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YT-DLP

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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

Windows Unix MacOS PyPI Source Tarball Other variants All versions

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_x86.exe Windows (Win8+) standalone x86 (32-bit) binary
yt-dlp_linux Linux standalone x64 binary
yt-dlp_linux_armv7l Linux standalone armv7l (32-bit) binary
yt-dlp_linux_aarch64 Linux standalone aarch64 (64-bit) binary
yt-dlp_win.zip Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update)
yt-dlp_macos.zip Unpackaged MacOS (10.15+) executable (no auto-update)
yt-dlp_macos_legacy MacOS (10.9+) standalone x64 executable

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

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.

  • stable is the default channel, and many of its changes have been tested by users of the nightly and master channels.
  • The nightly channel has releases scheduled to build every day around midnight UTC, for a snapshot of the project's new patches and changes. This is the recommended channel for regular users of yt-dlp. The nightly releases are available from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds or as development releases of the yt-dlp PyPI package (which can be installed with pip's --pre flag).
  • The master channel features releases that are built after each push to the master branch, and these will have the very latest fixes and additions, but may also be more prone to regressions. They 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 master switch to the master channel and update to its latest release
  • yt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.07.06 upgrade/downgrade to release to stable channel tag 2023.07.06
  • yt-dlp --update-to 2023.10.07 upgrade/downgrade to tag 2023.10.07 if it exists on the current channel
  • yt-dlp --update-to example/yt-dlp@2023.09.24 upgrade/downgrade to the release from the example/yt-dlp repository, tag 2023.09.24

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:
python3 -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"

DEPENDENCIES

Python versions 3.9+ (CPython) and 3.10+ (PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.

While all the other dependencies are optional, ffmpeg and ffprobe are highly recommended

Strongly recommended

Networking

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-cffi group, e.g. pip install "yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]"
    • Currently included in yt-dlp.exe, yt-dlp_linux and yt-dlp_macos builds

Metadata

Misc

  • pycryptodomex* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause
  • phantomjs - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
  • secretstorage* - For --cookies-from-browser to 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

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:

python3 devscripts/install_deps.py --include pyinstaller
python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
python3 -m bundle.pyinstaller

On some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3.

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 (3.9+), 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 update CONTRIBUTORS file.
  • devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py - Create lazy extractors. Running this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the environment variable YTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS to 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...]

Ctrl+F is your friend :D

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)
--dump-user-agent               Display the current user-agent and exit
--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 PATH              Path to an additional directory to search
                                for plugins. This option can be used
                                multiple times to add multiple directories.
                                Note that this currently only works for
                                extractor plugins; postprocessor plugins can
                                only be loaded from the default plugin
                                directories
--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 only supported for YouTube
                                (Experimental)
--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

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)
--xattr-set-filesize            Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
                                expected file size
--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, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
                                use it for. Currently supports native,
                                aria2c, avconv, 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)

Filesystem Options:

-a, --batch-file FILE           File containing URLs to download ("-" for
                                stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
                                with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
                                comments and ignored
--no-batch-file                 Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
-P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH        The paths where the files should be
                                downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
                                path separated by a colon ":". All the same
                                TYPES as --output are supported.
                                Additionally, you can also provide "home"
                                (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
                                files are first downloaded to the temp path
                                and then the final files are moved over to
                                the home path after download is finished.
                                This option is ignored if --output is an
                                absolute path
-o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE   Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
                                TEMPLATE" for details
--output-na-placeholder TEXT    Placeholder for unavailable fields in
                                --output (default: "NA")
--restrict-filenames            Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
                                and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
--no-restrict-filenames         Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
                                filenames (default)
--windows-filenames             Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
--no-windows-filenames          Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
                                using Windows (default)
--trim-filenames LENGTH         Limit the filename length (excluding
                                extension) to the specified number of
                                characters
-w, --no-overwrites             Do not overwrite any files
--force-overwrites              Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
                                option includes --no-continue
--no-force-overwrites           Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
                                related files (default)
-c, --continue                  Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
                                (default)
--no-continue                   Do not resume partially downloaded
                                fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
                                restart download of the entire file
--part                          Use .part files instead of writing directly
                                into output file (default)
--no-part                       Do not use .part files - write directly into
                                output file
--mtime                         Use the Last-modified header to set the file
                                modification time (default)
--no-mtime                      Do not use the Last-modified header to set
                                the file modification time
--write-description             Write video description to a .description file
--no-write-description          Do not write video description (default)
--write-info-json               Write video metadata to a .info.json file
                                (this may contain personal information)
--no-write-info-json            Do not write video metadata (default)
--write-playlist-metafiles      Write playlist metadata in addition to the
                                video metadata when using --write-info-json,
                                --write-description etc. (default)
--no-write-playlist-metafiles   Do not write playlist metadata when using
                                --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
--clean-info-json               Remove some internal metadata such as
                                filenames from the infojson (default)
--no-clean-info-json            Write all fields to the infojson
--write-comments                Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
                                infojson. The comments are fetched even
                                without this option if the extraction is
                                known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
--no-write-comments             Do not retrieve video comments unless the
                                extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
                                --no-get-comments)
--load-info-json FILE           JSON file containing the video information
                                (created with the "--write-info-json" option)
--cookies FILE                  Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
                                and dump cookie jar in
--no-cookies                    Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
                                (default)
--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
                                The name of the browser to load cookies
                                from. Currently supported browsers are:
                                brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox,
                                opera, safari, vivaldi, whale. Optionally,
                                the KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium
                                cookies on Linux, the name/path of the
                                PROFILE to load cookies from, and the
                                CONTAINER name (if Firefox) ("none" for no
                                container) can be given with their
                                respective separators. By default, all
                                containers of the most recently accessed
                                profile are used. Currently supported
                                keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring,
                                kwallet, kwallet5, kwallet6
--no-cookies-from-browser       Do not load cookies from browser (default)
--cache-dir DIR                 Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can
                                store some downloaded information (such as
                                client ids and signatures) permanently. By
                                default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/yt-dlp
--no-cache-dir                  Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir                  Delete all filesystem cache files

