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yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork based on the now inactive youtube-dlc. The main focus of this project is adding new features and patches while also keeping up to date with the original project
- NEW FEATURES
- INSTALLATION
- USAGE AND OPTIONS
- General Options
- Network Options
- Geo-restriction
- Video Selection
- Download Options
- Filesystem Options
- Thumbnail Options
- Internet Shortcut Options
- Verbosity and Simulation Options
- Workarounds
- Video Format Options
- Subtitle Options
- Authentication Options
- Post-processing Options
- SponSkrub (SponsorBlock) Options
- Extractor Options
- CONFIGURATION
- OUTPUT TEMPLATE
- FORMAT SELECTION
- MODIFYING METADATA
- PLUGINS
- DEPRECATED OPTIONS
- MORE
NEW FEATURES
The major new features from the latest release of blackjack4494/yt-dlc are:
-
SponSkrub Integration: You can use SponSkrub to mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the SponsorBlock API
-
Format Sorting: The default format sorting options have been changed so that higher resolution and better codecs will be now preferred instead of simply using larger bitrate. Furthermore, you can now specify the sort order using
-S. This allows for much easier format selection that what is possible by simply using--format(examples) -
Merged with youtube-dl v2021.04.07: You get all the latest features and patches of youtube-dl in addition to all the features of youtube-dlc
-
Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl: You get most of the features and improvements from animelover1984/youtube-dl including
--get-comments,BiliBiliSearch,BilibiliChannel, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, Playlist infojson etc. Note that the NicoNico improvements are not available. See #31 for details. -
Youtube improvements:
- All Youtube Feeds (
:ytfav,:ytwatchlater,:ytsubs,:ythistory,:ytrec) works correctly and supports downloading multiple pages of content - Youtube search (
ytsearch:,ytsearchdate:) along with Search URLs works correctly - Redirect channel's home URL automatically to
/videoto preserve the old behaviour
- All Youtube Feeds (
-
Split video by chapters: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
--split-chapters -
Multi-threaded fragment downloads: Download multiple fragments of m3u8/mpd videos in parallel. Use
--concurrent-fragments(-N) option to set the number of threads used -
Aria2c with HLS/DASH: You can use
aria2cas the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats -
New extractors: AnimeLab, Philo MSO, Rcs, Gedi, bitwave.tv, mildom, audius, zee5, mtv.it, wimtv, pluto.tv, niconico users, discoveryplus.in, mediathek, NFHSNetwork, nebula
-
Fixed extractors: archive.org, roosterteeth.com, skyit, instagram, itv, SouthparkDe, spreaker, Vlive, akamai, ina, rumble, tennistv, amcnetworks, la7 podcasts, linuxacadamy, nitter
-
Multiple paths and output templates: You can give different output templates and download paths for different types of files. You can also set a temporary path where intermediary files are downloaded to using
--paths(-P) -
Portable Configuration: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See configuration for details
-
Other new options:
--parse-metadata,--list-formats-as-table,--write-link,--force-download-archive,--force-overwrites,--break-on-rejectetc -
Improvements: Multiple
--postprocessor-argsand--external-downloader-args, Date/time formatting in-o, faster archive checking, more format selection options etc -
Plugin extractors: Extractors can be loaded from an external file. See plugins for details
-
Self-updater: The releases can be updated using
yt-dlp -U
See changelog or commits for the full list of changes
PS: Some of these changes are already in youtube-dlc, but are still unreleased. See this for details
If you are coming from youtube-dl, the amount of changes are very large. Compare options and supported sites with youtube-dl's to get an idea of the massive number of features/patches youtube-dlc has accumulated.
INSTALLATION
yt-dlp is not platform specific. So it should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS
You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
- Download the binary from the latest release (recommended method)
- Use PyPI package:
python -m pip install --upgrade yt-dlp - Use pip+git:
python -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp.git@release - Install master branch:
python -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
UNIX users (Linux, macOS, BSD) can also install the latest release one of the following ways:
sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -O /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo aria2c https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
DEPENDANCIES
Python versions 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+ are currently supported. However, 3.2+ is strongly recommended and python2 support will be deprecated in the future.
