Feature request: separate options for output file name and output directory

[DarwinAwardWinner]

Please follow the guide below

• You will be asked some questions and requested to provide some information, please read them carefully and answer honestly
• Put an x into all the boxes [ ] relevant to your issue (like that [x])
• Use Preview tab to see how your issue will actually look like

---

Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2016.11.27. If it's not read this FAQ entry and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected.

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2016.11.27

Before submitting an issue make sure you have:

• At least skimmed through README and most notably FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

What is the purpose of your issue?

• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
• Question
• Other

---

The following sections concretize particular purposed issues, you can erase any section (the contents between triple ---) not applicable to your issue

---

Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

I use a youtube-dl.conf file with something like --output "~/The_Usual_Directory/%(title)s.%(ext)s". However, sometimes, I want to change the output directory to another one while keeping the same file name template. In order to do this, I have to type out --output "~/Some_Other_Directory/%(title)s.%(ext)s", which is annoying because remembering the template part is difficult, and I usually have to copy and paste out of my youtube-dl.conf and then change the path. This would be easier if there were separate options for the file name and destination directory, in which case I could just type something like --outdir ~/Some_Other_Directory. Since obviously the --output option is also useful in some cases, I'm not suggesting removing it, but rather providing an alternate way to set it. The semantics of which one takes priority in the case where both are provided would be important, though. It would have to be chosen so that command-line options override the config file, but if --output is used in the config file and then --outdir is used on the command line, the file name (sans directory path) given in the config file would still be used with the new output directory. So for example youtube-dl --output ~/Dir1/file.mp4 --outdir ~/Dir2 should output to ~/Dir2/file.mp4.

I understand if this is ultimately too complicated to justify the effort, but I think it would be a nice feature to have.

[yan12125]

A simpler idea is: if the output template ends with a slash or a backslash, treat it as a directory and append %(title)s.%(ext)s in youtube-dl

[dstftw]

@yan12125 this will cause unnecessary confusion - one may expect output template without trailing slashes to be treated as directory.

[yan12125]

You're right that's possible. @DarwinAwardWinner's proposal is better