Thumbnail Options:

--write-thumbnail               Write thumbnail image to disk
--no-write-thumbnail            Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
--write-all-thumbnails          Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
--list-thumbnails               List available thumbnails of each video.
                                Simulate unless --no-simulate is used

Internet Shortcut Options:

--write-link                    Write an internet shortcut file, depending
                                on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
                                .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
--write-url-link                Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
                                OS caches the URL based on the file path
--write-webloc-link             Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
--write-desktop-link            Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut

Verbosity and Simulation Options:

-q, --quiet                     Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
                                print the log to stderr
--no-quiet                      Deactivate quiet mode. (Default)
--no-warnings                   Ignore warnings
-s, --simulate                  Do not download the video and do not write
                                anything to disk
--no-simulate                   Download the video even if printing/listing
                                options are used
--ignore-no-formats-error       Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
                                extracting metadata even if the videos are
                                not actually available for download
                                (experimental)
--no-ignore-no-formats-error    Throw error when no downloadable video
                                formats are found (default)
--skip-download                 Do not download the video but write all
                                related files (Alias: --no-download)
-O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE     Field name or output template to print to
                                screen, optionally prefixed with when to
                                print it, separated by a ":". Supported
                                values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
                                --use-postprocessor (default: video).
                                Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
                                --no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
                                used. This option can be used multiple times
--print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
                                Append given template to the file. The
                                values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are the same as
                                that of --print. FILE uses the same syntax
                                as the output template. This option can be
                                used multiple times
-j, --dump-json                 Quiet, but print JSON information for each
                                video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
                                used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
                                description of available keys
-J, --dump-single-json          Quiet, but print JSON information for each
                                URL or infojson passed. Simulate unless
                                --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
                                a playlist, the whole playlist information
                                is dumped in a single line
--force-write-archive           Force download archive entries to be written
                                as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
                                another simulation option is used (Alias:
                                --force-download-archive)
--newline                       Output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress                   Do not print progress bar
--progress                      Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
--console-title                 Display progress in console titlebar
--progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
                                Template for progress outputs, optionally
                                prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
                                "download-title:" (the console title),
                                "postprocess:",  or "postprocess-title:".
                                The video's fields are accessible under the
                                "info" key and the progress attributes are
                                accessible under "progress" key. E.g.
                                --console-title --progress-template
                                "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
--progress-delta SECONDS        Time between progress output (default: 0)
-v, --verbose                   Print various debugging information
--dump-pages                    Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
                                to debug problems (very verbose)
--write-pages                   Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
                                in the current directory to debug problems
--print-traffic                 Display sent and read HTTP traffic

Workarounds:

--encoding ENCODING             Force the specified encoding (experimental)
--legacy-server-connect         Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
                                that do not support RFC 5746 secure
                                renegotiation
--no-check-certificates         Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure               Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
                                information about the video (Currently
                                supported only for YouTube)
--add-headers FIELD:VALUE       Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
                                separated by a colon ":". You can use this
                                option multiple times
--bidi-workaround               Work around terminals that lack
                                bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
                                or fribidi executable in PATH
--sleep-requests SECONDS        Number of seconds to sleep between requests
                                during data extraction
--sleep-interval SECONDS        Number of seconds to sleep before each
                                download. This is the minimum time to sleep
                                when used along with --max-sleep-interval
                                (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
--max-sleep-interval SECONDS    Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
                                be used along with --min-sleep-interval
--sleep-subtitles SECONDS       Number of seconds to sleep before each
                                subtitle download

Video Format Options:

