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YouTube Cookies

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o51r15 edited this page Jun 18, 2026 · 1 revision

Caution: yt-dlp no longer recommends using YouTube cookies broadly, as they can cause YouTube to issue IP bans in some cases. Use at your own risk.

You can optionally pass your YouTube cookies to Pinchfork to download private playlists, age-restricted content, or members-only videos. This is a feature of yt-dlp — Pinchfork passes the cookie file through to yt-dlp as configured.

Getting your cookies

  1. Set up Pinchfork and start the app at least once so all required directories are created.
  2. Get your login cookies using the yt-dlp cookies guide on your personal computer (not inside the Pinchfork container — you need a browser that's logged into YouTube).
    • Do NOT share your cookie file with anyone and do NOT include it in bug reports.
  3. Locate the /extras/cookies.txt file inside your Pinchfork config directory (either on the host at /path/to/config/extras/cookies.txt, or at /config/extras/cookies.txt inside the container).
  4. Paste your cookies into that file.
  5. That's it — configure Cookie Behaviour on each source that should use them (see below).

If you see YouTube said: The playlist does not exist in the logs, the problem is almost always with how the cookies were acquired or formatted — this is a yt-dlp concern, not a Pinchfork one.

Cookie Behaviour setting

Each source has a Cookie Behaviour field with three options:

  • Disabled — cookies are never used for this source.
  • When Needed — minimises cookie exposure. Uses cookies for the initial source index, then attempts downloads without cookies first. If a download fails with an error that cookies would fix (age restriction, etc.), it retries once with cookies enabled.
  • All Operations — uses cookies for every operation on this source.

Cookies and the Video Client setting

Each source also has a Video Client dropdown (used for working around download problems — see SABR Bypass and PO Tokens). Some client options support cookies and some do not:

  • Cookie-compatible clients (e.g. web_creator, tv) work normally with cookies — selecting one does not affect cookie behavior.
  • Cookie-incompatible clients (e.g. android, ios, android_vr, tv_simply) cannot use cookies at all.

Important: If you select a cookie-incompatible client and also enable cookies (Cookie Behaviour) or members-only downloads on the same source, Pinchfork blocks the save with an explanatory error. A source that needs cookies for members-only content must use a cookie-compatible client. See SABR Bypass and PO Tokens for the full picture.

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