Provided by: yt-dlp_2022.04.08-1_all 
NAME
yt-dlp - A youtube-dl fork with additional features and patches
SYNOPSIS
yt-dlp [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
DESCRIPTION
yt-dlp is a youtube-dl (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) fork based on the now inactive youtube-
dlc (https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc). The main focus of this project is adding new features and
patches while also keeping up to date with the original project
OPTIONS
General Options:
-h, --help
Print this help text and exit
--version
Print program version and exit
-i, --ignore-errors
Ignore download and postprocessing errors. The download will be considered successful even if the
postprocessing fails
--no-abort-on-error
Continue with next video on download errors; e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a playlist (de‐
fault)
--abort-on-error
Abort downloading of further videos if an error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
--dump-user-agent
Display the current user-agent and exit
--list-extractors
List all supported extractors and exit
--extractor-descriptions
Output descriptions of all supported extractors and exit
--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 the search term "large apple". Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess ("auto_warn‐
ing" to emit a warning when guessing). "error" just throws an error. The default value "fix‐
up_error" repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if this is not possible instead of searching
--ignore-config
Don't load any more configuration files except those given by --config-locations. For backward
compatibility, if this option is found inside the system configuration file, the user configura‐
tion is not loaded. (Alias: --no-config)
--no-config-locations
Do not load any custom configuration files (default). When given inside a configuration file, ig‐
nore all previous --config-locations defined in the current file
--config-locations PATH
Location of the main configuration file; either the path to the config or its containing directo‐
ry. Can be used multiple times and inside other configuration files
--flat-playlist
Do not extract the videos of a playlist, only list them
--no-flat-playlist
Extract the videos of a playlist
--live-from-start
Download livestreams from the start. Currently only supported for YouTube (Experimental)
--no-live-from-start
Download livestreams from the current time (default)
--wait-for-video MIN[-MAX]
Wait for scheduled streams to become available. Pass the minimum number of seconds (or range) to
wait between retries
--no-wait-for-video
Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
--mark-watched
Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
--no-mark-watched
Do not mark videos watched (default)
--no-colors
Do not emit color codes in output
--compat-options OPTS
Options that can help keep compatibility with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc configurations by revert‐
ing some of the changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in default behavior" for details
Network Options:
--proxy URL
Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme. For
example socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty string (--proxy "") for direct con‐
nection
--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 speci‐
fied 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 (default)
--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 com‐
mas 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
--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 on this date. The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format "(now|to‐
day)[+-][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
--match-filters FILTER
Generic video filter. Any field (see "OUTPUT TEMPLATE") can be compared with a number or a string
using the operators defined in "Filtering formats". You can also simply specify a field to match
if the field is present, use "!field" to check if the field is not present, and "&" to check mul‐
tiple conditions. Use a "" to escape "&" or quotes if needed. If used multiple times, the filter
matches if atleast one of the conditions are met. Eg: --match-filter !is_live --match-filter
"like_count>?100 & description~='(?i)& dogs" matches only videos that are not live OR those that
have a like count more than 100 (or the like field is not available) and also has a description
that contains the phrase "cats & dogs" (ignoring case)
--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
--no-download-archive
Do not use archive file (default)
--max-downloads NUMBER
Abort after downloading NUMBER files
--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
--break-per-input
Make --break-on-existing and --break-on- reject act only on the current input URL
--no-break-per-input
--break-on-existing and --break-on-reject terminates the entire download queue
--skip-playlist-after-errors N
Number of allowed failures until the rest of the playlist is skipped
Download Options:
-N, --concurrent-fragments N
Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative video that should be downloaded concurrently (default is
1)
-r, --limit-rate RATE
Maximum download rate in bytes per second (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
--throttled-rate RATE
Minimum download rate in bytes per second below which throttling is assumed and the video data is
re-extracted (e.g. 100K)
-R, --retries RETRIES
Number of retries (default is 10), or "infinite"
--file-access-retries RETRIES
Number of times to retry on file access error (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-unavail‐
able-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 download‐
ing, 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 ":". For ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different positions using the
same syntax as --postprocessor-args. You can use this option multiple times to give different ar‐
guments to different downloaders (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
--no-batch-file
Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
-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" (default) 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")
--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 not fragmented, 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-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-info-json
Remove some private fields such as filenames from the infojson. Note that it could still contain
some personal information (default)