-f, --format FORMAT             Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
                                for more details
-S, --format-sort SORTORDER     Sort the formats by the fields given, see
                                "Sorting Formats" for more details
--format-sort-force             Force user specified sort order to have
                                precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
                                Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
--no-format-sort-force          Some fields have precedence over the user
                                specified sort order (default)
--video-multistreams            Allow multiple video streams to be merged
                                into a single file
--no-video-multistreams         Only one video stream is downloaded for each
                                output file (default)
--audio-multistreams            Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
                                into a single file
--no-audio-multistreams         Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
                                output file (default)
--prefer-free-formats           Prefer video formats with free containers
                                over non-free ones of the same quality. Use
                                with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
                                containers irrespective of quality
--no-prefer-free-formats        Don't give any special preference to free
                                containers (default)
--check-formats                 Make sure formats are selected only from
                                those that are actually downloadable
--check-all-formats             Check all formats for whether they are
                                actually downloadable
--no-check-formats              Do not check that the formats are actually
                                downloadable
-F, --list-formats              List available formats of each video.
                                Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--merge-output-format FORMAT    Containers that may be used when merging
                                formats, separated by "/", e.g. "mp4/mkv".
                                Ignored if no merge is required. (currently
                                supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)

Subtitle Options:

--write-subs                    Write subtitle file
--no-write-subs                 Do not write subtitle file (default)
--write-auto-subs               Write automatically generated subtitle file
                                (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
--no-write-auto-subs            Do not write auto-generated subtitles
                                (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
--list-subs                     List available subtitles of each video.
                                Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--sub-format FORMAT             Subtitle format; accepts formats preference
                                separated by "/", e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS               Languages of the subtitles to download (can
                                be regex) or "all" separated by commas, e.g.
                                --sub-langs "en.*,ja" (where "en.*" is a
                                regex pattern that matches "en" followed by
                                0 or more of any character). You can prefix
                                the language code with a "-" to exclude it
                                from the requested languages, e.g. --sub-
                                langs all,-live_chat. Use --list-subs for a
                                list of available language tags

Authentication Options:

-u, --username USERNAME         Login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD         Account password. If this option is left
                                out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
-2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR       Two-factor authentication code
-n, --netrc                     Use .netrc authentication data
--netrc-location PATH           Location of .netrc authentication data;
                                either the path or its containing directory.
                                Defaults to ~/.netrc
--netrc-cmd NETRC_CMD           Command to execute to get the credentials
                                for an extractor.
--video-password PASSWORD       Video-specific password
--ap-mso MSO                    Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
                                provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
                                a list of available MSOs
--ap-username USERNAME          Multiple-system operator account login
--ap-password PASSWORD          Multiple-system operator account password.
                                If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
                                interactively
--ap-list-mso                   List all supported multiple-system operators
--client-certificate CERTFILE   Path to client certificate file in PEM
                                format. May include the private key
--client-certificate-key KEYFILE
                                Path to private key file for client
                                certificate
--client-certificate-password PASSWORD
                                Password for client certificate private key,
                                if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
                                is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively

Post-Processing Options:

