How to youtube-dl

INSTALLATION

To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, macOS, etc.), type:

sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl 
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

If you do not have curl, you can as an option use a recent wget:

sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl 
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Windows users can download an .exe file and place it in any location on their PATH except for %SYSTEMROOT\%System32 (e.g. do not put in C:\Windows\System32).

You can also use pip:

sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dl

This command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it. See the pypi page for more information.
sudo port install youtube-dl
Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see the youtube-dl Download Page.

CONFIGURATION

You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux and macOS, the system wide configuration file is located at /etc/youtube-dl.conf and the user wide configuration file at ~/.config/youtube-dl/config. On Windows, the user wide configuration file locations are %APPDATA%\youtube-dlconfig.txt or C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf. Note that by default configuration file may not exist so you may need to create it yourself.

For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under Movies 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 Movies directory in your home directory 
-o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s

Note that options in 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.

You can use --ignore-config if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.

You can also use --config-location if you want to use custom configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.

Authentication with .netrc file

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 youtube-dl 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 your $HOME 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 <login> password <password>

For example:

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 youtube-dl or place it in the configuration file.

On Windows you may also need to setup the %HOME% environment variable manually. For example:

set HOME=%USERPROFILE%

Output template examples

Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.

$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭?.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters

$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name

# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
$ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' 

# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ youtube-dl -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
$ youtube-dl -u user -p password -o '~/MyVideos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' 

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

# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
$ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc

# Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'

# Download best format available but no better than 480p
$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'

# Download best video only format but no bigger than 50 MB
$ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'

# Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
$ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'

# Download the best video format and the best audio format without merging them
$ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'

sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl

sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
hash -r

Finally scripts

For audio

youtube-dl --ignore-errors --format bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 360K --restrict-filenames --embed-thumbnail --add-metadata --output "%(title)s.%(ext)s" $1

For video

youtube-dl --ignore-errors --format bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 360K --restrict-filenames --embed-thumbnail --add-metadata --output "%(title)s.%(ext)s" $1