--no-clean-info-json
Write all fields to the infojson
--write-comments
Retrieve video comments to be placed in the infojson. The comments are fetched even without this
option if the extraction is known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
--no-write-comments
Do not retrieve video comments unless the extraction is known to be quick (Alias: --no-get-com‐
ments)
--load-info-json FILE
JSON file containing the video information (created with the "--write-info-json" option)
--cookies FILE
Netscape formatted file to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
--no-cookies
Do not read/dump cookies from/to file (default)
--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]
The name of the browser and (optionally) the name/path of the profile to load cookies from, sepa‐
rated by a ":". Currently supported browsers are: brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox, opera,
safari, vivaldi. By default, the most recently accessed profile is used. The keyring used for
decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux can be (optionally) specified after the browser name separat‐
ed by a "+". Currently supported keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring, kwallet
--no-cookies-from-browser
Do not load cookies from browser (default)
--cache-dir DIR
Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl can store some downloaded information (such as client
ids and signatures) permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/yt-dlp or ~/.cache/yt-dlp
--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
List available thumbnails of each video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
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. If used with --verbose, print the log to stderr
--no-warnings
Ignore warnings
-s, --simulate
Do not download the video and do not write anything to disk
--no-simulate
Download the video even if printing/listing options are used
--ignore-no-formats-error
Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for extracting metadata even if the videos are not actu‐
ally available for download (experimental)
--no-ignore-no-formats-error
Throw error when no downloadable video formats are found (default)
--skip-download
Do not download the video but write all related files (Alias: --no-download)
-O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE
Field name or output template to print to screen, optionally prefixed with when to print it, sepa‐
rated by a ":". Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-postprocessor, and
"video" (default). Implies --quiet and --simulate (unless --no-simulate is used). This option
can be used multiple times
--print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
Append given template to the file. The values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that of --print.
FILE uses the same syntax as the output template. This option can be used multiple times
-j, --dump-json
Quiet, but print JSON information for each video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used. See
"OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a description of available keys
-J, --dump-single-json
Quiet, but print JSON information for each url or infojson passed. Simulate unless --no-simulate
is used. If the URL refers to a playlist, the whole playlist information is dumped in a single
line
--force-write-archive
Force download archive entries to be written as far as no errors occur, even if -s or another sim‐
ulation option is used (Alias: --force-download-archive)
--newline
Output progress bar as new lines
--no-progress
Do not print progress bar
--progress
Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
--console-title
Display progress in console titlebar
--progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
Template for progress outputs, optionally prefixed with one of "download:" (default), "download-
title:" (the console title), "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:". The video's fields are ac‐
cessible under the "info" key and the progress attributes are accessible under "progress" key.
E.g.: --console-title --progress-template "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
-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)
--legacy-server-connect
Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers that do not support RFC 5746 secure renegotiation
--no-check-certificates
Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
--prefer-insecure
Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve information about the video (Currently supported only
for YouTube)
--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)
--check-formats
Make sure formats are selected only from those that are actually downloadable
--check-all-formats
Check all formats for whether they are actually downloadable
--no-check-formats
Do not check that the formats are actually downloadable
-F, --list-formats
List available formats of each video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--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
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)
--list-subs
List available subtitles of each video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
--sub-format FORMAT
Subtitle format, accepts formats preference, for example: "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS
Languages of the subtitles to download (can be regex) or "all" separated by commas. (Eg: --sub-
langs "en.*,ja") You can prefix the language code with a "-" to exempt it from the requested lan‐
guages. (Eg: --sub-langs all,-live_chat) Use --list-subs for a list of 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
--netrc-location PATH
Location of .netrc authentication data; either the path or its containing directory. Defaults to
~/.netrc
--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 interac‐
tively
--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 to convert the audio to when -x is used. Currently supported formats are:
best (default) or one of aac, flac, mp3, m4a, opus, vorbis, wav, alac
--audio-quality QUALITY
Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when converting the audio with -x. Insert a value between 0
(best) and 10 (worst) 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, mka, ogg, aac, flac, mp3, m4a, opus, vorbis, wav, alac). 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 syntax and 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 ar‐
guments separated by a colon ":" to give the argument to the specified postprocessor/executable.