-x, --extract-audio             Convert video files to audio-only files
                                (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT           Format to convert the audio to when -x is
                                used. (currently supported: best (default),
                                aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis,
                                wav). You can specify multiple rules using
                                similar syntax as --remux-video
--audio-quality QUALITY         Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
                                converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
                                between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR or a
                                specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
--remux-video FORMAT            Remux the video into another container if
                                necessary (currently supported: avi, flv,
                                gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac,
                                flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis,
                                wav). If the target container does not
                                support the video/audio codec, remuxing will
                                fail. You can specify multiple rules; e.g.
                                "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
                                mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
--recode-video FORMAT           Re-encode the video into another format if
                                necessary. The syntax and supported formats
                                are the same as --remux-video
--postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS  Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
                                Specify the postprocessor/executable name
                                and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
                                to give the argument to the specified
                                postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
                                Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
                                ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
                                Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
                                SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
                                FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
                                FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
                                supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
                                FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
                                "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
                                specified executable only when being used by
                                the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
                                for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
                                appended to the prefix optionally followed
                                by a number to pass the argument before the
                                specified input/output file, e.g. --ppa
                                "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
                                this option multiple times to give different
                                arguments to different postprocessors.
                                (Alias: --ppa)
-k, --keep-video                Keep the intermediate video file on disk
                                after post-processing
--no-keep-video                 Delete the intermediate video file after
                                post-processing (default)
--post-overwrites               Overwrite post-processed files (default)
--no-post-overwrites            Do not overwrite post-processed files
--embed-subs                    Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
                                webm and mkv videos)
--no-embed-subs                 Do not embed subtitles (default)
--embed-thumbnail               Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
--no-embed-thumbnail            Do not embed thumbnail (default)
--embed-metadata                Embed metadata to the video file. Also
                                embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
                                --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
                                used (Alias: --add-metadata)
--no-embed-metadata             Do not add metadata to file (default)
                                (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
--embed-chapters                Add chapter markers to the video file
                                (Alias: --add-chapters)
--no-embed-chapters             Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
                                --no-add-chapters)
--embed-info-json               Embed the infojson as an attachment to
                                mkv/mka video files
--no-embed-info-json            Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
                                to the video file
--parse-metadata [WHEN:]FROM:TO
                                Parse additional metadata like title/artist
                                from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
                                for details. Supported values of "WHEN" are
                                the same as that of --use-postprocessor
                                (default: pre_process)
--replace-in-metadata [WHEN:]FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
                                Replace text in a metadata field using the
                                given regex. This option can be used
                                multiple times. Supported values of "WHEN"
                                are the same as that of --use-postprocessor
                                (default: pre_process)
--xattrs                        Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
                                (using Dublin Core and XDG standards)
--concat-playlist POLICY        Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
                                "never", "always", or "multi_video"
                                (default; only when the videos form a single
                                show). All the video files must have the
                                same codecs and number of streams to be
                                concatenable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
                                used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
                                the output filename for the concatenated
                                files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--fixup POLICY                  Automatically correct known faults of the
                                file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
                                emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
                                default; fix the file if we can, warn
                                otherwise), force (try fixing even if the
                                file already exists)
--ffmpeg-location PATH          Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
                                path to the binary or its containing directory
--exec [WHEN:]CMD               Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
                                when to execute it, separated by a ":".
                                Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as
                                that of --use-postprocessor (default:
                                after_move). The same syntax as the output
                                template can be used to pass any field as
                                arguments to the command. If no fields are
                                passed, %(filepath,_filename|)q is appended
                                to the end of the command. This option can
                                be used multiple times
--no-exec                       Remove any previously defined --exec
--convert-subs FORMAT           Convert the subtitles to another format
                                (currently supported: ass, lrc, srt, vtt).
                                Use "--convert-subs none" to disable
                                conversion (default) (Alias: --convert-
                                subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT     Convert the thumbnails to another format
                                (currently supported: jpg, png, webp). You
                                can specify multiple rules using similar
                                syntax as "--remux-video". Use "--convert-
                                thumbnails none" to disable conversion
                                (default)
--split-chapters                Split video into multiple files based on
                                internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
                                be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
                                the output filename for the split files. See
                                "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters             Do not split video based on chapters (default)
--remove-chapters REGEX         Remove chapters whose title matches the
                                given regular expression. The syntax is the
                                same as --download-sections. This option can
                                be used multiple times
--no-remove-chapters            Do not remove any chapters from the file
                                (default)
--force-keyframes-at-cuts       Force keyframes at cuts when
                                downloading/splitting/removing sections.
                                This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but
                                the resulting video may have fewer artifacts
                                around the cuts
--no-force-keyframes-at-cuts    Do not force keyframes around the chapters
                                when cutting/splitting (default)
--use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
                                The (case-sensitive) name of plugin
                                postprocessors to be enabled, and
                                (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
                                separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
                                semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
                                The "when" argument determines when the
                                postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
                                "pre_process" (after video extraction),
                                "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
                                "video" (after --format; before
                                --print/--output), "before_dl" (before each
                                video download), "post_process" (after each
                                video download; default), "after_move"
                                (after moving the video file to its final
                                location), "after_video" (after downloading
                                and processing all formats of a video), or
                                "playlist" (at end of playlist). This option
                                can be used multiple times to add different
                                postprocessors

SponsorBlock Options:

Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor, introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the SponsorBlock API

--sponsorblock-mark CATS        SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
                                for, separated by commas. Available
                                categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
                                selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
                                music_offtopic, poi_highlight, chapter, all
                                and default (=all). You can prefix the
                                category with a "-" to exclude it. See [1]
                                for descriptions of the categories. E.g.
                                --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
                                [1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
--sponsorblock-remove CATS      SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
                                the video file, separated by commas. If a
                                category is present in both mark and remove,
                                remove takes precedence. The syntax and
                                available categories are the same as for
                                --sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
                                refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight,
                                chapter are not available
--sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
                                An output template for the title of the
                                SponsorBlock chapters created by
                                --sponsorblock-mark. The only available
                                fields are start_time, end_time, category,
                                categories, name, category_names. Defaults
                                to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
--no-sponsorblock               Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
                                --sponsorblock-remove
--sponsorblock-api URL          SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
                                https://sponsor.ajay.app

Extractor Options:

--extractor-retries RETRIES     Number of retries for known extractor errors
                                (default is 3), or "infinite"
--allow-dynamic-mpd             Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
                                (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
--ignore-dynamic-mpd            Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
                                (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
--hls-split-discontinuity       Split HLS playlists to different formats at
                                discontinuities such as ad breaks
--no-hls-split-discontinuity    Do not split HLS playlists into different
                                formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
                                (default)
--extractor-args IE_KEY:ARGS    Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY extractor.
                                See "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You
                                can use this option multiple times to give
                                arguments for different extractors

