NM

Huh?

NM is a video downloader with a lot of features, most of which are filters for fine tuning your search

How to use

Python 3.7 or greater required

• NM is a cmdline tool, no GUI
• It consists of 2 main download modules: pages.py for pages scanning, ids.py ‒ for video ids traversal
• See requirements.txt for additional dependencies. Install with:
  • python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
• Invoke python pages.py --help or python ids.py --help to list possible arguments for each module (the differences are minimal)
• For bug reports, questions and feature requests use our issue tracker

Search & filters

• NM supports searching using native website API
• Search (pages.py module only) is performed using search string (see help for more info), comparing every word against title or tags, partial match required: searching for 'all' will match titles containing 'tall', 'call', 'alligator' and so on
• Initial search results / ids list can be then filtered further using extra tags (see help for additional info)

Tags

• There is no list of existing tags. Video tagging is completely on uploaders. So better utilize...
• Wildcards. In any extra tag you can use symbols ? and * for any symbol and any number of any symbols repectively
• Also any square brackets [...] are always interpreted as symbol selection group matching any symbol contained between opening and closing bracket. Example: b[ua]ck matches both back and buck. Note: this syntax is converted to regex directly so a single opening bracket [ encountered causes an error while single closing bracket ] doesn't
• extra tags aren't validated, they can be anything
• What makes extra tags different from search string is tags or -tags are being used as filters instead of search params, search string is passed using its own search argument (see full help) and all unknown arguments are automatically considered extra tags

Additional info

1. OR / AND groups:

• OR group is a parenthesized tilda (~) -separated group of tags
  • (<tag1>~<tag2>~...~<tagN>)
  • video matching any of the tags in OR group is considered matching that group
• AND group is a parenthesized comma (,) -separated group of tags. Only negative AND group is possible ‒ to filter out videos having this unwanted tags combination
  • -(<tag1>,<tag2>,...,<tagN>)
  • video matching all tags in AND group is considered matching that group

2. --download-scenario explained in detail:

• Syntax: --download-scenario SCRIPT / -script SCRIPT
• Scenario (script) is used to separate videos matching different sets of tags into different folders in a single pass
• SCRIPT is a semicolon-separated sequence of '<subfolder>: <args...>' groups (subqueries)
• SCRIPT always contains spaces hence has to be escaped by quotes:
  • python ids.py <args>... -script "sub1: tags1; sub2: tags2 ..."
• Typically each next subquery is better exclude all required tags from previous one and retain excluded tags, so you know exactly what file goes where. But excluding previous required tags is optional - first matching subquery is used and if some item didn't match previous sub there is no point checking those tags again. Subquery order matters. Also, -tags contained in every subquery can be safely moved outside of script
  • ... -script "s1: a b (c~d) -e; s2: -a -b -c -d -e f g (h~i); s3: -a -b -c -d -e -f -g -h -i k" << full script
  • ... -script "s1: a b (c~d) -e; s2: f g (h~i) -e; s3: k -e" << no redundant excludes
  • ... -script "s1: a b (c~d); s2: f g (h~i); s3: k" -e << "-e" moved outside of script
• Besides tags each subquery can also have -quality set ‒ videos matching that subquery will be downloaded in this quality
• Subquery can also have --use-id-sequence flag set (see below) and match video ids
• You can also set --untagged-policy always for one subquery

3. Downloading a set of video ids

• Syntax: --use-id-sequence / -seq, ids.py module only (or download scenario subquery)
• Id sequence is used to download set of ids instead of id range
• The sequence itself is an extra tag in a form of OR group of ids:
  • (id=<id1>~id=<id2>~...~id=<idN>)
• Id sequence is used instead of id range, you can't use both
  • python ids.py <args>... -seq (id=1337~id=9999~id=1001)

4. File naming

• File names are generated based on video title and tags:
• Base template: <prefix>_<id>_(<score>)_<title>_(<tags>).<ext>. It can be adjusted via -naming argument
• Non-descriptive or way-too-long tags will be dropped
• If resulting file full path is too long to fit into 240 symbols, first the tags will be gradually dropped; if not enough title will be shrunk to fit; general advice is to not download to folders way too deep down the folder tree

5. Using 'file' mode

• Although not required as cmdline argument, there is a default mode app runs in which is a cmd mode
• File mode becomes useful when your cmdline string becomes really long. For example: Windows string buffer for console input is about 32767 characters long but standard cmd.exe buffer can only fit about 8192 characters, powershell ‒ about 16384. File mode is avalible for both pages.py and ids.py modules, of course, and can be used with shorter cmdline string as well
• File mode is activated by providing 'file' as first argument and has a single option which is -path to a text file containing actual cmdline arguments for used module's cmd mode:
  • python pages.py file -path <FILEPATH>
• Target file has to be structured as follows:
  • all arguments and values must be separated: one argument or value per line
  • quotes you would normally use in console window to escape argument value must be removed
  • only current module arguments needed, no python executable or module name needed, cmd mode can be omitted

    -start
    1
    -end
    20
    -path
    H:/long/folder name/with spaces (no quotes)/
    --log-level
    trace
    -script
    s1: (script~is~a~single~value); s2: -no_quotes_here_either
    

6. Unfinished files policy

• Unexpected fatal errors, Ctrl-C and other mishaps will cause download(s) to end abruptly
• By default when app manages to exit gracefully all unfinished files get deleted, at the same time all existing files are automatically considered completed
• To check and resume existing unfinished files use --continue-mode (or -continue) option. This may be slower for non-empty folders due to additional network requests but safer in case of complex queries
• To keep unfinished files use --keep-unfinished (or -unfinish) option. It acts as --continue-mode helper so it's recommended to use either both or none at all

7. Interrupt & resume

• When downloading at large sometimes resulting download queue is so big it's impossible to process within reasonable time period and the process will be inevitably interrupted
• To be able to resume without running the whole search process again use --store-continue-cmdfile option. Once initial video queue is formed a special 'continue' file will be stored and periodically updated in base download destination folder
• Continue file contains cmdline arguments required to resume download, all provided parameters / options / download scenario / extra tags are preserved
• It is strongly recommended to also include --continue-mode and --keep-unfinished options when using continue file
• If download actually finishes without interruption stored continue file is automatically deleted
• Continue file has to be used with ids.py module, file mode (see using 'file' mode above)

Examples

1. Pages

• All videos by a single tag:
  • python pages.py -pages 9999 -search STRING
• Up to 36 recent videos matching 2 words in 1080p, save to a custom location:
  • python pages.py -pages 2 -path PATH -quality 1080p -search STRING1+STRING2
• All videos from user's playlist:
  • python pages.py -pages 9999 -path PATH -quality 1080p -playlist_name USER_NAME
• All videos uploaded by a user, if tagged with either of 2 desired tags, in best quality, sorted into subfolders by several desired (known) authors, putting remaining videos into a separate folder, setup for interrupt & continue:
  • python pages.py -pages 9999 -path PATH --store-continue-cmdfile -quality 1080p -uploader USER_NAME (TAG1~TAG2) -script "name1: AUTHOR1; name2: AUTHOR2; name3: AUTHOR3; rest: * -utp always"

2. Ids

• All existing videos in range:
  • python ids.py -start 75000 -count 100
  • python ids.py -start 75000 -end 75099
• You can use the majority of arguments from pages examples. The only argument that is unique to ids.py module is --use-id-sequence (-seq), see above where it's explained in detail