youtube-dl detailed usage tutorial
In this article, I will introduce you a very popular and practical Youtube audio/video downloading special program called youtube-dl. youtube-dl is a free, open source, command-line program written in Python that can download a single video, multiple videos or entire playlists at once, and supports GNU/Linux, macOS and Microsoft Windows at the same time as the three major operating system platforms
Install youtube-dl tool
The official recommended Youtube-dl installation method is very simple, just save it to the PATH path according to the operating system platform you are using, you can execute it and start using it immediately.
sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
If you don’t have curl in your system, you can use wget instead:
sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
After the download is complete, you need to specify its execution permissions:
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Alternatively, you can also use pip to install it:
sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dl
youtube-dl detailed tutorials and examples for beginners
download video or playlist
To download videos or entire video playlists from Youtube, just use the URL directly:
youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
Then it will download the video to your current path.
➜ Movies youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading webpage
[download] Destination: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f298.mp4
[download] 100% of 164.39MiB in 00:48
[download] Destination: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f140.m4a
[download] 100% of 6.99MiB in 00:02
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.mp4"
Deleting original file 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f298.mp4 (pass -k to keep)
Deleting original file 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f140.m4a (pass -k to keep)
➜ Movies l -t
total 351480
drwxr-xr-x+ 82 harry staff 2.6K Jul 14 11:25 ..
drwx------+ 6 harry staff 192B Jul 14 11:25 .
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 172M Jul 14 10:36 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.mp4
If you want to specify the name of the video after downloading, you can use the following method:
youtube-dl -o 'Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game.mp4' https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
Of course, you can also attach more detailed information when downloading the video. The available parameters are: title, uploader name (channel name), and video upload date, etc.:
youtube-dl -o '%(title)s by %(uploader)s on %(upload_date)s in %(playlist)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
Download multiple videos
Sometimes, we need to download multiple different videos from Youtube at once, at this time we only need to separate multiple URLs with spaces:
youtube-dl <url> <url2> <url3>
Or, you can put all the URLs of the videos you want to download in a text file and pass them as a parameter to youtube-dl:
youtube-dl -a url.txt
The above command will download all the videos pointed to by the URL in the url.txt file.
Download only audio (in the video)
youtube-dl allows us to download its audio only from Youtube videos, for example:
youtube-dl -x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
Then it will download the audio to your current path.
➜ Movies youtube-dl -x https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading webpage
[download] Destination: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.m4a
[download] 100% of 6.99MiB in 00:01
[ffmpeg] Correcting container in "3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.m4a"
[ffmpeg] Post-process file 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.m4a exists, skipping
➜ Movies l -t
total 365792
drwxr-xr-x+ 82 harry staff 2.6K Jul 14 11:34 ..
drwx------+ 7 harry staff 224B Jul 14 11:34 .
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 7.0M Jul 14 10:36 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.m4a
By default, Youtube-dl will save audio in Ogg (opus) format. If you want to download audio in any other format, such as mp3, please run:
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
This command will download audio from the given video/playlist, convert it to MP3 and save it in the current directory.
Download videos with description, metadata, annotations, subtitles and thumbnails
To download the video and other detailed information, such as description, metadata, comments, subtitles, and thumbnails, use the following command:
youtube-dl --write-description --write-info-json --write-annotations --write-sub --write-thumbnail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
➜ Movies youtube-dl --write-description --write-info-json --write-annotations --write-sub --write-thumbnail https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading webpage
[info] Writing video description to: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.description
WARNING: There are no annotations to write.
[info] Writing video description metadata as JSON to: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.info.json
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading thumbnail ...
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Writing thumbnail to: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.jpg
[download] Destination: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f298.mp4
[download] 100% of 164.39MiB in 00:48
[download] Destination: 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f140.m4a
[download] 100% of 6.99MiB in 00:02
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.mp4"
Deleting original file 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f298.mp4 (pass -k to keep)
Deleting original file 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.f140.m4a (pass -k to keep)
➜ Movies l -t
total 351848
drwxr-xr-x+ 82 harry staff 2.6K Jul 14 11:39 ..
drwx------+ 9 harry staff 288B Jul 14 11:39 .
