yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with support for thousands of sites. The project is a fork of youtube-dl based on the now inactive youtube-dlc.
- INSTALLATION
- USAGE AND OPTIONS
- General Options
- Network Options
- Geo-restriction
- Video Selection
- Download Options
- Filesystem Options
- Thumbnail Options
- Internet Shortcut Options
- Verbosity and Simulation Options
- Workarounds
- Video Format Options
- Subtitle Options
- Authentication Options
- Post-processing Options
- SponsorBlock Options
- Extractor Options
- Preset Aliases
- CONFIGURATION
- OUTPUT TEMPLATE
- FORMAT SELECTION
- MODIFYING METADATA
- EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
- PLUGINS
- EMBEDDING YT-DLP
- CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL
- CONTRIBUTING
- WIKI
INSTALLATION
You can install yt-dlp using the binaries, pip or one using a third-party package manager. See the wiki for detailed instructions
RELEASE FILES
Recommended
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp | Platform-independent zipimport binary. Needs Python (recommended for Linux/BSD) |
| yt-dlp.exe | Windows (Win8+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for Windows) |
| yt-dlp_macos | Universal MacOS (10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for MacOS) |
Alternatives
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp_linux | Linux (glibc 2.17+) standalone x86_64 binary |
| yt-dlp_linux.zip | Unpackaged Linux (glibc 2.17+) x86_64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_linux_aarch64 | Linux (glibc 2.17+) standalone aarch64 binary |
| yt-dlp_linux_aarch64.zip | Unpackaged Linux (glibc 2.17+) aarch64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_linux_armv7l.zip | Unpackaged Linux (glibc 2.31+) armv7l executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_musllinux | Linux (musl 1.2+) standalone x86_64 binary |
| yt-dlp_musllinux.zip | Unpackaged Linux (musl 1.2+) x86_64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_musllinux_aarch64 | Linux (musl 1.2+) standalone aarch64 binary |
| yt-dlp_musllinux_aarch64.zip | Unpackaged Linux (musl 1.2+) aarch64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_x86.exe | Windows (Win8+) standalone x86 (32-bit) binary |
| yt-dlp_win_x86.zip | Unpackaged Windows (Win8+) x86 (32-bit) executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_arm64.exe | Windows (Win10+) standalone ARM64 binary |
| yt-dlp_win_arm64.zip | Unpackaged Windows (Win10+) ARM64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_win.zip | Unpackaged Windows (Win8+) x64 executable (no auto-update) |
| yt-dlp_macos.zip | Unpackaged MacOS (10.15+) executable (no auto-update) |
Misc
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| yt-dlp.tar.gz | Source tarball |
| SHA2-512SUMS | GNU-style SHA512 sums |
| SHA2-512SUMS.sig | GPG signature file for SHA512 sums |
| SHA2-256SUMS | GNU-style SHA256 sums |
| SHA2-256SUMS.sig | GPG signature file for SHA256 sums |
The public key that can be used to verify the GPG signatures is available here Example usage:
curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/raw/master/public.key | gpg --import
gpg --verify SHA2-256SUMS.sig SHA2-256SUMS
gpg --verify SHA2-512SUMS.sig SHA2-512SUMS
Licensing
While yt-dlp is licensed under the Unlicense, many of the release files contain code from other projects with different licenses.
Most notably, the PyInstaller-bundled executables include GPLv3+ licensed code, and as such the combined work is licensed under GPLv3+.
The zipimport Unix executable (yt-dlp) and release tarball (yt-dlp.tar.gz) contain ISC licensed code from meriyah and MIT licensed code from astring.
See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt for more details.
The git repository, the PyPI source distribution and the PyPI built distribution (wheel) only contain code licensed under the Unlicense.
Note: The manpages, shell completion (autocomplete) files etc. are available inside the source tarball
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the release binaries
If you installed with pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
For other third-party package managers, see the wiki or refer to their documentation
There are currently three release channels for binaries: stable, nightly and master.
stableis the default channel, which offers releases published on a (mostly) monthly schedule. While it is namedstabledue to many of its changes having been tested by users of thenightlyormasterrelease channels, the lateststablerelease is often "stale" and prone to external breakage (i.e. sites changing things on their end and breaking yt-dlp).- The
nightlychannel offers releases that publish shortly before midnight UTC on any day that sees changes to the codebase. This channel serves as a snapshot of the project's development, and it is the recommended channel for regular users of yt-dlp. Thenightlyreleases are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds or as development releases of theyt-dlpPyPI package (which can be installed with pip's--preflag). - The
masterchannel offers "canary" releases that publish after each push to the master branch. This channel will always provide the very latest fixes and features, but may be prone to bugs or regressions. Themasterreleases are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds.
When using --update/-U, a release binary will only update to its current channel.
--update-to CHANNEL can be used to switch to a different channel when a newer version is available. --update-to [CHANNEL@]TAG can also be used to upgrade or downgrade to specific tags from a channel.
You may also use --update-to <repository> (<owner>/<repository>) to update to a channel on a completely different repository. Be careful with what repository you are updating to though, there is no verification done for binaries from different repositories.
Example usage:
yt-dlp --update-to masterswitch to themasterchannel and update to its latest releaseyt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.07.06upgrade/downgrade to release tostablechannel tag2023.07.06yt-dlp --update-to 2023.10.07upgrade/downgrade to tag2023.10.07if it exists on the current channelyt-dlp --update-to example/yt-dlp@2023.09.24upgrade/downgrade to the release from theexample/yt-dlprepository, tag2023.09.24
Important: Any user experiencing an issue with the stable release should install or update to the nightly release before submitting a bug report:
# To update to nightly from stable executable/binary:
yt-dlp --update-to nightly
# To install nightly with pip:
python -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"
When running a yt-dlp version that is older than 90 days, you will see a warning message suggesting to update to the latest version.