Although there are no required dependancies, ffmpeg and ffprobe are highly recommended. Other optional dependancies are sponskrub, AtomicParsley, mutagen, pycryptodome and any of the supported external downloaders. Note that the windows releases are already built with the python interpreter, mutagen and pycryptodome included.
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the provided release.
If you are using pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program.
COMPILE
For Windows: To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and optionally mutagen and pycryptodome)
python -m pip install --upgrade pyinstaller mutagen pycryptodome
Once you have all the necessary dependancies installed, just run py pyinst.py. The executable will be built for the same architecture (32/64 bit) as the python used to build it. It is strongly reccomended to use python3 although python2.6+ is supported.
You can also build the executable without any version info or metadata by using:
pyinstaller.exe yt_dlp\__main__.py --onefile --name yt-dlp
For Unix:
You will need the required build tools: python, make (GNU), pandoc, zip, nosetests
Then simply run make. You can also run make yt-dlp instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files
Note: In either platform, devscripts\update-version.py can be used to automatically update the version number
USAGE AND OPTIONS
yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
Ctrl+F is your friend :D
General Options:
-h, --help Print this help text and exit
--version Print program version and exit
-U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
sure that you have sufficient permissions
(run with sudo if needed)
-i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
skip unavailable videos in a playlist
(default) (Alias: --no-abort-on-error)
--abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
--dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
--list-extractors List all supported extractors
--extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
extractors
--force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
extractor
--default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
from google videos for youtube-dl "large
apple". Use the value "auto" to let
youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
warning when guessing). "error" just throws
an error. The default value "fixup_error"
repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
this is not possible instead of searching
--ignore-config, --no-config Disable loading any configuration files
except the one provided by --config-location.
When given inside a configuration
file, no further configuration files are
loaded. Additionally, (for backward
compatibility) if this option is found
inside the system configuration file, the
user configuration is not loaded
--config-location PATH Location of the main configuration file;
either the path to the config or its
containing directory
--flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
only list them
--no-flat-playlist Extract the videos of a playlist
--mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
--no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
--no-colors Do not emit color codes in output
Network Options:
--proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
scheme. For example
socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
string (--proxy "") for direct connection
--socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
-4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
-6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
Geo-restriction:
--geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
some geo-restricted sites. The default
proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
option is not present) is used for the
actual downloading
--geo-bypass Bypass geographic restriction via faking
X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
--no-geo-bypass Do not bypass geographic restriction via
faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
--geo-bypass-country CODE Force bypass geographic restriction with
explicitly provided two-letter ISO 3166-2
country code
--geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK Force bypass geographic restriction with
explicitly provided IP block in CIDR
notation
Video Selection:
--playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
--playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
--playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
indices of the videos in the playlist
separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
specify range: "--playlist-items
1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13
--match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
caseless sub-string)
--reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
caseless sub-string)
--max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
--max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
(e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
--date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date.
The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
"(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?"
--datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
this date. The date formats accepted is the
same as --date
--dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
this date. The date formats accepted is the
same as --date
--min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
COUNT views
--max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
COUNT views
--match-filter FILTER Generic video filter. Specify any key (see
"OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a list of available
keys) to match if the key is present, !key
to check if the key is not present,
key>NUMBER (like "view_count > 12", also
works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to compare
against a number, key = 'LITERAL' (like
"uploader = 'Mike Smith'", also works with
!=) to match against a string literal and &
to require multiple matches. Values which
are not known are excluded unless you put a
question mark (?) after the operator. For
example, to only match videos that have
been liked more than 100 times and disliked
less than 50 times (or the dislike
functionality is not available at the given
service), but who also have a description,
use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
dislike_count <? 50 & description"
--no-match-filter Do not use generic video filter (default)
--no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
to a video and a playlist
--yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
a video and a playlist
--age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
age
--download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
archive file. Record the IDs of all
downloaded videos in it
--break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
a file that is in the archive
--break-on-reject Stop the download process when encountering
a file that has been filtered out
--no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
Download Options:
-N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
video that should be download concurrently
(default is 1)
-r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
(e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
-R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
"infinite"
--fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and
ISM)
--skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
hlsnative and ISM (default)
(Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragment)
--abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading if a fragment is unavailable
(Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
--keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
downloading is finished
--no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
downloading is finished (default)
--buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
(default is 1024)
--resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
from an initial value of --buffer-size
(default)
--no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
--http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
downloading (e.g. 10485760 or 10M) (default
is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
(experimental)
--playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
--no-playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in default order
(default)
--playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
--xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
expected file size
--hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
allowing some players to play the video
while downloading, and reducing the chance
of file corruption if download is
interrupted. This is enabled by default for
live streams
--no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
videos. This is default when not
downloading live streams
--downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
(http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
use it for. Currently supports native,
aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
wget (Recommended: aria2c). You can use
this option multiple times to set different
downloaders for different protocols. For
example, --downloader aria2c --downloader
"dash,m3u8:native" will use aria2c for
http/ftp downloads, and the native
downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
(Alias: --external-downloader)
--downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
downloader. Specify the downloader name and
the arguments separated by a colon ":". You
can use this option multiple times
(Alias: --external-downloader-args)
Filesystem Options:
-a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
with '#', ';' or ']' are considered as
comments and ignored
-P, --paths TYPES:PATH The paths where the files should be
downloaded. Specify the type of file and
the path separated by a colon ":". All the
same types as --output are supported.
Additionally, you can also provide "home"
and "temp" paths. All intermediary files
are first downloaded to the temp path and
then the final files are moved over to the
home path after download is finished. This
option is ignored if --output is an
absolute path
-o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
TEMPLATE" for details
--output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder value for unavailable meta
fields in output filename template
(default: "NA")
--autonumber-start NUMBER Specify the start value for %(autonumber)s
(default is 1)
--restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
filenames
--no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
filenames (default)
--windows-filenames Force filenames to be windows compatible
--no-windows-filenames Make filenames windows compatible only if
using windows (default)
--trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
extension) to the specified number of
characters
-w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
--force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files.
This option includes --no-continue
--no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
related files (default)
-c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
(default)
--no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
fragments. If the file is unfragmented,
restart download of the entire file
--part Use .part files instead of writing directly
into output file (default)
--no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
into output file
--mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the
file modification time (default)
--no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
the file modification time
--write-description Write video description to a .description
file
--no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
--write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
(this may contain personal information)
--no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
--write-annotations Write video annotations to a
.annotations.xml file
--no-write-annotations Do not write video annotations (default)
--write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
video metadata when using --write-info-json,
--write-description etc. (default)
--no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
--write-info-json, --write-description etc.
--clean-infojson Remove some private fields such as
filenames from the infojson. Note that it
could still contain some personal
information (default)
--no-clean-infojson Write all fields to the infojson
--get-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
.info.json file. The comments are fetched
even without this option if the extraction
is known to be quick
--load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
(created with the "--write-info-json"
option)
--cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
jar in
--no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies (default)
--cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
can store some downloaded information
permanently. By default
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
YouTube player files (for videos with
obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
may change
--no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
--rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
Thumbnail Options:
--write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
--no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk
(default)
--write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
--list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
formats
Internet Shortcut Options:
--write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
.desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
--write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
OS caches the URL based on the file path
--write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
--write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
Verbosity and Simulation Options:
-q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
--no-warnings Ignore warnings
-s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
anything to disk
--skip-download Do not download the video but write all
related files (Alias: --no-download)
-g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
