 to debug problems
(very verbose)
--write-pages
Write downloaded intermediary pages to files in the current
directory to debug problems
--print-traffic
Display sent and read HTTP traffic
Workarounds:
--encoding ENCODING
Force the specified encoding (experimental)
--legacy-server-connect
Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers that do not support
RFC 5746 secure renegotiation
--no-check-certificates
Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure
Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve information about the
video (Currently supported only for YouTube)
--add-headers FIELD:VALUE
Specify a custom HTTP header and its value, separated by a colon
":". You can use this option multiple times
--bidi-workaround
Work around terminals that lack bidirectional text support.
Requires bidiv or fribidi executable in PATH
--sleep-requests SECONDS
Number of seconds to sleep between requests during data
extraction
--sleep-interval SECONDS
Number of seconds to sleep before each download. This is the
minimum time to sleep when used along with --max-sleep-interval
(Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
--max-sleep-interval SECONDS
Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only be used along with
--min-sleep-interval
--sleep-subtitles SECONDS
Number of seconds to sleep before each subtitle download
Video Format Options:
-f, --format FORMAT
Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION" for more details
-S, --format-sort SORTORDER
Sort the formats by the fields given, see "Sorting Formats" for
more details
--format-sort-force
Force user specified sort order to have precedence over all
fields, see "Sorting Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-
force)
--no-format-sort-force
Some fields have precedence over the user specified sort order
(default)
--video-multistreams
Allow multiple video streams to be merged into a single file
--no-video-multistreams
Only one video stream is downloaded for each output file
(default)
--audio-multistreams
Allow multiple audio streams to be merged into a single file
--no-audio-multistreams
Only one audio stream is downloaded for each output file
(default)
--prefer-free-formats
Prefer video formats with free containers over non-free ones of
the same quality. Use with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
containers irrespective of quality
--no-prefer-free-formats
Don't give any special preference to free containers (default)
--check-formats
Make sure formats are selected only from those that are actually
downloadable
--check-all-formats
Check all formats for whether they are actually downloadable
--no-check-formats
Do not check that the formats are actually downloadable
-F, --list-formats
List available formats of each video. Simulate unless --no-
simulate is used
--merge-output-format FORMAT
Containers that may be used when merging formats, separated by
"/", e.g. "mp4/mkv". Ignored if no merge is required.
(currently supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)
Subtitle Options:
--write-subs
Write subtitle file
--no-write-subs
Do not write subtitle file (default)
--write-auto-subs
Write automatically generated subtitle file (Alias: --write-
automatic-subs)
--no-write-auto-subs
Do not write auto-generated subtitles (default) (Alias: --no-
write-automatic-subs)
--list-subs
List available subtitles of each video. Simulate unless --no-
simulate is used
--sub-format FORMAT
Subtitle format; accepts formats preference separated by "/",
e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS
Languages of the subtitles to download (can be regex) or "all"
separated by commas, e.g. --sub-langs "en.*,ja" (where "en.*"
is a regex pattern that matches "en" followed by 0 or more of
any character). You can prefix the language code with a "-" to
exclude it from the requested languages, e.g. --sub- langs
all,-live_chat. Use --list-subs for a list of available
language tags
Authentication Options:
-u, --username USERNAME
Login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD
Account password. If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
interactively
-2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR
Two-factor authentication code
-n, --netrc
Use .netrc authentication data
--netrc-location PATH
Location of .netrc authentication data; either the path or its
containing directory. Defaults to ~/.netrc
--netrc-cmd NETRC_CMD
Command to execute to get the credentials for an extractor.
--video-password PASSWORD
Video-specific password
--ap-mso MSO
Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV provider) identifier,
use --ap-list-mso for a list of available MSOs
--ap-username USERNAME
Multiple-system operator account login
--ap-password PASSWORD
Multiple-system operator account password. If this option is
left out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
--ap-list-mso
List all supported multiple-system operators
--client-certificate CERTFILE
Path to client certificate file in PEM format. May include the
private key
--client-certificate-key KEYFILE
Path to private key file for client certificate
--client-certificate-password PASSWORD
Password for client certificate private key, if encrypted. If
not provided, and the key is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask
interactively
Post-Processing Options:
-x, --extract-audio
Convert video files to audio-only files (requires ffmpeg and
ffprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT
Format to convert the audio to when -x is used. (currently
supported: best (default), aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus,
vorbis, wav). You can specify multiple rules using similar
syntax as --remux-video
--audio-quality QUALITY
Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when converting the audio
with -x. Insert a value between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR
or a specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
--remux-video FORMAT
Remux the video into another container if necessary (currently
supported: avi, flv, gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac,
flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis, wav). If the target
container does not support the video/audio codec, remuxing will
fail. You can specify multiple rules; e.g.
"aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a, mov to mp4 and
anything else to mkv
--recode-video FORMAT
Re-encode the video into another format if necessary. The
syntax and supported formats are the same as --remux-video
--postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS
Give these arguments to the postprocessors. Specify the
postprocessor/executable name and the arguments separated by a
colon ":" to give the argument to the specified
postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are: Merger,
ModifyChapters, SplitChapters, ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer,
VideoConvertor, Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor, FixupStretched,
FixupM4a, FixupM3u8, FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
supported executables are: AtomicParsley, FFmpeg and FFprobe.
You can also specify "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
specified executable only when being used by the specified
postprocessor. Additionally, for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can
be appended to the prefix optionally followed by a number to
pass the argument before the specified input/output file, e.g.
--ppa "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use this option
multiple times to give different arguments to different
postprocessors. (Alias: --ppa)
-k, --keep-video
Keep the intermediate video file on disk after post-processing
--no-keep-video
Delete the intermediate video file after post-processing
(default)
--post-overwrites
Overwrite post-processed files (default)
--no-post-overwrites
Do not overwrite post-processed files
--embed-subs
Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4, webm and mkv videos)
--no-embed-subs
Do not embed subtitles (default)
--embed-thumbnail
Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
--no-embed-thumbnail
Do not embed thumbnail (default)
--embed-metadata
Embed metadata to the video file. Also embeds chapters/infojson
if present unless --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
used (Alias: --add-metadata)
--no-embed-metadata
Do not add metadata to file (default) (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
--embed-chapters
Add chapter markers to the video file (Alias: --add-chapters)
--no-embed-chapters
Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias: --no-add-chapters)
--embed-info-json
Embed the infojson as an attachment to mkv/mka video files
--no-embed-info-json
Do not embed the infojson as an attachment to the video file
--parse-metadata [WHEN:]FROM:TO
Parse additional metadata like title/artist from other fields;
see "MODIFYING METADATA" for details. Supported values of
"WHEN" are the same as that of --use-postprocessor (default:
pre_process)
--replace-in-metadata [WHEN:]FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
Replace text in a metadata field using the given regex. This
option can be used multiple times. Supported values of "WHEN"
are the same as that of --use-postprocessor (default:
pre_process)
--xattrs
Write metadata to the video file's xattrs (using Dublin Core and
XDG standards)
--concat-playlist POLICY
Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of "never", "always", or
"multi_video" (default; only when the videos form a single
show). All the video files must have the same codecs and number
of streams to be concatenable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
used with "--paths" and "--output" to set the output filename
for the concatenated files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--fixup POLICY
Automatically correct known faults of the file. One of never
(do nothing), warn (only emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
default; fix the file if we can, warn otherwise), force (try
fixing even if the file already exists)
--ffmpeg-location PATH
Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the path to the binary or
its containing directory
--exec [WHEN:]CMD
Execute a command, optionally prefixed with when to execute it,
separated by a ":". Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as
that of --use-postprocessor (default: after_move). The same
syntax as the output template can be used to pass any field as
arguments to the command. If no fields are passed,
%(filepath,_filename|)q is appended to the end of the command.
This option can be used multiple times
--no-exec
Remove any previously defined --exec
--convert-subs FORMAT
Convert the subtitles to another format (currently supported:
ass, lrc, srt, vtt). Use "--convert-subs none" to disable
conversion (default) (Alias: --convert- subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT
Convert the thumbnails to another format (currently supported:
jpg, png, webp). You can specify multiple rules using similar
syntax as "--remux-video". Use "--convert- thumbnails none" to
disable conversion (default)
--split-chapters
Split video into multiple files based on internal chapters. The
"chapter:" prefix can be used with "--paths" and "--output" to
set the output filename for the split files. See "OUTPUT
TEMPLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters
Do not split video based on chapters (default)
--remove-chapters REGEX
Remove chapters whose title matches the given regular
expression. The syntax is the same as --download-sections.