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 146K Jul 14 11:38 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 32K Jul 14 11:38 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.info.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 428B Jul 14 11:38 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.description
-rw-r--r-- 1 harry staff 172M Jul 14 10:36 3 UP, 3 DOWN! Shohei Ohtani starts All-Star Game with 1-2-3 inning! (Gets Tatis Jr., Muncy, Arenado)-F8JbUcGu5xo.mp4
List all available audio/video formats
The videos and audios on the Youtube website will be automatically transcoded into multiple audio/video formats. To view all downloadable audio/video formats for a certain video or playlist, please use the following command:
youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
# Commonly used abbreviations
youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
➜ Movies youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading webpage
[info] Available formats for F8JbUcGu5xo:
format code extension resolution note
249 webm audio only tiny 43k , webm_dash container, opus @ 43k (48000Hz), 2.37MiB
250 webm audio only tiny 50k , webm_dash container, opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 2.75MiB
251 webm audio only tiny 92k , webm_dash container, opus @ 92k (48000Hz), 5.02MiB
140 m4a audio only tiny 129k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@129k (44100Hz), 6.99MiB
278 webm 256x144 144p 83k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 83k, 30fps, video only, 4.51MiB
160 mp4 256x144 144p 83k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400c@ 83k, 30fps, video only, 4.53MiB
242 webm 426x240 240p 177k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 177k, 30fps, video only, 9.59MiB
133 mp4 426x240 240p 181k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d4015@ 181k, 30fps, video only, 9.77MiB
134 mp4 640x360 360p 355k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@ 355k, 30fps, video only, 19.20MiB
243 webm 640x360 360p 377k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 377k, 30fps, video only, 20.36MiB
135 mp4 854x480 480p 567k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401f@ 567k, 30fps, video only, 30.63MiB
244 webm 854x480 480p 680k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 680k, 30fps, video only, 36.75MiB
247 webm 1280x720 720p 1344k , webm_dash container, vp9@1344k, 30fps, video only, 72.60MiB
136 mp4 1280x720 720p 1853k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401f@1853k, 30fps, video only, 100.10MiB
302 webm 1280x720 720p60 2268k , webm_dash container, vp9@2268k, 60fps, video only, 122.47MiB
298 mp4 1280x720 720p60 3044k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d4020@3044k, 60fps, video only, 164.39MiB
18 mp4 640x360 360p 682k , avc1.42001E, 30fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz), 36.86MiB
22 mp4 1280x720 720p 1986k , avc1.64001F, 30fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz) (best)
As shown in the figure above, Youtube-dl lists all available formats for a given video, from left to right: format code (video format code), extension (extension), resolution (resolution) and note (note) . When you want to download a video in a specific quality or format, it is very convenient to first check what is available.
Download videos in a certain quality and/or format
By default, youtube-dl will independently select the best quality video download. However, it is also possible to download videos or playlists in a specific quality or format.
youtube-dl supports the following qualities:
bestChoose the best quality audio/video fileworstChoose the worst quality format (video and audio)bestvideoChoose the best quality only video format (such as DASH video), which may not be available.worstvideoChoose the purest video format with the worst quality, which may not be availablebestaudioChoose the best quality audio format, which may not be availableworstaudioChoose the audio format with the worst quality, which may not be available
For example, if you want to automatically select and download the best quality format (audio and video), just use the following command:
youtube-dl -f best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
Similarly, to download only audio with the best quality, you can execute:
youtube-dl -f bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
You can also combine the following different format options:
youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
The above command will download the highest quality video only and highest quality pure audio format respectively, and then use ffmpeg or avconv to merge them into a mkv file of the best quality; if you don’t want to merge, please replace + (plus sign) with, (comma ) To get the highest quality audio and video (two files) respectively, as shown below:
youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
What needs special explanation here is that if you need to download video and audio in combination, you need to install
ffmpegoravconvon this machine, becauseyoutube-dlitself does not have the ability to handle encoding and decoding, and you need to use third-party tools to achieve
Download files via video code (common method)
As mentioned earlier, all Youtube videos have a format code, and we can use it to download videos of a specific quality.