-e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
--get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
--get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
--get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
--get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
--get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
--get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
-j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a description of
available keys
-J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
for each command-line argument. If the URL
refers to a playlist, dump the whole
playlist information in a single line
--print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
JSON (video is still being downloaded)
--force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be
written as far as no errors occur,even if
-s or another simulation switch is used
(Alias: --force-download-archive)
--newline Output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress Do not print progress bar
--console-title Display progress in console titlebar
-v, --verbose Print various debugging information
--dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
to debug problems (very verbose)
--write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
files in the current directory to debug
problems
--print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
Workarounds:
--encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
--no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
information about the video (Currently
supported only for YouTube)
--user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
--referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
access is restricted to one domain
--add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
separated by a colon ":". You can use this
option multiple times
--bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
or fribidi executable in PATH
--sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
during data extraction
--sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
download. This is the minimum time to sleep
when used along with --max-sleep-interval
(Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
--max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can
only be used along with --min-sleep-interval
--sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
subtitle download
Video Format Options:
-f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
for more details
-S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
"Sorting Formats" for more details
--S-force, --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
Formats" for more details
--no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
specified sort order (default), see
"Sorting Formats" for more details
--video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
into a single file
--no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for
each output file (default)
--audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
into a single file
--no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for
each output file (default)
--prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
over non-free ones of same quality. Use
with "-S ext" to strictly prefer free
containers irrespective of quality
--no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
containers (default)
-F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
videos
--list-formats-as-table Present the output of -F in tabular form
(default)
--list-formats-old Present the output of -F in the old form
(Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
--merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
--allow-unplayable-formats Allow unplayable formats to be listed and
downloaded. All video postprocessing will
also be turned off
--no-allow-unplayable-formats Do not allow unplayable formats to be
listed or downloaded (default)
Subtitle Options:
--write-subs Write subtitle file
--no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
--write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
(Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
--no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
(default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
--all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
video
--list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
--sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
preference, for example: "srt" or
"ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
(optional) separated by commas, use --list-
subs for available language tags
Authentication Options:
-u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
-p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
-2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
-n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
--video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, youku)
--ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
a list of available MSOs
--ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
--ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
interactively
--ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
operators
Post-Processing Options:
-x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
(requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
"flac", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", "vorbis", or
"wav"; "best" by default; No effect without
-x
--audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality, insert a
value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse) for
VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
(default 5)
--remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
necessary (currently supported: mp4|mkv|flv
|webm|mov|avi|mp3|mka|m4a|ogg|opus). If
target container does not support the
video/audio codec, remuxing will fail. You
can specify multiple rules; eg.
"aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to
m4a, mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv.
--recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
re-encoding is necessary. The supported
formats are the same as --remux-video
--postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
Specify the postprocessor/executable name
and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
to give the argument to the specified
postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
Merger, ExtractAudio, SplitChapters,
Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor, SponSkrub,
FixupStretched, FixupM4a and FixupM3u8. The
supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
FFmpeg, FFprobe, and SponSkrub. You can
also specify "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the
arguments to the specified executable only
when being used by the specified
postprocessor. Additionally, for
ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be appended
to the prefix optionally followed by a
number to pass the argument before the
specified input/output file. Eg: --ppa
"Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
this option multiple times to give
different arguments to different
postprocessors. (Alias: --ppa)
-k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
after post-processing
--no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
post-processing (default)
--post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
--no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
--embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
webm and mkv videos)
--no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
--embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
--no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
--add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
--no-add-metadata Do not write metadata (default)
--parse-metadata FROM:TO Parse additional metadata like title/artist
from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
for details
--xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
(using dublin core and xdg standards)
--fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
default; fix file if we can, warn
otherwise)
--ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
path to the binary or its containing
directory
--exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
downloading and post-processing. Similar
syntax to the output template can be used
to pass any field as arguments to the
command. An additional field "filepath"
that contains the final path of the
downloaded file is also available. If no
fields are passed, "%(filepath)s" is
appended to the end of the command
--convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
(currently supported: srt|ass|vtt|lrc)
(Alias: --convert-subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
(currently supported: jpg)
--split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix
can be used with "--paths" and "--output"
to set the output filename for the split
files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters
(default)
SponSkrub (SponsorBlock) Options:
SponSkrub is a utility to mark/remove sponsor segments from downloaded YouTube videos using SponsorBlock API
--sponskrub Use sponskrub to mark sponsored sections.
