y2

A clipboard-watching CLI tool that automatically downloads YouTube videos as MP3 files.

How It Works

1. Run y2 with a destination directory
2. Copy any YouTube link to your clipboard
3. The MP3 downloads automatically and the clipboard is cleared
4. Repeat — copy another link, it downloads again
5. Press Ctrl+C to stop

Usage

y2 -d ~/Music

Installation

Option 1: Install script (recommended)

Downloads a prebuilt binary — no Rust required. The script also installs the runtime dependencies (yt-dlp and ffmpeg) for you.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TVMD/y2/main/install.sh | bash

Or clone and run locally:

git clone https://github.com/TVMD/y2.git && cd y2 && ./install.sh

Option 2: Build from source

Requires Rust toolchain. You still need yt-dlp and ffmpeg installed.

# Install dependencies
# macOS
brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg && sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp && sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
# Arch
sudo pacman -S ffmpeg yt-dlp

# Build and install
git clone https://github.com/TVMD/y2.git && cd y2
cargo install --path .

Supported URLs

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...
• https://youtu.be/...
• https://www.youtube.com/shorts/...

Behavior

Queueing

Downloads run one at a time. If you copy a new link while a download is in progress, it will be picked up automatically once the current download finishes. You don't need to wait — just keep copying links and they will be processed in order.

Playlist / Mix links

If you copy a YouTube Mix or Radio URL (e.g. watch?v=xxx&list=RDMMxxx&start_radio=1), yt-dlp will download every track in that mix — this could be 50+ songs. Be careful when copying links from YouTube's "Mix" or "Radio" auto-playlists. Make sure the URL you copy is for a single video, not an entire mix.

License

MIT