Suggestion: Turn off netrc/authentication (from config) if we're not downloading the video (i.e.description/audio/file format check)

[hub2git]

This is my etc/youtube-dl conf:

# Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
-o ~/Videos/youtube-dl/%(title)s_%(id)s.%(ext)s

# Use .netrc authentication data
--netrc

# Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
--restrict-filenames

# Write video description to a .description file
--write-description

--write-sub
--yes-playlist
--ignore-errors

In my youtube-dl config file, I have the --netrc option so that I can check Youtube.com for which videos are "Watched Videos". I learned, though, that logging-in takes some time.

So for some circumstances, I don't want o waste time with logging in. For example,

• I'm just downloading the audio
• I'm just checking the file formats available (-F)

Is there a way to negate just one part of my configuration? I want to negate the line about authentication/logging-in, but I want the other options to be heeded (e.g. output template).

Can we make youtube-dl smart and automatically turn off log-in/authentication when it detects that we're not downloading any videos?

[dstftw]

There is no such option but you can make separate config and use it with --config-location. Also, generally video may require authentication so you'll have to log in anyway to get it working in all cases.

[hub2git]

@dstftw Thanks for your reply.

generally video may require authentication

Could you expand on that? What do you mean they generally require authentication? Are you saying that if you don't log in, you can't access the videos?

[Hrxn]

Yes, in some cases I think...