This is enabled by default if the sponskrub
binary exists (Youtube only)
--no-sponskrub Do not use sponskrub
--sponskrub-cut Cut out the sponsor sections instead of
simply marking them
--no-sponskrub-cut Simply mark the sponsor sections, not cut
them out (default)
--sponskrub-force Run sponskrub even if the video was already
downloaded
--no-sponskrub-force Do not cut out the sponsor sections if the
video was already downloaded (default)
--sponskrub-location PATH Location of the sponskrub binary; either
the path to the binary or its containing
directory
Extractor Options:
--extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor
errors (default is 3), or "infinite"
--allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
(Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
--ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
(Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
--hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
discontinuities such as ad breaks
--no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
formats at discontinuities such as ad
breaks (default)
--youtube-include-dash-manifest Download the DASH manifests and related
data on YouTube videos (default)
(Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
--youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
related data on YouTube videos
(Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
--youtube-include-hls-manifest Download the HLS manifests and related data
on YouTube videos (default)
(Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
--youtube-skip-hls-manifest Do not download the HLS manifests and
related data on YouTube videos
(Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
CONFIGURATION
You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
-
Main Configuration: The file given by
--config-location -
Portable Configuration:
yt-dlp.confin the same directory as the bundled binary. If you are running from source-code (<root dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py), the root directory is used instead. -
Home Configuration:
yt-dlp.confin the home path given by-P "home:<path>", or in the current directory if no such path is given -
User Configuration:
%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp/config(recommended on Linux/macOS)%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%/yt-dlp.conf%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config(recommended on Windows)%APPDATA%/yt-dlp/config.txt~/yt-dlp.conf~/yt-dlp.conf.txt
Note that
~points toC:\Users\<user name>on windows. Also,%XDG_CONFIG_HOME%defaults to~/.configif undefined -
System Configuration:
/etc/yt-dlp.confor/etc/yt-dlp.conf
For example, with the following configuration file yt-dlp will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under YouTube 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 YouTube directory in your home directory
-o ~/YouTube/%(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 all configuration files for a particular yt-dlp run. If --ignore-config is found inside any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents loading of user and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if --ignore-config is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
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 yt-dlp 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 yt-dlp 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
The -o option is used to indicate a template for the output file names while -P option is used to specify the path each type of file should be saved to.
tl;dr: navigate me to examples.
The basic usage of -o is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in yt-dlp -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video" (hard-coding file extension like this is not recommended). However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to python string formatting operations. For example, %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations. Date/time fields can also be formatted according to strftime formatting by specifying it inside the parantheses separated from the field name using a >. For example, %(duration>%H-%M-%S)s.
Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files separately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a colon :. The different filetypes supported are subtitle, thumbnail, description, annotation, infojson, pl_description, pl_infojson, chapter. For example, -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' -o 'thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s' will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video.
The available fields are:
id(string): Video identifiertitle(string): Video titleurl(string): Video URLext(string): Video filename extensionalt_title(string): A secondary title of the videodescription(string): The description of the videodisplay_id(string): An alternative identifier for the videouploader(string): Full name of the video uploaderlicense(string): License name the video is licensed undercreator(string): The creator of the videorelease_date(string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was releasedtimestamp(numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became availableupload_date(string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)uploader_id(string): Nickname or id of the video uploaderchannel(string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded onchannel_id(string): Id of the channellocation(string): Physical location where the video was filmedduration(numeric): Length of the video in secondsduration_string(string): Length of the video (HH-mm-ss)view_count(numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platformlike_count(numeric): Number of positive ratings of the videodislike_count(numeric): Number of negative ratings of the videorepost_count(numeric): Number of reposts of the videoaverage_rating(numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpagecomment_count(numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some extractors, comments are only downloaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)age_limit(numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)is_live(boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length videowas_live(boolean): Whether this video was originally a live streamplayable_in_embed(string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sitesavailability(string): Whether the video is 'private', 'premium_only', 'subscriber_only', 'needs_auth', 'unlisted' or 'public'start_time(numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URLend_time(numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URLformat(string): A human-readable description of the formatformat_id(string): Format code specified by--formatformat_note(string): Additional info about the formatwidth(numeric): Width of the videoheight(numeric): Height of the videoresolution(string): Textual description of width and heighttbr(numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/sabr(numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/sacodec(string): Name of the audio codec in useasr(numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertzvbr(numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/sfps(numeric): Frame ratevcodec(string): Name of the video codec in usecontainer(string): Name of the container formatfilesize(numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advancefilesize_approx(numeric): An estimate for the number of bytesprotocol(string): The protocol that will be used for the actual downloadextractor(string): Name of the extractorextractor_key(string): Key name of the extractorepoch(numeric): Unix epoch when creating the fileautonumber(numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at--autonumber-startplaylist(string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the videoplaylist_index(numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlistplaylist_id(string): Playlist identifierplaylist_title(string): Playlist titleplaylist_uploader(string): Full name of the playlist uploaderplaylist_uploader_id(string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