This option can be used multiple times
--no-remove-chapters
Do not remove any chapters from the file (default)
--force-keyframes-at-cuts
Force keyframes at cuts when downloading/splitting/removing
sections. This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but the
resulting video may have fewer artifacts around the cuts
--no-force-keyframes-at-cuts
Do not force keyframes around the chapters when
cutting/splitting (default)
--use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
The (case-sensitive) name of plugin postprocessors to be
enabled, and (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a semicolon ";" delimited
list of NAME=VALUE. The "when" argument determines when the
postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of "pre_process" (after
video extraction), "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
"video" (after --format; before --print/--output), "before_dl"
(before each video download), "post_process" (after each video
download; default), "after_move" (after moving the video file to
its final location), "after_video" (after downloading and
processing all formats of a video), or "playlist" (at end of
playlist). This option can be used multiple times to add
different postprocessors
SponsorBlock Options:
Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
SponsorBlock API (https://sponsor.ajay.app)
--sponsorblock-mark CATS
SponsorBlock categories to create chapters for, separated by
commas. Available categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction, music_offtopic,
poi_highlight, chapter, all and default (=all). You can prefix
the category with a "-" to exclude it. See [1] for descriptions
of the categories. E.g. --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview [1]
https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
--sponsorblock-remove CATS
SponsorBlock categories to be removed from the video file,
separated by commas. If a category is present in both mark and
remove, remove takes precedence. The syntax and available
categories are the same as for --sponsorblock-mark except that
"default" refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight, chapter are
not available
--sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
An output template for the title of the SponsorBlock chapters
created by --sponsorblock-mark. The only available fields are
start_time, end_time, category, categories, name,
category_names. Defaults to "[SponsorBlock]:
%(category_names)l"
--no-sponsorblock
Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and --sponsorblock-remove
--sponsorblock-api URL
SponsorBlock API location, defaults to https://sponsor.ajay.app
Extractor Options:
--extractor-retries RETRIES
Number of retries for known extractor errors (default is 3), or
"infinite"
--allow-dynamic-mpd
Process dynamic DASH manifests (default) (Alias: --no-ignore-
dynamic-mpd)
--ignore-dynamic-mpd
Do not process dynamic DASH manifests (Alias: --no-allow-
dynamic-mpd)
--hls-split-discontinuity
Split HLS playlists to different formats at discontinuities such
as ad breaks
--no-hls-split-discontinuity
Do not split HLS playlists into different formats at
discontinuities such as ad breaks (default)
--extractor-args IE_KEY:ARGS
Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY extractor. See "EXTRACTOR
ARGUMENTS" for details. You can use this option multiple times
to give arguments for different extractors
Preset Aliases:
-t mp3 -f 'ba[acodec^=mp3]/ba/b' -x --audio-format mp3
-t aac -f 'ba[acodec^=aac]/ba[acodec^=mp4a.40.]/ba/b' -x --audio-format
aac
-t mp4 --merge-output-format mp4 --remux-video mp4 -S
vcodec:h264,lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,a codec:aac
-t mkv --merge-output-format mkv --remux-video mkv
-t sleep
--sleep-subtitles 5 --sleep-requests 0.75 --sleep-interval 10
--max-sleep-interval 20
CONFIGURATION
You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option
in a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the
following locations:
1. Main Configuration:
o The file given to --config-location
2. Portable Configuration: (Recommended for portable installations)
o If using a binary, yt-dlp.conf in the same directory as the
binary
o If running from source-code, yt-dlp.conf in the parent directory
of yt_dlp
3. Home Configuration:
o yt-dlp.conf in the home path given to -P
o If -P is not given, the current directory is searched
4. User Configuration:
o ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp.conf
o ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Linux/macOS)
o ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config.txt
o ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp.conf
o ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Windows)
o ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config.txt
o ~/yt-dlp.conf
o ~/yt-dlp.conf.txt
o ~/.yt-dlp/config
o ~/.yt-dlp/config.txt See also: Notes about environment variables
5. System Configuration:
o /opt/local/etc/yt-dlp.conf
o /opt/local/etc/yt-dlp/config
o /opt/local/etc/yt-dlp/config.txt
E.g. with the following configuration file, yt-dlp will always extract
the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under
YouTube directory in your home directory:
# Lines starting with # are comments
# Always extract audio
-x
# Do not copy the mtime
--no-mtime
# Use this proxy
--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
# Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
-o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
Note: Options in a configuration file are just the same options aka
switches used in regular command line calls; thus there must be no
whitespace after - or --, e.g. -o or --proxy but not - o or -- proxy.
They must also be quoted when necessary, as if it were a UNIX shell.
You can use --ignore-config if you want to disable all configuration
files for a particular yt-dlp run. If --ignore-config is found inside
any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For
example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents
loading of home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for
backward compatibility) if --ignore-config is found inside the system
configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
Configuration file encoding
The configuration files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if
present, and in the encoding from system locale otherwise.
If you want your file to be decoded differently, add # coding: ENCODING
to the beginning of the file (e.g. # coding: shift-jis). There must
be no characters before that, even spaces or BOM.
Authentication with netrc
You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for
extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password
with --username and --password) in order not to pass credentials as
command line arguments on every yt-dlp execution and prevent tracking
plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve
this using a .netrc file (https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info)
on a per-extractor basis. For that, you will need to create a .netrc
file in --netrc-location and restrict permissions to read/write by only
you:
touch ${HOME}/.netrc
chmod a-rwx,u+rw ${HOME}/.netrc
After that, you can add credentials for an extractor in the following
format, where extractor is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
E.g.
machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
To activate authentication with the .netrc file you should pass --netrc
to yt-dlp or place it in the configuration file.
The default location of the .netrc file is ~ (see below).
As an alternative to using the .netrc file, which has the disadvantage
of keeping your passwords in a plain text file, you can configure a
custom shell command to provide the credentials for an extractor. This
is done by providing the --netrc-cmd parameter, it shall output the
credentials in the netrc format and return 0 on success, other values
will be treated as an error. {} in the command will be replaced by the
name of the extractor to make it possible to select the credentials for
the right extractor.
E.g. To use an encrypted .netrc file stored as .authinfo.gpg
yt-dlp --netrc-cmd 'gpg --decrypt ~/.authinfo.gpg' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
Notes about environment variables
o Environment variables are normally specified as ${VARIABLE}/$VARIABLE
on UNIX and %VARIABLE% on Windows; but is always shown as ${VARIABLE}
in this documentation
o yt-dlp also allows using UNIX-style variables on Windows for path-
like options; e.g. --output, --config-location
o If unset, ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME} defaults to ~/.config and
${XDG_CACHE_HOME} to ~/.cache
o On Windows, ~ points to ${HOME} if present; or, ${USERPROFILE} or
${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH} otherwise
o On Windows, ${USERPROFILE} generally points to C:\Users\<user name>
and ${APPDATA} to ${USERPROFILE}\AppData\Roaming
OUTPUT TEMPLATE
The -o option is used to indicate a template for the output file names
while -P option is used to specify the path each type of file should be
saved to.
The simplest usage of -o is not to set any template arguments when
downloading a single file, like in yt-dlp -o funny_video.flv
"https://some/video" (hard-coding file extension like this is not
recommended and could break some post-processing).
It may however also contain special sequences that will be replaced
when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted
according to Python string formatting operations
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-
formatting), e.g. %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a
percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by
formatting operations.
The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also
have some special formatting:
1. Object traversal: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata
can be traversed by using a dot . separator; e.g. %(tags.0)s,
%(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s. You can do Python slicing with colon :;
E.g. %(id.3:7)s, %(id.6:2:-1)s, %(formats.:.format_id)s. Curly
braces {} can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys;
e.g. %(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j. An empty field name %()s
refers to the entire infodict; e.g. %(.{id,title})s. Note that all
the fields that become available using this method are not listed
below. Use -j to see such fields
2. Arithmetic: Simple arithmetic can be done on numeric fields using +,
- and *. E.g. %(playlist_index+10)03d,
%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d
3. Date/time Formatting: Date/time fields can be formatted according to
strftime formatting
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-
strptime-format-codes) by specifying it separated from the field
name using a >. E.g. %(duration>%H-%M-%S)s,
%(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s, %(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s
4. Alternatives: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a ,.
E.g. %(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s
5. Replacement: A replacement value can be specified using a &
separator according to the str.format mini-language
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#format-specification-
mini-language). If the field is not empty, this replacement value
will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done
after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used
if any of the alternative fields is not empty. E.g. %(chapters&has
chapters|no chapters)s, %(title&TITLE={:>20}|NO TITLE)s
6. Default: A literal default value can be specified for when the field
is empty using a | separator. This overrides
--output-na-placeholder. E.g. %(uploader|Unknown)s
7. More Conversions: In addition to the normal format types
diouxXeEfFgGcrs, yt-dlp additionally supports converting to B =
Bytes, j = json (flag # for pretty-printing, + for Unicode), h =
HTML escaping, l = a comma separated list (flag # for \n
newline-separated), q = a string quoted for the terminal (flag # to
split a list into different arguments), D = add Decimal suffixes
(e.g. 10M) (flag # to use 1024 as factor), and S = Sanitize as
filename (flag # for restricted)
8. Unicode normalization: The format type U can be used for NFC Unicode
normalization
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/unicodedata.html#unicodedata.normalize).