CONFIGURATION

You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option in a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:

  1. Main Configuration:

    • The file given to --config-location
  2. Portable Configuration: (Recommended for portable installations)

    • If using a binary, yt-dlp.conf in the same directory as the binary
    • If running from source-code, yt-dlp.conf in the parent directory of yt_dlp
  3. Home Configuration:

    • yt-dlp.conf in the home path given to -P
    • If -P is not given, the current directory is searched
  4. User Configuration:

    • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp.conf
    • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Linux/macOS)
    • ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config.txt
    • ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp.conf
    • ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Windows)
    • ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config.txt
    • ~/yt-dlp.conf
    • ~/yt-dlp.conf.txt
    • ~/.yt-dlp/config
    • ~/.yt-dlp/config.txt

    See also: Notes about environment variables

  5. System Configuration:

    • /etc/yt-dlp.conf
    • /etc/yt-dlp/config
    • /etc/yt-dlp/config.txt

E.g. with the following configuration file, yt-dlp will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory:

# Lines starting with # are comments

# Always extract audio
-x

# Do not copy the mtime
--no-mtime

# Use this proxy
--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128

# Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
-o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s

Note: Options in a configuration file are just the same options aka switches used in regular command line calls; thus there must be no whitespace after - or --, e.g. -o or --proxy but not - o or -- proxy. They must also be quoted when necessary, as if it were a UNIX shell.

You can use --ignore-config if you want to disable all configuration files for a particular yt-dlp run. If --ignore-config is found inside any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents loading of home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if --ignore-config is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.

Configuration file encoding

The configuration files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if present, and in the encoding from system locale otherwise.

If you want your file to be decoded differently, add # coding: ENCODING to the beginning of the file (e.g. # coding: shift-jis). There must be no characters before that, even spaces or BOM.

Authentication with netrc

You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password with --username and --password) in order not to pass credentials as command line arguments on every yt-dlp execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a .netrc file on a per-extractor basis. For that, you will need to create a .netrc file in --netrc-location and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:

touch ${HOME}/.netrc
chmod a-rwx,u+rw ${HOME}/.netrc

After that, you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where extractor is the name of the extractor in lowercase:

machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>

E.g.

machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password

To activate authentication with the .netrc file you should pass --netrc to yt-dlp or place it in the configuration file.

The default location of the .netrc file is ~ (see below).

As an alternative to using the .netrc file, which has the disadvantage of keeping your passwords in a plain text file, you can configure a custom shell command to provide the credentials for an extractor. This is done by providing the --netrc-cmd parameter, it shall output the credentials in the netrc format and return 0 on success, other values will be treated as an error. {} in the command will be replaced by the name of the extractor to make it possible to select the credentials for the right extractor.

E.g. To use an encrypted .netrc file stored as .authinfo.gpg

yt-dlp --netrc-cmd 'gpg --decrypt ~/.authinfo.gpg' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'

Notes about environment variables

  • Environment variables are normally specified as ${VARIABLE}/$VARIABLE on UNIX and %VARIABLE% on Windows; but is always shown as ${VARIABLE} in this documentation
  • yt-dlp also allows using UNIX-style variables on Windows for path-like options; e.g. --output, --config-location
  • If unset, ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME} defaults to ~/.config and ${XDG_CACHE_HOME} to ~/.cache
  • On Windows, ~ points to ${HOME} if present; or, ${USERPROFILE} or ${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH} otherwise
  • On Windows, ${USERPROFILE} generally points to C:\Users\<user name> and ${APPDATA} to ${USERPROFILE}\AppData\Roaming

OUTPUT TEMPLATE

The -o option is used to indicate a template for the output file names while -P option is used to specify the path each type of file should be saved to.

tl;dr: navigate me to examples.

The simplest usage of -o is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in yt-dlp -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video" (hard-coding file extension like this is not recommended and could break some post-processing).

It may however also contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to Python string formatting operations, e.g. %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations.