Supported PP are: Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters, ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConver‐
tor, Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail, SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor, Fixup‐
Stretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8, FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The supported executables are:
AtomicParsley, FFmpeg and FFprobe. 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 video as cover art
--no-embed-thumbnail
Do not embed thumbnail (default)
--embed-metadata
Embed metadata to the video file. Also embeds chapters/infojson if present unless --no-embed-
chapters/--no-embed-info-json are used (Alias: --add-metadata)
--no-embed-metadata
Do not add metadata to file (default) (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
--embed-chapters
Add chapter markers to the video file (Alias: --add-chapters)
--no-embed-chapters
Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias: --no-add-chapters)
--embed-info-json
Embed the infojson as an attachment to mkv/mka video files
--no-embed-info-json
Do not embed the infojson as an attachment to the video file
--parse-metadata FROM:TO
Parse additional metadata like title/artist from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA" for de‐
tails
--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
Replace text in a metadata field using the given regex. This option can be used multiple times
--xattrs
Write metadata to the video file's xattrs (using dublin core and xdg standards)
--concat-playlist POLICY
Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of "never", "always", or "multi_video" (default; only when
the videos form a single show). All the video files must have same codecs and number of streams
to be concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set the
output filename for the split files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--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), force (try fixing even
if file already exists)
--ffmpeg-location PATH
Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the path to the binary or its containing directory
--exec [WHEN:]CMD
Execute a command, optionally prefixed with when to execute it (after_move if unspecified), sepa‐
rated by a ":". Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-postprocessor. Same
syntax as the output template can be used to pass any field as arguments to the command. After
download, an additional field "filepath" that contains the final path of the downloaded file is
also available, and if no fields are passed, %(filepath)q is appended to the end of the command.
This option can be used multiple times
--no-exec
Remove any previously defined --exec
--convert-subs FORMAT
Convert the subtitles to another format (currently supported: srt, vtt, ass, lrc) (Alias: --con‐
vert-subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT
Convert the thumbnails to another format (currently supported: jpg, png, webp)
--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 TEM‐
PLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters
Do not split video based on chapters (default)
--remove-chapters REGEX
Remove chapters whose title matches the given regular expression. Time ranges prefixed by a ""
can also be used in place of chapters to remove the specified range. Eg: --remove-chapters
"10:15-15:00" --remove-chapters "intro". This option can be used multiple times
--no-remove-chapters
Do not remove any chapters from the file (default)
--force-keyframes-at-cuts
Force keyframes around the chapters before removing/splitting them. Requires a re-encode and thus
is very slow, but the resulting video may have fewer artifacts around the cuts
--no-force-keyframes-at-cuts
Do not force keyframes around the chapters when cutting/splitting (default)
--use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
The (case sensitive) name of plugin postprocessors to be enabled, and (optionally) arguments to be
passed to it, separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
The "when" argument determines when the postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of "pre_process"
(after video extraction), "after_filter" (after video passes filter), "before_dl" (before each
video download), "post_process" (after each video download; default), "after_move" (after moving
video file to it's final locations), "after_video" (after downloading and processing all formats
of a video), or "playlist" (at end of playlist). This option can be used multiple times to add
different postprocessors
SponsorBlock Options:
Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor, introductions, etc.) from downloaded
YouTube videos using the SponsorBlock API (https://sponsor.ajay.app)
--sponsorblock-mark CATS
SponsorBlock categories to create chapters for, separated by commas. Available categories are
all, default(=all), sponsor, intro, outro, selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction, mu‐
sic_offtopic, poi_highlight. You can prefix the category with a "-" to exempt it. See [1] for
description of the categories. Eg: --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview [1] https://wiki.spon‐
sor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
--sponsorblock-remove CATS
SponsorBlock categories to be removed from the video file, separated by commas. If a category is
present in both mark and remove, remove takes precedence. The syntax and available categories are