The alternate form flag (#) changes the normalization to NFD and the
conversion flag + can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility
equivalence normalization. E.g. %(title)+.100U is NFKC
To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various
metadata files separately from the general output template by
specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a
colon :. The different file types supported are subtitle, thumbnail,
description, annotation (deprecated), infojson, link, pl_thumbnail,
pl_description, pl_infojson, chapter, pl_video. E.g. -o
"%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s" will put
the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video. If any of
the templates is empty, that type of file will not be written. E.g.
--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:" will write thumbnails only for
playlists and not for video.
Note: Due to post-processing (i.e. merging etc.), the actual output
filename might differ. Use --print after_move:filepath to get the name
after all post-processing is complete.
The available fields are:
o id (string): Video identifier
o title (string): Video title
o fulltitle (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic
title
o ext (string): Video filename extension
o alt_title (string): A secondary title of the video
o description (string): The description of the video
o display_id (string): An alternative identifier for the video
o uploader (string): Full name of the video uploader
o uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
o uploader_url (string): URL to the video uploader's profile
o license (string): License name the video is licensed under
o creators (list): The creators of the video
o creator (string): The creators of the video; comma-separated
o timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became
available
o upload_date (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
o release_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video
was released
o release_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was
released in UTC
o release_year (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the video or album was
released
o modified_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video
was last modified
o modified_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last
modified in UTC
o channel (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
o channel_id (string): Id of the channel
o channel_url (string): URL of the channel
o channel_follower_count (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
o channel_is_verified (boolean): Whether the channel is verified on the
platform
o location (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
o duration (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
o duration_string (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
o view_count (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the
platform
o concurrent_view_count (numeric): How many users are currently
watching the video on the platform.
o like_count (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
o dislike_count (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
o repost_count (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
o average_rating (numeric): Average rating given by users, the scale
used depends on the webpage
o comment_count (numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some
extractors, comments are only downloaded at the end, and so this
field cannot be used)
o age_limit (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
o live_status (string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming",
"was_live", "post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)
o is_live (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-
length video
o was_live (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
o playable_in_embed (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in
embedded players on other sites
o availability (string): Whether the video is "private",
"premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or
"public"
o media_type (string): The type of media as classified by the site,
e.g. "episode", "clip", "trailer"
o start_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should
start, as specified in the URL
o end_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should
end, as specified in the URL
o extractor (string): Name of the extractor
o extractor_key (string): Key name of the extractor
o epoch (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was
completed
o autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each
download, starting at --autonumber-start, padded with leading zeros
to 5 digits
o video_autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each
video
o n_entries (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
o playlist_id (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the
video
o playlist_title (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
o playlist (string): playlist_title if available or else playlist_id
o playlist_count (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May
not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
o playlist_index (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded
with leading zeros according the final index
o playlist_autonumber (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist
download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total
length of the playlist
o playlist_uploader (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
o playlist_uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the playlist
uploader
o playlist_channel (string): Display name of the channel that uploaded
the playlist
o playlist_channel_id (string): Identifier of the channel that uploaded
the playlist
o playlist_webpage_url (string): URL of the playlist webpage
o webpage_url (string): A URL to the video webpage which, if given to
yt-dlp, should yield the same result again
o webpage_url_basename (string): The basename of the webpage URL
o webpage_url_domain (string): The domain of the webpage URL
o original_url (string): The URL given by the user (or the same as
webpage_url for playlist entries)
o categories (list): List of categories the video belongs to
o tags (list): List of tags assigned to the video
o cast (list): List of cast members
All the fields in Filtering Formats can also be used
Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or
section:
o chapter (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
o chapter_number (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
o chapter_id (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
Available for the video that is an episode of some series or program:
o series (string): Title of the series or program the video episode
belongs to
o series_id (string): Id of the series or program the video episode
belongs to
o season (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
o season_number (numeric): Number of the season the video episode
belongs to
o season_id (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
o episode (string): Title of the video episode
o episode_number (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
o episode_id (string): Id of the video episode
Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
o track (string): Title of the track
o track_number (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
o track_id (string): Id of the track
o artists (list): Artist(s) of the track
o artist (string): Artist(s) of the track; comma-separated
o genres (list): Genre(s) of the track
o genre (string): Genre(s) of the track; comma-separated
o composers (list): Composer(s) of the piece
o composer (string): Composer(s) of the piece; comma-separated
o album (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
o album_type (string): Type of the album
o album_artists (list): All artists appeared on the album
o album_artist (string): All artists appeared on the album; comma-
separated
o disc_number (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium
the track belongs to
Available only when using --download-sections and for chapter: prefix
when using --split-chapters for videos with internal chapters:
o section_title (string): Title of the chapter
o section_number (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
o section_start (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
o section_end (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
Available only when used in --print:
o urls (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
o filename (string): Name of the video file. Note that the actual
filename may differ
o formats_table (table): The video format table as printed by
--list-formats
o thumbnails_table (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by
--list-thumbnails
o subtitles_table (table): The subtitle format table as printed by
--list-subs
o automatic_captions_table (table): The automatic subtitle format table
as printed by --list-subs
Available only after the video is downloaded (post_process/after_move):
o filepath: Actual path of downloaded video file
Available only in --sponsorblock-chapter-title:
o start_time (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
o end_time (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
o categories (list): The SponsorBlock categories
(https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Category) the chapter belongs
to
o category (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter
belongs to
o category_names (list): Friendly names of the categories
o name (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
o type (string): The SponsorBlock action type
(https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Action_Type) of the chapter
Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will
be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name.
E.g. for -o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s and an mp4 video with title
yt-dlp test video and id BaW_jenozKc, this will result in a yt-dlp test
video-BaW_jenozKc.mp4 file created in the current directory.
Note: Some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present, since
they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such
sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with
--output-na-placeholder (NA by default).
Tip: Look at the -j output to identify which fields are available for
the particular URL
For numeric sequences, you can use numeric related formatting
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-
formatting); e.g. %(view_count)05d will result in a string with view
count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in 00042.
Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. -o
"%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" which will result
in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path
template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
To use percent literals in an output template use %%. To output to
stdout use -o -.
The current default template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s.
In some cases, you don't want special characters such as <?>, spaces,
or &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows
system or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases,
add the --restrict-filenames flag to get a shorter title.
Output template examples
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_a<?><?>.webm # All kinds of weird characters
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
$ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
# Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist_index&{} - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
$ yt-dlp -u user -p password -P "~/MyVideos" -o "%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial"
# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" "https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617"
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
# and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
FORMAT SELECTION
By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you
don't pass any options. This is generally equivalent to using -f
bestvideo*+bestaudio/best. However, if multiple audiostreams is
enabled (--audio-multistreams), the default format changes to -f
bestvideo+bestaudio/best. Similarly, if ffmpeg is unavailable, or if
you use yt-dlp to stream to stdout (-o -), the default becomes -f
best/bestvideo+bestaudio.
Deprecation warning: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple
formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future
versions, the default for this will be set to -f bv*+ba/b similar to
normal downloads. If you want to preserve the -f b/bv+ba setting, it
is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.
The general syntax for format selection is -f FORMAT (or --format
FORMAT) where FORMAT is a selector expression, i.e. an expression that
describes format or formats you would like to download.
The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. with -f 22 you
can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the
list of available format codes for particular video using
--list-formats or -F. Note that these format codes are extractor
specific.
You can also use a file extension (currently 3gp, aac, flv, m4a, mp3,
mp4, ogg, wav, webm are supported) to download the best quality format
of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. -f webm
will download the best quality format with the webm extension served as
a single file.
You can use -f - to interactively provide the format selector for each
video
You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
o all: Select all formats separately
o mergeall: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with
--audio-multistreams, --video-multistreams or both)
o b*, best*: Select the best quality format that contains either a
video or an audio or both (i.e.; vcodec!=none or acodec!=none)
o b, best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and
audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
o bv, bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent
to best*[acodec=none]
o bv*, bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video.
It may also contain audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none]
o ba, bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent
to best*[vcodec=none]
o ba*, bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio.
It may also contain video. Equivalent to best*[acodec!=none] (Do not
use! (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/979#issuecomment-919629354))
o w*, worst*: Select the worst quality format that contains either a
video or an audio
o w, worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video
and audio. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
o wv, worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format.
Equivalent to worst*[acodec=none]
o wv*, worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains
video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to
worst*[vcodec!=none]
o wa, worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format.