The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:

  1. Object traversal: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a dot . separator; e.g. %(tags.0)s, %(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s. You can do Python slicing with colon :; E.g. %(id.3:7)s, %(id.6:2:-1)s, %(formats.:.format_id)s. Curly braces {} can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys; e.g. %(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j. An empty field name %()s refers to the entire infodict; e.g. %(.{id,title})s. Note that all the fields that become available using this method are not listed below. Use -j to see such fields

  2. Arithmetic: Simple arithmetic can be done on numeric fields using +, - and *. E.g. %(playlist_index+10)03d, %(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d

  3. Date/time Formatting: Date/time fields can be formatted according to strftime formatting by specifying it separated from the field name using a >. E.g. %(duration>%H-%M-%S)s, %(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s, %(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s

  4. Alternatives: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a ,. E.g. %(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s

  5. Replacement: A replacement value can be specified using a & separator according to the str.format mini-language. If the field is not empty, this replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if any of the alternative fields is not empty. E.g. %(chapters&has chapters|no chapters)s, %(title&TITLE={:>20}|NO TITLE)s

  6. Default: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a | separator. This overrides --output-na-placeholder. E.g. %(uploader|Unknown)s

  7. More Conversions: In addition to the normal format types diouxXeEfFgGcrs, yt-dlp additionally supports converting to B = Bytes, j = json (flag # for pretty-printing, + for Unicode), h = HTML escaping, l = a comma separated list (flag # for \n newline-separated), q = a string quoted for the terminal (flag # to split a list into different arguments), D = add Decimal suffixes (e.g. 10M) (flag # to use 1024 as factor), and S = Sanitize as filename (flag # for restricted)

  8. Unicode normalization: The format type U can be used for NFC Unicode normalization. The alternate form flag (#) changes the normalization to NFD and the conversion flag + can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility equivalence normalization. E.g. %(title)+.100U is NFKC

To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:

%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type

Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files separately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a colon :. The different file types supported are subtitle, thumbnail, description, annotation (deprecated), infojson, link, pl_thumbnail, pl_description, pl_infojson, chapter, pl_video. E.g. -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s" will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video. If any of the templates is empty, that type of file will not be written. E.g. --write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:" will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.

Note: Due to post-processing (i.e. merging etc.), the actual output filename might differ. Use --print after_move:filepath to get the name after all post-processing is complete.

The available fields are:

  • id (string): Video identifier
  • title (string): Video title
  • fulltitle (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
  • ext (string): Video filename extension
  • alt_title (string): A secondary title of the video
  • description (string): The description of the video
  • display_id (string): An alternative identifier for the video
  • uploader (string): Full name of the video uploader
  • uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
  • uploader_url (string): URL to the video uploader's profile
  • license (string): License name the video is licensed under
  • creators (list): The creators of the video
  • creator (string): The creators of the video; comma-separated
  • timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
  • upload_date (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
  • release_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
  • release_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
  • release_year (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the video or album was released
  • modified_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
  • modified_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
  • channel (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
  • channel_id (string): Id of the channel
  • channel_url (string): URL of the channel
  • channel_follower_count (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
  • channel_is_verified (boolean): Whether the channel is verified on the platform
  • location (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
  • duration (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
  • duration_string (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
  • view_count (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
  • concurrent_view_count (numeric): How many users are currently watching the video on the platform.
  • like_count (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
  • dislike_count (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
  • repost_count (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
  • average_rating (numeric): Average rating given by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
  • comment_count (numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some extractors, comments are only downloaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)
  • age_limit (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
  • live_status (string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming", "was_live", "post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)
  • is_live (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
  • was_live (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
  • playable_in_embed (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
  • availability (string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"
  • media_type (string): The type of media as classified by the site, e.g. "episode", "clip", "trailer"
  • start_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
  • end_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
  • extractor (string): Name of the extractor
  • extractor_key (string): Key name of the extractor
  • epoch (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
  • autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at --autonumber-start, padded with leading zeros to 5 digits
  • video_autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
  • n_entries (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
  • playlist_id (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
  • playlist_title (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
  • playlist (string): playlist_title if available or else playlist_id
  • playlist_count (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
  • playlist_index (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
  • playlist_autonumber (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
  • playlist_uploader (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
  • playlist_uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
  • playlist_channel (string): Display name of the channel that uploaded the playlist
  • playlist_channel_id (string): Identifier of the channel that uploaded the playlist
  • playlist_webpage_url (string): URL of the playlist webpage
  • webpage_url (string): A URL to the video webpage which, if given to yt-dlp, should yield the same result again
  • webpage_url_basename (string): The basename of the webpage URL
  • webpage_url_domain (string): The domain of the webpage URL
  • original_url (string): The URL given by the user (or the same as webpage_url for playlist entries)
  • categories (list): List of categories the video belongs to
  • tags (list): List of tags assigned to the video
  • cast (list): List of cast members

All the fields in Filtering Formats can also be used

Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:

  • chapter (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
  • chapter_number (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
  • chapter_id (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to

Available for the video that is an episode of some series or program:

  • series (string): Title of the series or program the video episode belongs to
  • series_id (string): Id of the series or program the video episode belongs to
  • season (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
  • season_number (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
  • season_id (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
  • episode (string): Title of the video episode
  • episode_number (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
  • episode_id (string): Id of the video episode

Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:

  • track (string): Title of the track
  • track_number (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
  • track_id (string): Id of the track
  • artists (list): Artist(s) of the track
  • artist (string): Artist(s) of the track; comma-separated
  • genres (list): Genre(s) of the track
  • genre (string): Genre(s) of the track; comma-separated
  • composers (list): Composer(s) of the piece
  • composer (string): Composer(s) of the piece; comma-separated
  • album (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
  • album_type (string): Type of the album
  • album_artists (list): All artists appeared on the album
  • album_artist (string): All artists appeared on the album; comma-separated
  • disc_number (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to

Available only when using --download-sections and for chapter: prefix when using --split-chapters for videos with internal chapters:

  • section_title (string): Title of the chapter
  • section_number (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
  • section_start (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
  • section_end (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds

Available only when used in --print:

  • urls (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
  • filename (string): Name of the video file. Note that the actual filename may differ
  • formats_table (table): The video format table as printed by --list-formats
  • thumbnails_table (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by --list-thumbnails
  • subtitles_table (table): The subtitle format table as printed by --list-subs
  • automatic_captions_table (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by --list-subs

Available only after the video is downloaded (post_process/after_move):

  • filepath: Actual path of downloaded video file

Available only in --sponsorblock-chapter-title:

  • start_time (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
  • end_time (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
  • categories (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
  • category (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
  • category_names (list): Friendly names of the categories
  • name (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
  • type (string): The SponsorBlock action type of the chapter

Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. E.g. for -o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s and an mp4 video with title yt-dlp test video and id BaW_jenozKc, this will result in a yt-dlp test video-BaW_jenozKc.mp4 file created in the current directory.

Note: Some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present, since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with --output-na-placeholder (NA by default).

Tip: Look at the -j output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL

For numeric sequences, you can use numeric related formatting; e.g. %(view_count)05d will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in 00042.

Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" which will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.

To use percent literals in an output template use %%. To output to stdout use -o -.

The current default template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s.

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.

Output template examples

$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
test video.webm    # Literal name with correct extension

$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm    # All kinds of weird characters

$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.webm    # Restricted file name

# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"

# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
$ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"

# Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
$ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist_index&{} - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"

# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"

# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
$ yt-dlp -u user -p password -P "~/MyVideos" -o "%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial"

# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" "https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617"

# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
# and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs

# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs

# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc

FORMAT SELECTION

By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you don't pass any options. This is generally equivalent to using -f bestvideo*+bestaudio/best. However, if multiple audiostreams is enabled (--audio-multistreams), the default format changes to -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best. Similarly, if ffmpeg is unavailable, or if you use yt-dlp to stream to stdout (-o -), the default becomes -f best/bestvideo+bestaudio.

Deprecation warning: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to -f bv*+ba/b similar to normal downloads. If you want to preserve the -f b/bv+ba setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.

The general syntax for format selection is -f FORMAT (or --format FORMAT) where FORMAT is a selector expression, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.

tl;dr: navigate me to examples.

The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. with -f 22 you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using --list-formats or -F. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.

You can also use a file extension (currently 3gp, aac, flv, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm are supported) to download the best quality format of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. -f webm will download the best quality format with the webm extension served as a single file.

You can use -f - to interactively provide the format selector for each video

You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:

  • all: Select all formats separately
  • mergeall: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with --audio-multistreams, --video-multistreams or both)
  • b*, best*: Select the best quality format that contains either a video or an audio or both (i.e.; vcodec!=none or acodec!=none)
  • b, best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
  • bv, bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to best*[acodec=none]
  • bv*, bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none]
  • ba, bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to best*[vcodec=none]
  • ba*, bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to best*[acodec!=none] (Do not use!)
  • w*, worst*: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
  • w, worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
  • wv, worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to worst*[acodec=none]
  • wv*, worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none]
  • wa, worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec=none]
  • wa*, worstaudio*: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to worst*[acodec!=none]

For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use -f worstvideo. It is, however, recommended not to use worst and related options. When your format selector is worst, the format which is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -S +size or more rigorously, -S +size,+br,+res,+fps instead of -f worst. See Sorting Formats for more details.

You can select the n'th best format of a type by using best<type>.<n>. For example, best.2 will select the 2nd best combined format. Similarly, bv*.3 will select the 3rd best format that contains a video stream.

If you want to download multiple videos, and they don't have the same formats available, you can specify the order of preference using slashes. Note that formats on the left hand side are preferred; e.g. -f 22/17/18 will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.

If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as a separator, e.g. -f 22,17,18 will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example combined with the precedence feature: -f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio.

You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using -f <format1>+<format2>+... (requires ffmpeg installed); e.g. -f bestvideo+bestaudio will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.