chapter(string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs tochapter_number(numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs tochapter_id(string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
series(string): Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs toseason(string): Title of the season the video episode belongs toseason_number(numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs toseason_id(string): Id of the season the video episode belongs toepisode(string): Title of the video episodeepisode_number(numeric): Number of the video episode within a seasonepisode_id(string): Id of the video episode
Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
track(string): Title of the tracktrack_number(numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disctrack_id(string): Id of the trackartist(string): Artist(s) of the trackgenre(string): Genre(s) of the trackalbum(string): Title of the album the track belongs toalbum_type(string): Type of the albumalbum_artist(string): List of all artists appeared on the albumdisc_number(numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs torelease_year(numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released
Available for chapter: prefix when using --split-chapters for videos with internal chapters:
section_title(string): Title of the chaptersection_number(numeric): Number of the chapter within the filesection_start(numeric): Start time of the chapter in secondssection_end(numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with --output-na-placeholder (NA by default).
For example for -o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s and an mp4 video with title yt-dlp test video and id BaW_jenozKcj, this will result in a yt-dlp test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4 file created in the current directory.
For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for example, %(view_count)05d will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in 00042.
Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' which will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
To use percent literals in an output template use %%. To output to stdout use -o -.
The current default template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s.
In some cases, you don't want special characters such as 中, spaces, or &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the --restrict-filenames flag to get a shorter title:
Output template and Windows batch files
If you are using an output template inside a Windows batch file then you must escape plain percent characters (%) by doubling, so that -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" should become -o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s". However you should not touch %'s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for expansion should stay intact: -o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s".
Output template examples
Note that on Windows you need to use double quotes instead of single.
$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
$ yt-dlp --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
$ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
$ yt-dlp -o '%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
$ yt-dlp -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
$ yt-dlp -u user -p password -P '~/MyVideos' -o '%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/
# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(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
$ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
FORMAT SELECTION
By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you don't pass any options.
This is generally equivalent to using -f bestvideo*+bestaudio/best. However, if multiple audiostreams is enabled (--audio-multistreams), the default format changes to -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best. Similarly, if ffmpeg is unavailable, or if you use yt-dlp to stream to stdout (-o -), the default becomes -f best/bestvideo+bestaudio.
The general syntax for format selection is -f FORMAT (or --format FORMAT) where FORMAT is a selector expression, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
tl;dr: navigate me to examples.
The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with -f 22 you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using --list-formats or -F. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.
You can also use a file extension (currently 3gp, aac, flv, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm are supported) to download the best quality format of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. -f webm will download the best quality format with the webm extension served as a single file.
You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
all: Select all formatsmergeall: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with--audio-multistreams,--video-multistreamsor both)b*,best*: Select the best quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audiow*,worst*: Select the worst quality format irrespective of whether it contains video or audiob,best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]w,worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]bv,bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent tobest*[acodec=none]wv,worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent toworst*[acodec=none]bv*,bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec!=none]wv*,worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec!=none]ba,bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent tobest*[vcodec=none]wa,worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent toworst*[vcodec=none]ba*,bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent tobest*[acodec!=none]wa*,worstaudio*: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent toworst*[acodec!=none]
For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use -f worstvideo. It is however recomended not to use worst and related options. When your format selector is worst, the format which is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps instead of -f worst. See sorting formats for more details.