Equivalent to worst*[vcodec=none]
o 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, recommended not to use worst and
related options. When your format selector is worst, the format which
is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you
actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it
is generally better to use -S +size or more rigorously, -S
+size,+br,+res,+fps instead of -f worst. See Sorting Formats for more
details.
You can select the n'th best format of a type by using best<type>.<n>.
For example, best.2 will select the 2nd best combined format.
Similarly, bv*.3 will select the 3rd best format that contains a video
stream.
If you want to download multiple videos, and they don't have the same
formats available, you can specify the order of preference using
slashes. Note that formats on the left hand side are preferred; e.g.
-f 22/17/18 will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it
will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download
format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no
suitable formats are available for download.
If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma
as a separator, e.g. -f 22,17,18 will download all these three
formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated
example combined with the precedence feature: -f
136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio.
You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single
file using -f <format1>+<format2>+... (requires ffmpeg installed); e.g.
-f bestvideo+bestaudio will download the best video-only format, the
best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.
Deprecation warning: Since the below described behavior is complex and
counter-intuitive, this will be removed and multistreams will be
enabled by default in the future. A new operator will be instead added
to limit formats to single audio/video
Unless --video-multistreams is used, all formats with a video stream
except the first one are ignored. Similarly, unless
--audio-multistreams is used, all formats with an audio stream except
the first one are ignored. E.g. -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio
--video-multistreams --audio-multistreams will download and merge all 3
given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2
audio streams. But -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams
will download and merge only bestvideo and bestaudio. best is ignored
since another format containing a video stream (bestvideo) has already
been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. -f
best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams will download only best while -f
bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams will ignore best and download
only bestaudio.
Filtering Formats
You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in
brackets, as in -f "best[height=720]" (or -f "[filesize>10M]" since
filters without a selector are interpreted as best).
The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons <, <=,
>, >=, = (equals), != (not equals):
o filesize: The number of bytes, if known in advance
o filesize_approx: An estimate for the number of bytes
o width: Width of the video, if known
o height: Height of the video, if known
o aspect_ratio: Aspect ratio of the video, if known
o tbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in kbps
o abr: Average audio bitrate in kbps
o vbr: Average video bitrate in kbps
o asr: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
o fps: Frame rate
o audio_channels: The number of audio channels
o stretched_ratio: width:height of the video's pixels, if not square
Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $=
(ends with), *= (contains), ~= (matches regex) and following string
meta fields:
o url: Video URL
o ext: File extension
o acodec: Name of the audio codec in use
o vcodec: Name of the video codec in use
o container: Name of the container format
o 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)
o language: Language code
o dynamic_range: The dynamic range of the video
o format_id: A short description of the format
o format: A human-readable description of the format
o format_note: Additional info about the format
o resolution: Textual description of width and height
Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to
produce an opposite comparison, e.g. !*= (does not contain). The
comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double
or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than
._-.
Note: None of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be
present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by the
particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the website. Any
other field made available by the extractor can also be used for
filtering.
Formats for which the value is not known are excluded unless you put a
question mark (?) after the operator. You can combine format filters,
so -f "bv[height<=?720][tbr>500]" selects up to 720p videos (or videos
where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 kbps.
You can also use the filters with all to download all formats that
satisfy the filter, e.g. -f "all[vcodec=none]" selects all audio-only
formats.
Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. -f
"(mp4,webm)[height<480]" will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm
formats with a height lower than 480.
Sorting Formats
You can change the criteria for being considered the best by using -S
(--format-sort). The general format for this is --format-sort
field1,field2....
The available fields are:
o hasvid: Gives priority to formats that have a video stream
o hasaud: Gives priority to formats that have an audio stream
o ie_pref: The format preference
o lang: The language preference as determined by the extractor (e.g.
original language preferred over audio description)
o quality: The quality of the format
o source: The preference of the source
o proto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps > http/ftp >
m3u8_native/m3u8 > http_dash_segments> websocket_frag > mms/rtsp >
f4f/f4m)
o vcodec: Video Codec (av01 > vp9.2 > vp9 > h265 > h264 > vp8 > h263 >
theora > other)
o acodec: Audio Codec (flac/alac > wav/aiff > opus > vorbis > aac >
mp4a > mp3 > ac4 > eac3 > ac3 > dts > other)
o codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
o vext: Video Extension (mp4 > mov > webm > flv > other). If
--prefer-free-formats is used, webm is preferred.
o aext: Audio Extension (m4a > aac > mp3 > ogg > opus > webm > other).
If --prefer-free-formats is used, the order changes to ogg > opus >
webm > mp3 > m4a > aac
o ext: Equivalent to vext,aext
o filesize: Exact filesize, if known in advance
o fs_approx: Approximate filesize
o size: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
o height: Height of video
o width: Width of video
o res: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
o fps: Framerate of video
o hdr: The dynamic range of the video (DV > HDR12 > HDR10+ > HDR10 >
HLG > SDR)
o channels: The number of audio channels
o tbr: Total average bitrate in kbps
o vbr: Average video bitrate in kbps
o abr: Average audio bitrate in kbps
o br: Average bitrate in kbps, tbr/vbr/abr
o asr: Audio sample rate in Hz
Deprecation warning: Many of these fields have (currently undocumented)
aliases, that may be removed in a future version. It is recommended to
use only the documented field names.
All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order.
To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. E.g. +res prefers format
with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred
value for the fields, separated by a :. E.g. res:720 prefers larger
videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no
videos less than 720p. For codec and ext, you can provide two
preferred values, the first for video and the second for audio. E.g.
+codec:avc:m4a (equivalent to +vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a) sets the video
codec preference to h264 > h265 > vp9 > vp9.2 > av01 > vp8 > h263 >
theora and audio codec preference to mp4a > aac > vorbis > opus > mp3 >
ac3 > dts. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to
the provided by using ~ as the delimiter. E.g. filesize~1G prefers
the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
The fields hasvid and ie_pref are always given highest priority in
sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behavior can be
changed by using --format-sort-force. Apart from these, the default
order used is:
lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,vcodec,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id.
The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot
override the user-provided order.
Note that the default for hdr is hdr:12; i.e. Dolby Vision is not
preferred. This choice was made since DV formats are not yet fully
compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future.
If your format selector is worst, the last item is selected after
sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all
respects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with
the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -f
best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps.
Tip: You can use the -v -F to see how the formats have been sorted
(worst to best).
Format Selection examples
# Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
$ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
# Download best format that contains video,
# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
# Same as above
$ yt-dlp
# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
# For this case, an output template should be used since
# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
$ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and all audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
# The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
# and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
# Download the worst video available (old method)
$ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "+res"
# Download the smallest video available
$ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
# Download the best video with the best extension
# (For video, mp4 > mov > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
$ yt-dlp -S "ext"
# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
# Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
# Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
# Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
# So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
$ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
# Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
# Download the largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
# Download the best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
# Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
# or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
# Download best video available via the best protocol
# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
$ yt-dlp -S "proto"
# Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
# or the best video if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
# Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
# or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
# More complex examples
# Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
# or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
# Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
# or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
# preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
# Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
# or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
# preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
MODIFYING METADATA
The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using
--parse-metadata and --replace-in-metadata
--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE is used to replace text in
any metadata field using Python regular expression
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax).
Backreferences
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html?highlight=backreferences#re.sub)
can be used in the replace string for advanced use.
The general syntax of --parse-metadata FROM:TO is to give the name of a
field or an output template to extract data from, and the format to
interpret it as, separated by a colon :. Either a Python regular
expression (https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-
expression-syntax) with named capture groups, a single field name, or a
similar syntax to the output template (only %(field)s formatting is
supported) can be used for TO. The option can be used multiple times
to parse and modify various fields.
Note that these options preserve their relative order, allowing
replacements to be made in parsed fields and vice versa. Also, any
field thus created can be used in the output template and will also
affect the media file's metadata added when using --embed-metadata.
This option also has a few special uses:
o You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of the
currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field
additional_urls to the URL that you want to download. E.g.
--parse-metadata
"description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)" will
download the first vimeo video found in the description
o You can use this to change the metadata that is embedded in the media
file. To do this, set the value of the corresponding field with a
meta_ prefix. For example, any value you set to meta_description
field will be added to the description field in the file - you can
use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify
the metadata of individual streams, use the meta<n>_ prefix (e.g.
meta1_language). Any value set to the meta_ field will overwrite all
default values.