Deprecation warning: Since the below described behavior is complex and counter-intuitive, this will be removed and multistreams will be enabled by default in the future. A new operator will be instead added to limit formats to single audio/video

Unless --video-multistreams is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, unless --audio-multistreams is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. E.g. -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --video-multistreams --audio-multistreams will download and merge all 3 given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams will download and merge only bestvideo and bestaudio. best is ignored since another format containing a video stream (bestvideo) has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. -f best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams will download only best while -f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams will ignore best and download only bestaudio.

Filtering Formats

You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in -f "best[height=720]" (or -f "[filesize>10M]" since filters without a selector are interpreted as best).

The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons <, <=, >, >=, = (equals), != (not equals):

  • filesize: The number of bytes, if known in advance
  • filesize_approx: An estimate for the number of bytes
  • width: Width of the video, if known
  • height: Height of the video, if known
  • aspect_ratio: Aspect ratio of the video, if known
  • tbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in kbps
  • abr: Average audio bitrate in kbps
  • vbr: Average video bitrate in kbps
  • asr: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
  • fps: Frame rate
  • audio_channels: The number of audio channels
  • stretched_ratio: width:height of the video's pixels, if not square

Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *= (contains), ~= (matches regex) and following string meta fields:

  • url: Video URL
  • ext: File extension
  • acodec: Name of the audio codec in use
  • vcodec: Name of the video codec in use
  • container: Name of the container format
  • protocol: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (http, https, rtsp, rtmp, rtmpe, mms, f4m, ism, http_dash_segments, m3u8, or m3u8_native)
  • language: Language code
  • dynamic_range: The dynamic range of the video
  • format_id: A short description of the format
  • format: A human-readable description of the format
  • format_note: Additional info about the format
  • resolution: Textual description of width and height

Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. !*= (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than ._-.

Note: None of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by the particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the website. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.

Formats for which the value is not known are excluded unless you put a question mark (?) after the operator. You can combine format filters, so -f "bv[height<=?720][tbr>500]" selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 kbps. You can also use the filters with all to download all formats that satisfy the filter, e.g. -f "all[vcodec=none]" selects all audio-only formats.

Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. -f "(mp4,webm)[height<480]" will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480.

Sorting Formats

You can change the criteria for being considered the best by using -S (--format-sort). The general format for this is --format-sort field1,field2....

The available fields are:

  • hasvid: Gives priority to formats that have a video stream
  • hasaud: Gives priority to formats that have an audio stream
  • ie_pref: The format preference
  • lang: The language preference
  • quality: The quality of the format
  • source: The preference of the source
  • proto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native/m3u8 > http_dash_segments> websocket_frag > mms/rtsp > f4f/f4m)
  • vcodec: Video Codec (av01 > vp9.2 > vp9 > h265 > h264 > vp8 > h263 > theora > other)
  • acodec: Audio Codec (flac/alac > wav/aiff > opus > vorbis > aac > mp4a > mp3 > ac4 > eac3 > ac3 > dts > other)
  • codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
  • vext: Video Extension (mp4 > mov > webm > flv > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used, webm is preferred.
  • aext: Audio Extension (m4a > aac > mp3 > ogg > opus > webm > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used, the order changes to ogg > opus > webm > mp3 > m4a > aac
  • ext: Equivalent to vext,aext
  • filesize: Exact filesize, if known in advance
  • fs_approx: Approximate filesize
  • size: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
  • height: Height of video
  • width: Width of video
  • res: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
  • fps: Framerate of video
  • hdr: The dynamic range of the video (DV > HDR12 > HDR10+ > HDR10 > HLG > SDR)
  • channels: The number of audio channels
  • tbr: Total average bitrate in kbps
  • vbr: Average video bitrate in kbps
  • abr: Average audio bitrate in kbps
  • br: Average bitrate in kbps, tbr/vbr/abr
  • asr: Audio sample rate in Hz

Deprecation warning: Many of these fields have (currently undocumented) aliases, that may be removed in a future version. It is recommended to use only the documented field names.

All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. E.g. +res prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a :. E.g. res:720 prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p. For codec and ext, you can provide two preferred values, the first for video and the second for audio. E.g. +codec:avc:m4a (equivalent to +vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a) sets the video codec preference to h264 > h265 > vp9 > vp9.2 > av01 > vp8 > h263 > theora and audio codec preference to mp4a > aac > vorbis > opus > mp3 > ac3 > dts. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using ~ as the delimiter. E.g. filesize~1G prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.

The fields hasvid and ie_pref are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behavior can be changed by using --format-sort-force. Apart from these, the default order used is: lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,vcodec,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.

Note that the default for hdr is hdr:12; i.e. Dolby Vision is not preferred. This choice was made since DV formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future.

If your format selector is worst, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all respects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps.

Tip: You can use the -v -F to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).

Format Selection examples

# Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
$ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"

# Download best format that contains video,
# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
$ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"

# Same as above
$ yt-dlp

# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
# For this case, an output template should be used since
# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
$ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"

# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and all audio-only