You can suppress this warning by adding --no-update to your command or configuration file.
DEPENDENCIES
Python versions 3.10+ (CPython) and 3.11+ (PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
While all the other dependencies are optional, ffmpeg, ffprobe, yt-dlp-ejs and a supported JavaScript runtime/engine are highly recommended
Strongly recommended
-
ffmpeg and ffprobe - Required for merging separate video and audio files, as well as for various post-processing tasks. License depends on the build
Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide our own builds at yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds. In the past, patches were applied to these builds in order to fix common issues for yt-dlp users, but currently our builds are equivalent to upstream ffmpeg. See the readme for details
Important: What you need is ffmpeg binary, NOT the Python package of the same name
-
yt-dlp-ejs - Required for full YouTube support. Licensed under Unlicense, bundles MIT and ISC components.
A JavaScript runtime/engine like deno (recommended), node.js, bun, or QuickJS is also required to run yt-dlp-ejs. See the wiki.
Networking
- certifi* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under MPLv2
- brotli* or brotlicffi - Brotli content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT 1 2
- websockets* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
- requests* - HTTP library. For HTTPS proxy and persistent connections support. Licensed under Apache-2.0
Impersonation
The following provide support for impersonating browser requests. This may be required for some sites that employ TLS fingerprinting.
- curl_cffi (recommended) - Python binding for curl-impersonate. Provides impersonation targets for Chrome, Edge and Safari. Licensed under MIT
- Can be installed with the
curl-cffiextra, e.g.pip install "yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]" - Currently included in most builds except
yt-dlp(Unix zipimport binary) andyt-dlp_x86(Windows 32-bit)
- Can be installed with the
Metadata
- mutagen* - For
--embed-thumbnailin certain formats. Licensed under GPLv2+ - AtomicParsley - For
--embed-thumbnailinmp4/m4afiles whenmutagen/ffmpegcannot. Licensed under GPLv2+ - xattr, pyxattr or setfattr - For writing xattr metadata (
--xattrs) on Mac and BSD. Licensed under MIT, LGPL2.1 and GPLv2+ respectively
Misc
- pycryptodomex* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause
- phantomjs - Used in some extractors where JavaScript needs to be run. No longer used for YouTube. To be deprecated in the near future. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
- secretstorage* - For
--cookies-from-browserto access the Gnome keyring while decrypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause - Any external downloader that you want to use with
--downloader
Deprecated
- rtmpdump - For downloading
rtmpstreams. ffmpeg can be used instead with--downloader ffmpeg. Licensed under GPLv2+
To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with * included.
If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are attempting, yt-dlp will warn you. All the currently available dependencies are visible at the top of the --verbose output
COMPILE
Standalone PyInstaller Builds
To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and pyinstaller (plus any of yt-dlp's optional dependencies if needed). The executable will be built for the same CPU architecture as the Python used.
You can run the following commands:
python devscripts/install_deps.py --include-group pyinstaller
python devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
python -m bundle.pyinstaller
On some systems, you may need to use py or python3 instead of python.
python -m bundle.pyinstaller accepts any arguments that can be passed to pyinstaller, such as --onefile/-F or --onedir/-D, which is further documented here.
Note: Pyinstaller versions below 4.4 do not support Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment.
Important: Running pyinstaller directly instead of using python -m bundle.pyinstaller is not officially supported. This may or may not work correctly.
Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
You will need the build tools python (3.10+), 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
devscripts/install_deps.py- Install dependencies for yt-dlp.devscripts/update-version.py- Update the version number based on the current date.devscripts/set-variant.py- Set the build variant of the executable.devscripts/make_changelog.py- Create a markdown changelog using short commit messages and updateCONTRIBUTORSfile.devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py- Create lazy extractors. Running this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the environment variableYTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORSto 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.
USAGE AND OPTIONS
yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
Tip: Use CTRL+F (or Command+F) to search by keywords
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)
--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 DIR 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
--js-runtimes RUNTIME[:PATH] Additional JavaScript runtime to enable,
with an optional location for the runtime
(either the path to the binary or its
containing directory). This option can be
used multiple times to enable multiple
runtimes. Supported runtimes are (in order
of priority, from highest to lowest): deno,
node, quickjs, bun. Only "deno" is enabled
by default. The highest priority runtime
that is both enabled and available will be
used. In order to use a lower priority
runtime when "deno" is available, --no-js-
runtimes needs to be passed before enabling
other runtimes
--no-js-runtimes Clear JavaScript runtimes to enable,
including defaults and those provided by
previous --js-runtimes
--remote-components COMPONENT Remote components to allow yt-dlp to fetch
when required. This option is currently not
needed if you are using an official
executable or have the requisite version of
the yt-dlp-ejs package installed. You can
use this option multiple times to allow
multiple components. Supported values:
ejs:npm (external JavaScript components from
npm), ejs:github (external JavaScript
components from yt-dlp-ejs GitHub). By
default, no remote components are allowed
--no-remote-components Disallow fetching of all remote components,
including any previously allowed by
--remote-components or defaults.
--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 experimental and only supported
for YouTube, Twitch, TVer, and mellow-fan
--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)\bcats \& dogs\b'" matches
only videos that are not live OR those that
have a like count more than 100 (or the like
field is not available) and also has a
description that contains the phrase "cats &
dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-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)
--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, rtmp) to use it for.
Currently supports native, aria2c, 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)