First use to view all available audio/video formats and their corresponding format code (video format code):
➜ Movies youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=F8JbUcGu5xo
[youtube] F8JbUcGu5xo: Downloading webpage
[info] Available formats for F8JbUcGu5xo:
format code extension resolution note
249 webm audio only tiny 43k , webm_dash container, opus @ 43k (48000Hz), 2.37MiB
250 webm audio only tiny 50k , webm_dash container, opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 2.75MiB
251 webm audio only tiny 92k , webm_dash container, opus @ 92k (48000Hz), 5.02MiB
140 m4a audio only tiny 129k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@129k (44100Hz), 6.99MiB
278 webm 256x144 144p 83k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 83k, 30fps, video only, 4.51MiB
160 mp4 256x144 144p 83k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400c@ 83k, 30fps, video only, 4.53MiB
242 webm 426x240 240p 177k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 177k, 30fps, video only, 9.59MiB
133 mp4 426x240 240p 181k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d4015@ 181k, 30fps, video only, 9.77MiB
134 mp4 640x360 360p 355k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@ 355k, 30fps, video only, 19.20MiB
243 webm 640x360 360p 377k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 377k, 30fps, video only, 20.36MiB
135 mp4 854x480 480p 567k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401f@ 567k, 30fps, video only, 30.63MiB
244 webm 854x480 480p 680k , webm_dash container, vp9@ 680k, 30fps, video only, 36.75MiB
247 webm 1280x720 720p 1344k , webm_dash container, vp9@1344k, 30fps, video only, 72.60MiB
136 mp4 1280x720 720p 1853k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401f@1853k, 30fps, video only, 100.10MiB
302 webm 1280x720 720p60 2268k , webm_dash container, vp9@2268k, 60fps, video only, 122.47MiB
298 mp4 1280x720 720p60 3044k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d4020@3044k, 60fps, video only, 164.39MiB
18 mp4 640x360 360p 682k , avc1.42001E, 30fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz), 36.86MiB
22 mp4 1280x720 720p 1986k , avc1.64001F, 30fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz) (best)
Then use the code to download the specified audio/video format. For example, to download the best quality (format code 22) video file, execute the following command:
youtube-dl -f 22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
When downloading videos from a playlist, some videos may not have the same format. In this case, multiple format codes can be specified in the preferred order, for example:
youtube-dl -f 22/17/18 <playlist_url>
According to the example above, Youtube-dl will download the video in format 22 (if available); if format 22 is not available, it will download format 17 (if available); if format 22 and 17 are not available, finally try to download format 18 . If all the format codes do not match, Youtube-dl will report a prompt. It should also be noted that the slash is left-associative, that is, the leftmost format code is preferred.
Download audio/video via file extension
To download the video in your preferred format, such as MP4, simply execute:
youtube-dl --format mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
# or
youtube-dl -f mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
As mentioned earlier, some videos may not be available in your preferred format. In this case, Youtube-dl will download the other best available formats. For example, this command will download the best quality MP4 format file. If the MP4 format is not available, it will download the other best available format
youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
Limit the size of downloaded videos
When downloading multiple videos from a Youtube playlist, you may only want to download videos of a certain size. For example, this command will not download any video smaller than the specified size, such as 100MB:
youtube-dl --min-filesize 100M <playlist_url>
If you don’t want to download a video larger than a given size, you can do this:
youtube-dl --max-filesize 100M <playlist_url>
We can also use combined formats and select operators to download videos of a specific size. For example, the following command will download videos in the best video format but not larger than 100MB:
youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<100M]' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JbUcGu5xo
Download videos by date
youtube-dl allows us to filter and download videos or playlists based on upload date. For example, to download videos uploaded on February 1, 2021, you can use:
youtube-dl --date 20210201 <URL>
Download videos uploaded on or before a specific date:
youtube-dl --datebefore 20210201 <URL>
Download videos uploaded on or after a specific date:
youtube-dl --dateafter 20210201 <URL>
Download only videos uploaded in the past 6 months:
youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months <URL>
Download videos uploaded during a specific time period (e.g. February 1, 2020 to February 1, 2021):
youtube-dl --dateafter 20200201 --datebefore 20210201 <URL>
Download a specific video from the playlist
Downloading specific videos from playlists is another very useful feature of Youtube-dl. For example, to download the 10th file from the playlist, use:
youtube-dl --playlist-items 10 <playlist_url>
Similarly, to download multiple specified files, just separate them with commas:
youtube-dl --playlist-items 2,3,7,10 <playlist_url>
Of course, you can also specify the download range by sequence number, for example, starting from the 10th, download the complete list directly:
youtube-dl --playlist-start 10 <playlist_url>
Or download only the files from 2 to 5 in the playlist:
youtube-dl --playlist-start 2 --playlist-end 5 <playlist_url>
Download only videos that are suitable for a certain age
Another feature of Youtube-dl is that it allows us to download only videos that are suitable for a specified age. For example, to download all “Let’s Play” videos from a playlist that are not marked as NSFW or whose age limit is 7 years old, you can use:
youtube-dl --match-title "let's play" --age-limit 7 --reject-title "nsfw" <playlist_url>
Using help
Through the introduction of the above examples, I believe that it has been able to meet the needs of most users for Youtube video download and youtube-dl use. For more detailed information, please refer to the youtube-dl help:
youtube-dl --help
And you can watch the video below to learn how to use youtube-dl