You can select the n'th best format of a type by using best<type>.<n>. For example, best.2 will select the 2nd best combined format. Similarly, bv*.3 will select the 3rd best format that contains a video stream.
If you want to download multiple videos and they don't have the same formats available, you can specify the order of preference using slashes. Note that formats on the left hand side are preferred, for example -f 22/17/18 will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.
If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as a separator, e.g. -f 22,17,18 will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example combined with the precedence feature: -f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio.
You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using -f <format1>+<format2>+... (requires ffmpeg installed), for example -f bestvideo+bestaudio will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg. If --no-video-multistreams is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, if --no-audio-multistreams is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. For example, -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio will download and merge all 3 given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams will download and merge only bestvideo and bestaudio. best is ignored since another format containing a video stream (bestvideo) has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. -f best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams will download and merge both formats while -f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams will ignore best and download only bestaudio.
Filtering Formats
You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in -f "best[height=720]" (or -f "[filesize>10M]").
The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons <, <=, >, >=, = (equals), != (not equals):
filesize: The number of bytes, if known in advancewidth: Width of the video, if knownheight: Height of the video, if knowntbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/sabr: Average audio bitrate in KBit/svbr: Average video bitrate in KBit/sasr: Audio sampling rate in Hertzfps: Frame rate
Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *= (contains) and following string meta fields:
ext: File extensionacodec: Name of the audio codec in usevcodec: Name of the video codec in usecontainer: Name of the container formatprotocol: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (http,https,rtsp,rtmp,rtmpe,mms,f4m,ism,http_dash_segments,m3u8, orm3u8_native)format_id: A short description of the formatlanguage: Language code
Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. !*= (does not contain).
Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the video hoster. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.
Formats for which the value is not known are excluded unless you put a question mark (?) after the operator. You can combine format filters, so -f "[height<=?720][tbr>500]" selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 KBit/s. You can also use the filters with all to download all formats that satisfy the filter. For example, -f "all[vcodec=none]" selects all audio-only formats.
Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use -f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'.
Sorting Formats
You can change the criteria for being considered the best by using -S (--format-sort). The general format for this is --format-sort field1,field2.... The available fields are:
hasvid: Gives priority to formats that has a video streamhasaud: Gives priority to formats that has a audio streamie_pref: The format preference as given by the extractorlang: Language preference as given by the extractorquality: The quality of the format as given by the extractorsource: Preference of the source as given by the extractorproto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps>http/ftp>m3u8-native>m3u8>http-dash-segments> other >mms/rtsp> unknown >f4f/f4m)vcodec: Video Codec (av01>vp9.2>vp9>h265>h264>vp8>h263>theora> other > unknown)acodec: Audio Codec (opus>vorbis>aac>mp4a>mp3>ac3>dts> other > unknown)codec: Equivalent tovcodec,acodecvext: Video Extension (mp4>webm>flv> other > unknown). If--prefer-free-formatsis used,webmis prefered.aext: Audio Extension (m4a>aac>mp3>ogg>opus>webm> other > unknown). If--prefer-free-formatsis used, the order changes toopus>ogg>webm>m4a>mp3>aac.ext: Equivalent tovext,aextfilesize: Exact filesize, if know in advance. This will be unavailable for mu38 and DASH formats.fs_approx: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifestssize: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesizeheight: Height of videowidth: Width of videores: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.fps: Framerate of videotbr: Total average bitrate in KBit/svbr: Average video bitrate in KBit/sabr: Average audio bitrate in KBit/sbr: Equivalent to usingtbr,vbr,abrasr: Audio sample rate in Hz
Note that any other numerical field made available by the extractor can also be used. All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in decending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a +. Eg: +res prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a prefered value for the fields, separated by a :. Eg: res:720 prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p. For codec and ext, you can provide two prefered values, the first for video and the second for audio. Eg: +codec:avc:m4a (equivalent to +vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a) sets the video codec preference to h264 > h265 > vp9 > vp9.2 > av01 > vp8 > h263 > theora and audio codec preference to mp4a > aac > vorbis > opus > mp3 > ac3 > dts. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using ~ as the delimiter. Eg: filesize~1G prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
The fields hasvid, ie_pref, lang are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behaviour can be changed by using --force-format-sort. Apart from these, the default order used is: quality,res,fps,codec:vp9.2,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id. Note that the extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
If your format selector is worst, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all repects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use -f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps.