Note: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-
extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be
added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file
metadata:
Metadata fields From
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
title track or title
date upload_date
description, synopsis description
purl, comment webpage_url
track track_number
artist artist, artists, creator, creators, uploader
or uploader_id
composer composer or composers
genre genre or genres
album album
album_artist album_artist or album_artists
disc disc_number
show series
season_number season_number
episode_id episode or episode_id
episode_sort episode_number
language of each stream the format's language
Note: The file format may not support some of these fields
Modifying metadata examples
# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
# Regex example
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
# Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --embed-metadata
# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
# handling multiple lines correctly
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --embed-metadata
# Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"
# Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "video::(?P<formats>)" --write-info-json
# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using
--extractor-args KEY:ARGS. ARGS is a ; (semicolon) separated string of
ARG=VAL1,VAL2. E.g. --extractor-args
"youtube:player-client=tv,mweb;formats=incomplete" --extractor-args
"twitter:api=syndication"
Note: In CLI, ARG can use - instead of _; e.g. youtube:player-client"
becomes youtube:player_client"
The following extractors use this feature:
youtube
o lang: Prefer translated metadata (title, description etc) of this
language code (case-sensitive). By default, the video primary
language metadata is preferred, with a fallback to en translated.
See youtube.py (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/blob/c26f9b991a0681fd3ea548d535919cec1fbbd430/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L381-L390)
for list of supported content language codes
o skip: One or more of hls, dash or translated_subs to skip extraction
of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and auto-translated subtitles
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/4090#issuecomment-1158102032) respectively
o player_client: Clients to extract video data from. The currently
available clients are web, web_safari, web_embedded, web_music,
web_creator, mweb, ios, android, android_vr, tv and tv_embedded. By
default, tv,ios,web is used, or tv,web is used when authenticating
with cookies. The web_music client is added for music.youtube.com
URLs when logged-in cookies are used. The tv_embedded and
web_creator clients are added for age-restricted videos if account
age-verification is required. Some clients, such as web and
web_music, require a po_token for their formats to be downloadable.
Some clients, such as web_creator, will only work with
authentication. Not all clients support authentication via cookies.
You can use default for the default clients, or you can use all for
all clients (not recommended). You can prefix a client with - to
exclude it, e.g. youtube:player_client=default,-ios
o player_skip: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for
robust extraction. One or more of configs (skip client configs),
webpage (skip initial webpage), js (skip js player), initial_data
(skip initial data/next ep request). While these options can help
reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting,
they could cause issues such as missing formats or metadata. See
#860 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) and #12826
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12826) for more details
o player_params: YouTube player parameters to use for player requests.
Will overwrite any default ones set by yt-dlp.
o comment_sort: top or new (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on
YouTube's side)
o max_comments: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-
separated list of integers representing
max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread. Default
is all,all,all,all
o E.g. all,all,1000,10 will get a maximum of 1000 replies total,
with up to 10 replies per thread. 1000,all,100 will get a maximum
of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
o formats: Change the types of formats to return. dashy (convert HTTP
to DASH), duplicate (identical content but different URLs or
protocol; includes dashy), incomplete (cannot be downloaded
completely - live dash and post-live m3u8), missing_pot (include
formats that require a PO Token but are missing one)
o innertube_host: Innertube API host to use for all API requests; e.g.
studio.youtube.com, youtubei.googleapis.com. Note that cookies
exported from one subdomain will not work on others
o innertube_key: Innertube API key to use for all API requests. By
default, no API key is used
o raise_incomplete_data: Incomplete Data Received raises an error
instead of reporting a warning
o data_sync_id: Overrides the account Data Sync ID used in Innertube
API requests. This may be needed if you are using an account with
youtube:player_skip=webpage,configs or youtubetab:skip=webpage
o visitor_data: Overrides the Visitor Data used in Innertube API
requests. This should be used with player_skip=webpage,configs and
without cookies. Note: this may have adverse effects if used
improperly. If a session from a browser is wanted, you should pass
cookies instead (which contain the Visitor ID)
o po_token: Proof of Origin (PO) Token(s) to use. Comma seperated list
of PO Tokens in the format CLIENT.CONTEXT+PO_TOKEN, e.g.
youtube:po_token=web.gvs+XXX,web.player=XXX,web_safari.gvs+YYY.
Context can be either gvs (Google Video Server URLs) or player
(Innertube player request)
o player_js_variant: The player javascript variant to use for signature
and nsig deciphering. The known variants are: main, tce, tv, tv_es6,
phone, tablet. Only main is recommended as a possible workaround;
the others are for debugging purposes. The default is to use what is
prescribed by the site, and can be selected with actual
youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
o skip: One or more of webpage (skip initial webpage download),
authcheck (allow the download of playlists requiring authentication
when no initial webpage is downloaded. This may cause unwanted
behavior, see #1122 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122) for
more details)
o approximate_date: Extract approximate upload_date and timestamp in
flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
generic
o fragment_query: Passthrough any query in mpd/m3u8 manifest URLs to
their fragments if no value is provided, or else apply the query
string given as fragment_query=VALUE. Note that if the stream has an
HLS AES-128 key, then the query parameters will be passed to the key
URI as well, unless the key_query extractor-arg is passed, or unless
an external key URI is provided via the hls_key extractor-arg. Does
not apply to ffmpeg
o variant_query: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its variant
playlist URLs if no value is provided, or else apply the query string
given as variant_query=VALUE
o key_query: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its HLS AES-128
decryption key URI if no value is provided, or else apply the query
string given as key_query=VALUE. Note that this will have no effect
if the key URI is provided via the hls_key extractor-arg. Does not
apply to ffmpeg
o hls_key: An HLS AES-128 key URI or key (as hex), and optionally the
IV (as hex), in the form of (URI|KEY)[,IV]; e.g.
generic:hls_key=ABCDEF1234567980,0xFEDCBA0987654321. Passing any of
these values will force usage of the native HLS downloader and
override the corresponding values found in the m3u8 playlist
o is_live: Bypass live HLS detection and manually set live_status - a
value of false will set not_live, any other value (or no value) will
set is_live
o impersonate: Target(s) to try and impersonate with the initial
webpage request; e.g. generic:impersonate=safari,chrome-110. Use
generic:impersonate to impersonate any available target, and use
generic:impersonate=false to disable impersonation (default)
vikichannel
o video_types: Types of videos to download - one or more of episodes,
movies, clips, trailers
youtubewebarchive
o check_all: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or
more of thumbnails, captures
gamejolt
o comment_sort: hot (default), you (cookies needed), top, new - choose
comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
hotstar
o res: resolution to ignore - one or more of sd, hd, fhd
o vcodec: vcodec to ignore - one or more of h264, h265, dvh265
o dr: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of sdr, hdr10, dv
instagram
o app_id: The value of the X-IG-App-ID header used for API requests.
Default is the web app ID, 936619743392459
niconicochannelplus
o max_comments: Maximum number of comments to extract - default is 120
tiktok
o api_hostname: Hostname to use for mobile API calls, e.g.
api22-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.com
o app_name: Default app name to use with mobile API calls, e.g. trill
o app_version: Default app version to use with mobile API calls -
should be set along with manifest_app_version, e.g. 34.1.2
o manifest_app_version: Default numeric app version to use with mobile
API calls, e.g. 2023401020
o aid: Default app ID to use with mobile API calls, e.g. 1180
o app_info: Enable mobile API extraction with one or more app info
strings in the format of
<iid>/[app_name]/[app_version]/[manifest_app_version]/[aid], where
iid is the unique app install ID. iid is the only required value;
all other values and their / separators can be omitted, e.g.
tiktok:app_info=1234567890123456789 or
tiktok:app_info=123,456/trill///1180,789//34.0.1/340001
o device_id: Enable mobile API extraction with a genuine device ID to
be used with mobile API calls. Default is a random 19-digit string
rokfinchannel
o tab: Which tab to download - one of new, top, videos, podcasts,
streams, stacks
twitter
o api: Select one of graphql (default), legacy or syndication as the
API for tweet extraction. Has no effect if logged in
stacommu, wrestleuniverse
o device_id: UUID value assigned by the website and used to enforce
device limits for paid livestream content. Can be found in browser
local storage
twitch
o client_id: Client ID value to be sent with GraphQL requests, e.g.
twitch:client_id=kimne78kx3ncx6brgo4mv6wki5h1ko
nhkradirulive (NHK <?><?><?><?><?><?><?> LIVE)
o area: Which regional variation to extract. Valid areas are: sapporo,
sendai, tokyo, nagoya, osaka, hiroshima, matsuyama, fukuoka.
