7 **youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
10 **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
11 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
12 2.x (x being at least 6), and it is not platform specific. It should work in
13 your Unix box, in Windows or in Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
14 which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
17 -h, --help print this help text and exit
18 --version print program version and exit
19 -U, --update update this program to latest version
20 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors
21 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT download rate limit (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
22 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
23 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
24 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
25 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs they
29 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
30 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
31 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or caseless
33 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
35 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
37 ## Filesystem Options:
38 -t, --title use title in file name
39 --id use video ID in file name
40 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
41 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from 00000
42 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to get the
43 title, %(uploader)s for the uploader name,
44 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically incremented
45 number, %(ext)s for the filename extension,
46 %(upload_date)s for the upload date (YYYYMMDD),
47 %(extractor)s for the provider (youtube, metacafe,
48 etc), %(id)s for the video id and %% for a literal
49 percent. Use - to output to stdout.
50 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and
51 avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
52 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for stdin)
53 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
54 -c, --continue resume partially downloaded files
55 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files (restart
57 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
58 --no-part do not use .part files
59 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set the file
61 --write-description write video description to a .description file
62 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
64 ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
65 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
66 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write anything
68 --skip-download do not download the video
69 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
70 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
71 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
72 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
73 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
74 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
75 --no-progress do not print progress bar
76 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
77 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
79 ## Video Format Options:
80 -f, --format FORMAT video format code
81 --all-formats download all available video formats
82 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific one is
84 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
85 -F, --list-formats list all available formats (currently youtube only)
86 --write-srt write video closed captions to a .srt file
87 (currently youtube only)
88 --srt-lang LANG language of the closed captions to download
89 (optional) use IETF language tags like 'en'
91 ## Authentication Options:
92 -u, --username USERNAME account username
93 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
94 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
96 ## Post-processing Options:
97 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files (requires
98 ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or avprobe)
99 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", or "wav";
101 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification, insert a
102 value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for VBR or a
103 specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
104 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the post-
105 processing; the video is erased by default
109 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as `--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or `~/.local/config/youtube-dl.conf`.
113 The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format `%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
115 - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
116 - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
117 - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
118 - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
119 - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
120 - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
121 - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
122 - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
124 The current default template is `%(id)s.%(ext)s`, but that will be switchted to `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` (which can be requested with `-t` at the moment).
126 In some cases, you don't want special characters such as 中, spaces, or &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the `--restrict-filenames` flag to get a shorter title:
128 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
129 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
130 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
131 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
135 ### Can you please put the -b option back?
137 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you''re interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
139 ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
141 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We''re [considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
143 ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
145 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
147 ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
149 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct cookies. Use the `--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use `--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
151 ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
153 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
155 ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
157 youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
159 ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
163 File "youtube-dl", line 2
164 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
166 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
168 To run youtube-dl under Python 2.5, you'll have to manually check it out like this:
170 git clone git://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl.git
172 python -m youtube_dl --help
174 Please note that Python 2.5 is not supported anymore.
176 ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
178 Since June 2012 (#342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to `youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the `__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run `make youtube-dl`.
180 ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
182 To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
186 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
188 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.
192 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>
196 * Your exact command line, like `youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title"`. A common mistake is not to escape the `&`. Putting URLs in quotes should solve this problem.
197 * The output of `youtube-dl --version`
198 * The output of `python --version`
199 * The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu 11.04 x64" or "Windows 7 x64" is usually enough).