youtube-dl, yt-dlp¶

youtube-dl is a nice little tool to download videos and audio from youtube and millions of other sites.

download playlist with correct numbering¶

like 01, 02, 03 and so on.

youtube-dl -o "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" <URL-HERE>

download mp4 format¶

youtube-dl -f mp4

download best video format with mp4 extension¶

yt-dlp -f "best[ext=mp4]" LpDqomAHSlQ

download embedded videos¶

e.G. vimeo videos embedded as an iframe, send a referer with the request:

youtube-dl "https://player.vimeo.com/video/1234" --referer "https://example.com/where-you-found-that-page/"

extract audio¶

... and remove ads

yt-dlp --sponsorblock-remove all -x --audio-format mp3 https://example.com/

extract mp3 from soundcloud¶

requires the -x flag

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 https://example.com/

download podcasts¶

yt-dlp can also be used as a podcatcher for regular RSS feeds. I'm using this to archive a few podcasts, using the -o formatting options they'll be saved into a folder with the podcast name and title + file extension as the filename

yt-dlp -o "/backup/podcasts/%(playlist)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" --restrict-filenames --download-archive archive.txt --no-post-overwrites -i https://example.com/feed/podcast/

use cookies from browser¶

should also work with chrome and safari instead of firefox. there's more in the docs

yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser firefox

use a config file for yt-dlp¶

you can put the command line arguments in a file and let yt-dlp always use the config file so you don't need to pass the arguments to it. it can then still be combined with other flags such as the --cookies-from-browser thing

or use --ignore-config to not use the config file, otherwise:

create the folder and file ~/.config/yt-dlp/config and put your arguments in there, here's my example:

# set the output template for filenames
--output "~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s"

# restrict filenames to ASCII characters
--restrict-filenames

# download the best mp4 video
--format best[ext=mp4]

# continue downloading partially downloaded files
--continue