Defaults to tokyo
nflplusreplay
o type: Type(s) of game replays to extract. Valid types are:
full_game, full_game_spanish, condensed_game and all_22. You can use
all to extract all available replay types, which is the default
jiocinema
o refresh_token: The refreshToken UUID from browser local storage can
be passed to extend the life of your login session when logging in
with token as username and the accessToken from browser local storage
as password
jiosaavn
o bitrate: Audio bitrates to request. One or more of 16, 32, 64, 128,
320. Default is 128,320
afreecatvlive
o cdn: One or more CDN IDs to use with the API call for stream URLs,
e.g. gcp_cdn, gs_cdn_pc_app, gs_cdn_mobile_web, gs_cdn_pc_web
soundcloud
o formats: Formats to request from the API. Requested values should be
in the format of {protocol}_{codec}, e.g. hls_opus,http_aac. The *
character functions as a wildcard, e.g. *_mp3, and can be passed by
itself to request all formats. Known protocols include http, hls and
hls-aes; known codecs include aac, opus and mp3. Original download
formats are always extracted. Default is
http_aac,hls_aac,http_opus,hls_opus,http_mp3,hls_mp3
orfon (orf:on)
o prefer_segments_playlist: Prefer a playlist of program segments
instead of a single complete video when available. If individual
segments are desired, use --concat-playlist never --extractor-args
"orfon:prefer_segments_playlist"
bilibili
o prefer_multi_flv: Prefer extracting flv formats over mp4 for older
videos that still provide legacy formats
sonylivseries
o sort_order: Episode sort order for series extraction - one of asc
(ascending, oldest first) or desc (descending, newest first).
Default is asc
tver
o backend: Backend API to use for extraction - one of streaks (default)
or brightcove (deprecated)
Note: These options may be changed/removed in the future without
concern for backward compatibility
INSTALLATION
You can install yt-dlp using the binaries, pip
(https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) or one using a third-party package
manager. See the wiki (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Installation) for detailed instructions
Note: The manpages, shell completion (autocomplete) files etc. are
available inside the source tarball (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the release binaries
If you installed with pip (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Installation#with-pip), simply re-run the same command that
was used to install the program
For other third-party package managers, see the wiki
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation#third-party-
package-managers) or refer to their documentation
There are currently three release channels for binaries: stable,
nightly and master.
o stable is the default channel, and many of its changes have been
tested by users of the nightly and master channels.
o The nightly channel has releases scheduled to build every day around
midnight UTC, for a snapshot of the project's new patches and
changes. This is the recommended channel for regular users of yt-
dlp. The nightly releases are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-
builds (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases) or
as development releases of the yt-dlp PyPI package (which can be
installed with pip's --pre flag).
o The master channel features releases that are built after each push
to the master branch, and these will have the very latest fixes and
additions, but may also be more prone to regressions. They are
available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds (https://github.com/yt-
dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds/releases).
When using --update/-U, a release binary will only update to its
current channel. --update-to CHANNEL can be used to switch to a
different channel when a newer version is available. --update-to
[CHANNEL@]TAG can also be used to upgrade or downgrade to specific tags
from a channel.
You may also use --update-to <repository> (<owner>/<repository>) to
update to a channel on a completely different repository. Be careful
with what repository you are updating to though, there is no
verification done for binaries from different repositories.
Example usage:
o yt-dlp --update-to master switch to the master channel and update to
its latest release
o yt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.07.06 upgrade/downgrade to release to
stable channel tag 2023.07.06
o yt-dlp --update-to 2023.10.07 upgrade/downgrade to tag 2023.10.07 if
it exists on the current channel
o yt-dlp --update-to example/yt-dlp@2023.09.24 upgrade/downgrade to the
release from the example/yt-dlp repository, tag 2023.09.24
Important: Any user experiencing an issue with the stable release
should install or update to the nightly release before submitting a bug
report:
# To update to nightly from stable executable/binary:
yt-dlp --update-to nightly
# To install nightly with pip:
python3 -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"
DEPENDENCIES
Python versions 3.9+ (CPython) and 3.10+ (PyPy) are supported. Other
versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
While all the other dependencies are optional, ffmpeg and ffprobe are
highly recommended
Strongly recommended
o ffmpeg and ffprobe (https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for merging
separate video and audio files, as well as for various post-
processing tasks. License depends on the build
(https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
There are bugs in ffmpeg that cause various issues when used
alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we
provide custom builds (https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-
Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) with patches for some of these
issues at yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds (https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-
Builds). See the readme (https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-
Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specific issues solved by
these builds
Important: What you need is ffmpeg binary, NOT the Python package of
the same name (https://pypi.org/project/ffmpeg)
Networking
o certifi (https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)* - Provides
Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under MPLv2
(https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
o brotli (https://github.com/google/brotli)* or brotlicffi
(https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) - Brotli
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support.
Both licensed under MIT 1
(https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) 2
(https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE)
o websockets (https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)* - For
downloading over websocket. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
(https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
o requests (https://github.com/psf/requests)* - HTTP library. For
HTTPS proxy and persistent connections support. Licensed under
Apache-2.0 (https://github.com/psf/requests/blob/main/LICENSE)
Impersonation
The following provide support for impersonating browser requests. This
may be required for some sites that employ TLS fingerprinting.
o curl_cffi (https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi) (recommended) -
Python binding for curl-impersonate
(https://github.com/lexiforest/curl-impersonate). Provides
impersonation targets for Chrome, Edge and Safari. Licensed under
MIT (https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi/blob/main/LICENSE)
o Can be installed with the curl-cffi group, e.g. pip install
"yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]"
o Currently included in yt-dlp.exe, yt-dlp_linux and yt-dlp_macos
builds
Metadata
o mutagen (https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)* - For
--embed-thumbnail in certain formats. Licensed under GPLv2+
(https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
o AtomicParsley (https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For
--embed-thumbnail in mp4/m4a files when mutagen/ffmpeg cannot.
Licensed under GPLv2+
(https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
o xattr (https://github.com/xattr/xattr), pyxattr
(https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or setfattr
(http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr
metadata (--xattr) on Mac and BSD. Licensed under MIT
(https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt), LGPL2.1
(https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and GPLv2+
(http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING)
respectively
Misc
o pycryptodomex (https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)* - For
decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed
under BSD-2-Clause
(https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
o phantomjs (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors
where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
(https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
o secretstorage (https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage)* - For
--cookies-from-browser to access the Gnome keyring while decrypting
cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under
BSD-3-Clause
(https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
o Any external downloader that you want to use with --downloader
Deprecated
o avconv and avprobe (https://www.libav.org) - Now deprecated
alternative to ffmpeg. License depends on the build
(https://libav.org/legal)
o sponskrub (https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the
now deprecated sponskrub options. Licensed under GPLv3+
(https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
o rtmpdump (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading rtmp
streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with --downloader ffmpeg.
Licensed under GPLv2+ (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
o mplayer (http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or mpv
(https://mpv.io) - For downloading rstp/mms streams. ffmpeg can be
used instead with --downloader ffmpeg. Licensed under GPLv2+
(https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their
respective licensing terms.
The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter
and the packages marked with * included.
If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are
attempting, yt-dlp will warn you. All the currently available
dependencies are visible at the top of the --verbose output
COMPILE
Standalone PyInstaller Builds
To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and
pyinstaller (plus any of yt-dlp's optional dependencies if needed).
The executable will be built for the same CPU architecture as the
Python used.
You can run the following commands:
python3 devscripts/install_deps.py --include pyinstaller
python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
python3 -m bundle.pyinstaller
On some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3.
python -m bundle.pyinstaller accepts any arguments that can be passed
to pyinstaller, such as --onefile/-F or --onedir/-D, which is further
documented here (https://pyinstaller.org/en/stable/usage.html#what-to-
generate).
Note: Pyinstaller versions below 4.4 do not support
(https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-tested-
platforms) Python installed from the Windows store without using a
virtual environment.
Important: Running pyinstaller directly instead of using python -m
bundle.pyinstaller is not officially supported. This may or may not
work correctly.
Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
You will need the build tools python (3.9+), zip, make (GNU), pandoc*
and pytest*.
After installing these, simply run make.
You can also run make yt-dlp instead to compile only the binary without
updating any of the additional files. (The build tools marked with *
are not needed for this)
Related scripts
o devscripts/install_deps.py - Install dependencies for yt-dlp.
o devscripts/update-version.py - Update the version number based on the
current date.
o devscripts/set-variant.py - Set the build variant of the executable.
o devscripts/make_changelog.py - Create a markdown changelog using
short commit messages and update CONTRIBUTORS file.
o devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py - Create lazy extractors. Running
this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their
startup performance. Set the environment variable
YTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS to something nonempty to forcefully disable
lazy extractor loading.
Note: See their --help for more info.
Forking the project
If you fork the project on GitHub, you can run your fork's build
workflow to automatically build the selected version(s) as artifacts.
Alternatively, you can run the release workflow or enable the nightly
workflow to create full (pre-)releases.
PLUGINS
Note that all plugins are imported even if not invoked, and that there
are no checks performed on plugin code. Use plugins at your own risk
and only if you trust the code!
Plugins can be of <type>s extractor or postprocessor. - Extractor
plugins do not need to be enabled from the CLI and are automatically
invoked when the input URL is suitable for it. - Extractor plugins
take priority over built-in extractors. - Postprocessor plugins can be
invoked using --use-postprocessor NAME.
Plugins are loaded from the namespace packages yt_dlp_plugins.extractor
and yt_dlp_plugins.postprocessor.
