Youtube --cookies-from-browser and --cookies not working when extracting age-restricted videos

[lucaseduoli]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a bug unrelated to a specific site
• I've verified that I have updated yt-dlp to nightly or master (update instructions)
• I've searched known issues, the FAQ, and the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates

Provide a description that is worded well enough to be understood

I have updated the yt-dlp to nightly and still taking the cookies from the browser firefox does not work.
I have generated cookies.txt by doing yt-dlp --cookies cookies.txt --cookies-from-browser firefox while Firefox was on a private tab and logged into Youtube and on "https://www.youtube.com/robots.txt", and then, I immediately closed the private tab.
Then, I used the cookies downloading an youtube video, and it didn't work, saying I needed to log in and use --cookies, even if I used them.

Provide verbose output that clearly demonstrates the problem

• Run your yt-dlp command with -vU flag added (yt-dlp -vU <your command line>)
• If using API, add 'verbose': True to YoutubeDL params instead
• Copy the WHOLE output (starting with [debug] Command-line config) and insert it below

Complete Verbose Output

yt-dlp --cookies cookies.txt -vU "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbrHmRU-IfU"
[debug] Command-line config: ['--cookies', 'cookies.txt', '-vU', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbrHmRU-IfU']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, pref UTF-8, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8
[debug] yt-dlp version nightly@2025.06.09.234059 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds [339614a17] (pip)
[debug] Python 3.12.6 (CPython arm64 64bit) - macOS-15.5-arm64-arm-64bit (OpenSSL 3.0.14 4 Jun 2024)
[debug] exe versions: none
[debug] Optional libraries: certifi-2025.04.26, requests-2.32.4, sqlite3-3.46.0, urllib3-2.4.0
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests
[debug] Plugin directories: none
[debug] Loaded 1859 extractors
[debug] Fetching release info: https://api.github.com/repos/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases/latest
Latest version: nightly@2025.06.09.234059 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds
yt-dlp is up to date (nightly@2025.06.09.234059 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds)
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Providers: none
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Providers: memory
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Spec Providers: webpo
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbrHmRU-IfU
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading webpage
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading tv client config
[debug] Loading youtube-sts.fc2a56a5-main from cache
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading tv player API JSON
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: This video is age-restricted; some formats may be missing without authentication. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-yt-dlp  for how to manually pass cookies. Also see  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-youtube-cookies  for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading web embedded client config
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading web embedded player API JSON
[youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Downloading ios player API JSON
ERROR: [youtube] KbrHmRU-IfU: Sign in to confirm your age. This video may be inappropriate for some users. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-yt-dlp  for how to manually pass cookies. Also see  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-youtube-cookies  for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies
  File "/Users/lucas/projects/stream-ocr/server_ocr/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 748, in extract
    ie_result = self._real_extract(url)
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/lucas/projects/stream-ocr/server_ocr/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube/_video.py", line 3824, in _real_extract
    self.raise_no_formats(reason, expected=True)
  File "/Users/lucas/projects/stream-ocr/server_ocr/.venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 1269, in raise_no_formats
    raise ExtractorError(msg, expected=expected, video_id=video_id)

[Universal-Invariant]

Same issue, started right after I updated. Cookies didn't change AFAIK. Seems something changed either in yt-dlp or yt.

[gamer191]

I have generated cookies.txt by doing yt-dlp --cookies cookies.txt --cookies-from-browser firefox while Firefox was on a private tab

I don't think yt-dlp is capable of downloading cookies from private browsing. Either log in using a non-private window or export the cookies using a browser extension (if you use an extension, make sure to export cookies from https://youtube.com/robots.txt and then immediately close private browsing)

Same issue, started right after I updated. Cookies didn't change AFAIK. Seems something changed either in yt-dlp or yt.

How did you export cookies? If you're sure it's not an issue with your cookiefile, feel free to send a verbose log, preferably using --cookies-from-browser instead of --cookies

[bashonly]

I have generated cookies.txt by doing yt-dlp --cookies cookies.txt --cookies-from-browser firefox while Firefox was on a private tab and logged into Youtube

You can't export your private tab cookies by doing this. This is not what the wiki guide says to do. Follow the guide to the letter.

[lucaseduoli]

This is exactly what the wiki says. It specifies that, for the cookies to not be rotated, they need to be generated from the private tab. The wiki is not saying to not use the --cookies-from-browser.

[bashonly]

@lucaseduoli ah, true. The wiki has been updated now

[Universal-Invariant]

This is likely not the issue. I had cookies working fine and was using yt-dlp. After I downloaded some videos I decided to update because I haven't updated in a while and then it started complaining about cookies and sign in. I then tried to export cookies again(using chrome extension the page recommends) and no luck. I didn't update the extension though. I think I was on 0.67 and it's at .7. I'll update and see.

So it is possible the cookies expired within the few hours difference but I doubt it. Maybe yt-dlp needs some type of parameter that can verify the cookies giving a verbose log of what exactly is failing(file missing, file not correct, login not working, etc).

But the fact is that the cookies started failing right after I updated and I haven't touched the cookies for months. If it was just coincidence then when I updated them right after it should have worked unless something else changed also. Since it didn't work I checked the issues and noticed the newest issue was the same issue so figured it had something to do with the update.