Tip: You can use the -v -F to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
Format Selection examples
Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
# Download and merge the best best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
# or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv+ba/b'
# Download best format that contains video,
# and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba/b'
# Same as above
$ yt-dlp
# Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
# For this case, an output template should be used since
# by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv,ba' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and all audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]' --audio-multistreams
# Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
# and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*+ba+ba.2' --audio-multistreams
# The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
# and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
# Download the worst video available (old method)
$ yt-dlp -f 'wv*+wa/w'
# Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
$ yt-dlp -S '+res'
# Download the smallest video available
$ yt-dlp -S '+size,+br'
# Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b'
# Download the best video with the best extension
# (For video, mp4 > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
$ yt-dlp -S 'ext'
# Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
# or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -f 'bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w'
# Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
$ yt-dlp -S 'height:480'
# Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
# or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
# Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
# So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
$ yt-dlp -S 'res:480'
# Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f 'b[filesize<50M] / w'
# Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
# or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize:50M'
# Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
$ yt-dlp -f 'b' -S 'filesize~50M'
# Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
# or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)'
# Download best video available via the best protocol
# (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
$ yt-dlp -S 'proto'
# Download the best video with h264 codec, or the best video if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f '(bv*+ba/b)[vcodec^=avc1] / (bv*+ba/b)'
# Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
# or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S 'codec:h264'
# Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
# or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -S '+codec:h264'
# More complex examples
# Download the best video no better than 720p prefering framerate greater than 30,
# or the worst video (still prefering framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f '((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)'
# Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
# or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
# prefering larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S 'res:720,fps'
# Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
# or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
# prefering better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S '+res:480,codec,br'
MODIFYING METADATA
The metadata obtained the the extractors can be modified by using --parse-metadata FROM:TO. The general syntax is to give the name of a field or a template (with similar syntax to output template) to extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon :. Either a python regular expression with named capture groups or a similar syntax to the output template (only %(field)s formatting is supported) can be used for TO. The option can be used multiple times to parse and modify various fields.
Note that any field created by this can be used in the output template and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using --add-metadata.
You can also use this to change only the metadata that is embedded in the media file. To do this, set the value of the corresponding field with a meta_ prefix. For example, any value you set to meta_description field will be added to the description field in the file. You can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis", for example.
Modifying metadata examples
Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
# Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'title:%(artist)s - %(title)s'
# Regex example
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)'
# Set title as "Series name S01E05"
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata '%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s'
# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata 'description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)' --add-metadata
PLUGINS
Plugins are loaded from <root-dir>/ytdlp_plugins/<type>/__init__.py. Currently only extractor plugins are supported. Support for downloader and postprocessor plugins may be added in the future. See ytdlp_plugins for example.
Note: <root-dir> is the directory of the binary (<root-dir>/yt-dlp), or the root directory of the module if you are running directly from source-code (<root dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py)
DEPRECATED OPTIONS
These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
--cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
--id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-t, --title -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-l, --literal -o accepts literal names
--all-formats -f all
--autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)03d
--metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
--prefer-avconv avconv is no longer officially supported (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
--prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
--hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
--avconv-location avconv is no longer officially supported
-C, --call-home Not implemented
--no-call-home Default
--include-ads Not implemented
--no-include-ads Default
--write-srt --write-subs
--no-write-srt --no-write-subs
--srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
--prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
--rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
--force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
--dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
--dump-headers --print-traffic
--youtube-print-sig-code No longer supported
--trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
--yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
--load-info --load-info-json
--split-tracks --split-chapters
--no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
--sponskrub-args ARGS --ppa "sponskrub:ARGS"
--test Only used for testing extractors
MORE
For FAQ, Developer Instructions etc., see the original README