In other words, the file structure on the disk looks something like:
yt_dlp_plugins/
extractor/
myplugin.py
postprocessor/
myplugin.py
yt-dlp looks for these yt_dlp_plugins namespace folders in many
locations (see below) and loads in plugins from all of them. Set the
environment variable YTDLP_NO_PLUGINS to something nonempty to disable
loading plugins entirely.
See the wiki for some known plugins (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Plugins)
Installing Plugins
Plugins can be installed using various methods and locations.
1. Configuration directories: Plugin packages (containing a
yt_dlp_plugins namespace folder) can be dropped into the following
standard configuration locations:
o User Plugins
o ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package
name>/yt_dlp_plugins/ (recommended on Linux/macOS)
o ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package
name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
(recommended on Windows)
o ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o ~/.yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o ~/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o System Plugins
o /opt/local/etc/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o /opt/local/etc/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
2. Executable location: Plugin packages can similarly be installed in a
yt-dlp-plugins directory under the executable location (recommended
for portable installations):
o Binary: where <root-dir>/yt-dlp.exe,
<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
o Source: where <root-dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py,
<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
3. pip and other locations in PYTHONPATH
o Plugin packages can be installed and managed using pip. See yt-
dlp-sample-plugins (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-
plugins) for an example.
o Note: plugin files between plugin packages installed with pip
must have unique filenames.
o Any path in PYTHONPATH is searched in for the yt_dlp_plugins
namespace folder.
o Note: This does not apply for Pyinstaller builds.
.zip, .egg and .whl archives containing a yt_dlp_plugins namespace
folder in their root are also supported as plugin packages.
o e.g. ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/mypluginpkg.zip where
mypluginpkg.zip contains yt_dlp_plugins/<type>/myplugin.py
Run yt-dlp with --verbose to check if the plugin has been loaded.
Developing Plugins
See the yt-dlp-sample-plugins (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-
plugins) repo for a template plugin package and the Plugin Development
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Plugin-Development) section of
the wiki for a plugin development guide.
All public classes with a name ending in IE/PP are imported from each
file for extractors and postprocessors respectively. This respects
underscore prefix (e.g. _MyBasePluginIE is private) and __all__.
Modules can similarly be excluded by prefixing the module name with an
underscore (e.g. _myplugin.py).
To replace an existing extractor with a subclass of one, set the
plugin_name class keyword argument (e.g. class MyPluginIE(ABuiltInIE,
plugin_name='myplugin') will replace ABuiltInIE with MyPluginIE).
Since the extractor replaces the parent, you should exclude the
subclass extractor from being imported separately by making it private
using one of the methods described above.
If you are a plugin author, add yt-dlp-plugins
(https://github.com/topics/yt-dlp-plugins) as a topic to your
repository for discoverability.
See the Developer Instructions (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions) on how to write
and test an extractor.
EMBEDDING YT-DLP
yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and
thus should be callable from any programming language.
Your program should avoid parsing the normal stdout since they may
change in future versions. Instead, they should use options such as
-J, --print, --progress-template, --exec etc to create console output
that you can reliably reproduce and parse.
From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion,
like this:
from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options
available, have a look at yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py or help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
in a Python shell. If you are already familiar with the CLI, you can
use devscripts/cli_to_api.py
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/devscripts/cli_to_api.py)
to translate any CLI switches to YoutubeDL params.
Tip: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one
important point to look out for is that we do not guarantee the return
value of YoutubeDL.extract_info to be json serializable, or even be a
dictionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it
is a serializable dictionary, pass it through YoutubeDL.sanitize_info
as shown in the example below
Embedding examples
Extracting information
import json
import yt_dlp
URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
# <?><?> See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
ydl_opts = {}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
# <?><?> ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
Download using an info-json
import yt_dlp
INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
Extract audio
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
ydl_opts = {
'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
# <?><?> See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
}]
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Filter videos
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
"""Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
duration = info.get('duration')
if duration and duration < 60:
return 'The video is too short'
ydl_opts = {
'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Adding logger and progress hook
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
class MyLogger:
def debug(self, msg):
# For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
# You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
pass
else:
self.info(msg)
def info(self, msg):
pass
def warning(self, msg):
pass
def error(self, msg):
print(msg)
# <?><?> See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
def my_hook(d):
if d['status'] == 'finished':
print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
ydl_opts = {
'logger': MyLogger(),
'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Add a custom PostProcessor
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
# <?><?> See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
def run(self, info):
self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
return [], info
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
# <?><?> "when" can take any value in yt_dlp.utils.POSTPROCESS_WHEN
ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP(), when='pre_process')
ydl.download(URLS)
Use a custom format selector
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def format_selector(ctx):
""" Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
# formats are already sorted worst to best
formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
# acodec='none' means there is no audio
best_video = next(f for f in formats
if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
# find compatible audio extension
audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
# vcodec='none' means there is no video
best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
# These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
yield {
'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
'ext': best_video['ext'],
'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
# Must be + separated list of protocols
'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
}
ydl_opts = {
'format': format_selector,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL
New features
o Forked from yt-dlc@f9401f2 (https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-
dlc/commit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee) and merged with
youtube-dl@a08f2b7 (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-
dl/commit/a08f2b7e4567cdc50c0614ee0a4ffdff49b8b6e6) (exceptions
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21))
o SponsorBlock Integration: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in
YouTube videos by utilizing the SponsorBlock
(https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
o Format Sorting: The default format sorting options have been changed
so that higher resolution and better codecs will be now preferred
instead of simply using larger bitrate. Furthermore, you can now
specify the sort order using -S. This allows for much easier format
selection than what is possible by simply using --format (examples)
o Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl: You get most of the features
and improvements from animelover1984/youtube-dl
(https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including
--write-comments, BiliBiliSearch, BilibiliChannel, Embedding
thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. See #31
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
o YouTube improvements:
o Supports Clips, Stories (ytstories:<channel UCID>), Search
(including filters)*, YouTube Music Search, Channel-specific
search, Search prefixes (ytsearch:, ytsearchdate:)*, Mixes, and
Feeds (:ytfav, :ytwatchlater, :ytsubs, :ythistory, :ytrec,
:ytnotif)
o Fix for n-sig based throttling (https://github.com/ytdl-
org/youtube-dl/issues/29326) *
o Download livestreams from the start using --live-from-start
(experimental)
o Channel URLs download all uploads of the channel, including shorts
and live
o Support for logging in with OAuth (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Extractors#logging-in-with-oauth)
o Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all
major web browsers using --cookies-from-browser
BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
o Download time range: Videos can be downloaded partially based on
either timestamps or chapters using --download-sections
o Split video by chapters: Videos can be split into multiple files
based on chapters using --split-chapters
o Multi-threaded fragment downloads: Download multiple fragments of
m3u8/mpd videos in parallel. Use --concurrent-fragments (-N) option
to set the number of threads used
o Aria2c with HLS/DASH: You can use aria2c as the external downloader
for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
o New and fixed extractors: Many new extractors have been added and a
lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the changelog or the list
of supported sites
o New MSOs: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN etc.
o Subtitle extraction from manifests: Subtitles can be extracted from
streaming media manifests. See commit/be6202f
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/commit/be6202f12b97858b9d716e608394b51065d0419f) for details
o Multiple paths and output templates: You can give different output
templates and download paths for different types of files. You can
also set a temporary path where intermediary files are downloaded to
using --paths (-P)
o Portable Configuration: Configuration files are automatically loaded
from the home and root directories. See CONFIGURATION for details
o Output template improvements: Output templates can now have date-time
formatting, numeric offsets, object traversal etc. See output
template for details. Even more advanced operations can also be done
with the help of --parse-metadata and --replace-in-metadata
o Other new options: Many new options have been added such as --alias,
--print, --concat-playlist, --wait-for-video, --retry-sleep,
--sleep-requests, --convert-thumbnails, --force-download-archive,
--force-overwrites, --break-match-filters etc
o Improvements: Regex and other operators in --format/--match-filters,
multiple --postprocessor-args and --downloader-args, faster archive
checking, more format selection options, merge multi-video/audio,
multiple --config-locations, --exec at different stages, etc
o Plugins: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external
file. See plugins for details
o Self updater: The releases can be updated using yt-dlp -U, and
downgraded using --update-to if required
o Automated builds: Nightly/master builds can be used with --update-to
nightly and --update-to master
See changelog or commits (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for
the full list of changes
Features marked with a * have been back-ported to youtube-dl
Differences in default behavior
Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl
and youtube-dlc:
o yt-dlp supports only Python 3.9+, and will remove support for more
versions as they become EOL
(https://devguide.python.org/versions/#python-release-cycle); while
youtube-dl still supports Python 2.6+ and 3.2+
(https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-
dl/issues/30568#issue-1118238743)
o The options --auto-number (-A), --title (-t) and --literal (-l), no
longer work. See removed options for details
o avconv is not supported as an alternative to ffmpeg
o yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to
youtube-dl. See CONFIGURATION for a list of correct locations
o The default output template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s. There is
no real reason for this change. This was changed before yt-dlp was
ever made public and now there are no plans to change it back to
%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s. Instead, you may use --compat-options
filename
o The default format sorting is different from youtube-dl and prefers
higher resolution and better codecs rather than higher bitrates. You
can use the --format-sort option to change this to any order you
prefer, or use --compat-options format-sort to use youtube-dl's
sorting order. Older versions of yt-dlp preferred VP9 due to its
broader compatibility; you can use --compat-options prefer-vp9-sort
to revert to that format sorting preference. These two compat
options cannot be used together
o The default format selector is bv*+ba/b. This means that if a
combined video + audio format that is better than the best video-only
format is found, the former will be preferred. Use -f bv+ba/b or
--compat-options format-spec to revert this
o Unlike youtube-dlc, yt-dlp does not allow merging multiple
audio/video streams into one file by default (since this conflicts
with the use of -f bv*+ba). If needed, this feature must be enabled
using --audio-multistreams and --video-multistreams. You can also
use --compat-options multistreams to enable both
o --no-abort-on-error is enabled by default. Use --abort-on-error or
--compat-options abort-on-error to abort on errors instead
o When writing metadata files such as thumbnails, description or
infojson, the same information (if available) is also written for
playlists. Use --no-write-playlist-metafiles or --compat-options
no-playlist-metafiles to not write these files
o --add-metadata attaches the infojson to mkv files in addition to
writing the metadata when used with --write-info-json. Use
--no-embed-info-json or --compat-options no-attach-info-json to
revert this
o Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using
--add-metadata as compared to youtube-dl. Most notably, comment
field contains the webpage_url and synopsis contains the description.
You can use --parse-metadata to modify this to your liking or use
--compat-options embed-metadata to revert this
o playlist_index behaves differently when used with options like
--playlist-reverse and --playlist-items. See #302
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/302) for details. You can
use --compat-options playlist-index if you want to keep the earlier
behavior
o The output of -F is listed in a new format. Use --compat-options
list-formats to revert this
o Live chats (if available) are considered as subtitles. Use
--sub-langs all,-live_chat to download all subtitles except live
chat. You can also use --compat-options no-live-chat to prevent any
live chat/danmaku from downloading
o YouTube channel URLs download all uploads of the channel. To
download only the videos in a specific tab, pass the tab's URL. If
the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised.
Also, /live URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead
of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use
--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect to revert all these
redirections
o Unavailable videos are also listed for YouTube playlists. Use
--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos to remove this
o The upload dates extracted from YouTube are in UTC.
o If ffmpeg is used as the downloader, the downloading and merging of
formats happen in a single step when possible. Use --compat-options
no-direct-merge to revert this
o Thumbnail embedding in mp4 is done with mutagen if possible. Use
--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley to force the use of
AtomicParsley instead
o Some internal metadata such as filenames are removed by default from
the infojson. Use --no-clean-infojson or --compat-options
no-clean-infojson to revert this
o When --embed-subs and --write-subs are used together, the subtitles
are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use
just --embed-subs to embed the subs and automatically delete the
separate file. See #630 (comment) (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460) for more info.
--compat-options no-keep-subs can be used to revert this
o certifi will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you
want to use system certificates (e.g. self-signed), use
--compat-options no-certifi
o yt-dlp's sanitization of invalid characters in filenames is
different/smarter than in youtube-dl. You can use --compat-options
filename-sanitization to revert to youtube-dl's behavior
o [STRIKEOUT:yt-dlp tries to parse the external downloader outputs into
the standard progress output if possible (Currently implemented:
aria2c (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/5931)). You can use
--compat-options no-external-downloader-progress to get the
downloader output as-is]
o yt-dlp versions between 2021.09.01 and 2023.01.02 applies
--match-filters to nested playlists. This was an unintentional side-
effect of 8f18ac (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/commit/8f18aca8717bb0dd49054555af8d386e5eda3a88) and is fixed in
d7b460 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/commit/d7b460d0e5fc710950582baed2e3fc616ed98a80). Use
--compat-options playlist-match-filter to revert this
o yt-dlp versions between 2021.11.10 and 2023.06.21 estimated
filesize_approx values for fragmented/manifest formats. This was
added for convenience in f2fe69 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/commit/f2fe69c7b0d208bdb1f6292b4ae92bc1e1a7444a), but was
reverted in 0dff8e (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/commit/0dff8e4d1e6e9fb938f4256ea9af7d81f42fd54f) due to the
potentially extreme inaccuracy of the estimated values. Use
--compat-options manifest-filesize-approx to keep extracting the
estimated values
o yt-dlp uses modern http client backends such as requests. Use
--compat-options prefer-legacy-http-handler to prefer the legacy http
handler (urllib) to be used for standard http requests.
o The sub-modules swfinterp, casefold are removed.
o Passing --simulate (or calling extract_info with download=False) no
longer alters the default format selection. See #9843
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/9843) for details.
For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
o --compat-options all: Use all compat options (Do NOT use this!)
o --compat-options youtube-dl: Same as --compat-options
all,-multistreams,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx,-allow-unsafe-ext,-prefer-vp9-sort
o --compat-options youtube-dlc: Same as --compat-options
all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx,-allow-unsafe-ext,-prefer-vp9-sort
o --compat-options 2021: Same as --compat-options
2022,no-certifi,filename-sanitization
o --compat-options 2022: Same as --compat-options
2023,playlist-match-filter,no-external-downloader-progress,prefer-legacy-http-handler,manifest-filesize-approx
o --compat-options 2023: Same as --compat-options 2024,prefer-vp9-sort
o --compat-options 2024: Currently does nothing. Use this to enable
all future compat options
The following compat options restore vulnerable behavior from before
security patches:
o --compat-options allow-unsafe-ext: Allow files with any extension
(including unsafe ones) to be downloaded (GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j))
:warning: Only use if a valid file download is rejected
because its extension is detected as uncommon
This option can enable remote code execution! Consider
opening an issue (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/new/choose) instead!
Deprecated options
These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to
achieve the same effect
Almost redundant options
While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts,
there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
-j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
-F, --list-formats --print formats_table
--list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
--list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
Redundant options
While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used
due to their ease of use
--get-description --print description
--get-duration --print duration_string
--get-filename --print filename
--get-format --print format
--get-id --print id
--get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
-e, --get-title --print title
-g, --get-url --print urls
--match-title REGEX --match-filters "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
--reject-title REGEX --match-filters "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
--min-views COUNT --match-filters "view_count >=? COUNT"
--max-views COUNT --match-filters "view_count <=? COUNT"
--break-on-reject Use --break-match-filters
--user-agent UA --add-headers "User-Agent:UA"
--referer URL --add-headers "Referer:URL"
--playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
--playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
--playlist-reverse -I ::-1
--no-playlist-reverse Default
--no-colors --color no_color
Not recommended
While these options still work, their use is not recommended since
there are other alternatives to achieve the same
--force-generic-extractor --ies generic,default
--exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
--no-exec-before-download --no-exec
--all-formats -f all
--all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
--print-json -j --no-simulate
--autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting, e.g. %(autonumber)03d
--autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
--id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
--metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
--hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
--list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
--list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
--youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
--youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
--youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
--youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
--geo-bypass --xff "default"
--no-geo-bypass --xff "never"
--geo-bypass-country CODE --xff CODE
--geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK --xff IP_BLOCK
Developer options
These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
--test Download only part of video for testing extractors
--load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
--youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
--allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
--no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
Old aliases
These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
--avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
--clean-infojson --clean-info-json
--cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
--dump-headers --print-traffic
--dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
--force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
--load-info --load-info-json
--no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
--no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
--no-write-srt --no-write-subs
--prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
--rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
--split-tracks --split-chapters
--srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
--trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
--write-srt --write-subs
--yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
Sponskrub Options
Support for SponSkrub (https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been
deprecated in favor of the --sponsorblock options
--sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
--no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
--sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
--no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
--sponskrub-force Not applicable
--no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
--sponskrub-location Not applicable
--sponskrub-args Not applicable
No longer supported
These options may no longer work as intended
--prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
--prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
-C, --call-home Not implemented
--no-call-home Default
--include-ads No longer supported
--no-include-ads Default
--write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
--no-write-annotations Default
--compat-options seperate-video-versions No longer needed
--compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date No longer supported
Removed
These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely
removed
-A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
CONTRIBUTING
See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on Opening an Issue and
Contributing code to the project
WIKI
See the Wiki (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki) for more
information
yt-dlp(1)
yt-dlp 2025.04.30 - Generated Sat May 10 06:39:59 CDT 2025