the same as for --sponsorblock-mark except that "default" refers to "all,-filler" and poi_high‐
light is not available
--sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
The title template for SponsorBlock chapters created by --sponsorblock-mark. The same syntax as
the output template is used, but the only available fields are start_time, end_time, category,
categories, name, category_names. Defaults to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
--no-sponsorblock
Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and --sponsorblock-remove
--sponsorblock-api URL
SponsorBlock API location, defaults to https://sponsor.ajay.app
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)
--extractor-args KEY:ARGS
Pass these arguments to the extractor. See "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You can use this
option multiple times to give arguments for different extractors
CONFIGURATION
You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The con‐
figuration is loaded from the following locations:
1. Main Configuration: The file given by --config-location
2. Portable Configuration: yt-dlp.conf in 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.
3. Home Configuration: yt-dlp.conf in the home path given by -P, or in the current directory if no such
path is given
4. 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 %XDG_CONFIG_HOME% defaults to ~/.config if undefined. On windows, %APPDATA% gen‐
erally points to C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming and ~ points to %HOME% if present, %USERPRO‐
FILE% (generally C:\Users\<user name>), or %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
5. System Configuration: /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 home, 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 com‐
mand line arguments on every yt-dlp execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell com‐
mand history. You can achieve this using a .netrc file (https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on a
per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a .netrc file in --netrc-location 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 <username> 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 con‐
figuration file.
The default location of the .netrc file is $HOME (~) in UNIX. On Windows, it is %HOME% if present,
%USERPROFILE% (generally C:\Users\<user name>) or %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
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.
The simplest 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 and
could break some post-processing).
It may however also contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The
special sequences may be formatted according to Python string formatting operations
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting). For example, %(NAME)s
or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by for‐
matting operations.
The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting: 1.
Object traversal: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a . (dot)
separator. You can also do python slicing using :. Eg: %(tags.0)s, %(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s,
%(id.3:7:-1)s, %(formats.:.format_id)s. %()s refers to the entire infodict. Note that all the fields
that become available using this method are not listed below. Use -j to see such fields
1. Addition: Addition and subtraction of numeric fields can be done using + and - respectively. Eg:
%(playlist_index+10)03d, %(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d
2. Date/time Formatting: Date/time fields can be formatted according to strftime formatting
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-format-codes) by specifying it
separated from the field name using a >. Eg: %(duration>%H-%M-%S)s, %(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s,
%(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s
3. Alternatives: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a ,. Eg: %(release_date>%Y,up‐
load_date>%Y|Unknown)s
4. Replacement: A replacement value can specified using a & separator. If the field is not empty, this
replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate
fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if any of the alternative fields is not empty.
5. Default: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a | separator.
This overrides --output-na-template. Eg: %(uploader|Unknown)s
6. More Conversions: In addition to the normal format types diouxXeEfFgGcrs, B, j, l, q, D, S can be used
for converting to Bytes, json (flag # for pretty-printing), a comma separated list (flag # for \n new‐
line-separated), a string quoted for the terminal (flag # to split a list into different arguments),
to add Decimal suffixes (Eg: 10M) (flag # to use 1024 as factor), and to Sanitize as filename (flag #
for restricted), respectively
7. Unicode normalization: The format type U can be used for NFC unicode normalization
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/unicodedata.html#unicodedata.normalize). The alternate form flag
(#) changes the normalization to NFD and the conversion flag + can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility
equivalence normalization. Eg: %(title)+.100U is NFKC
To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
%(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
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 file types supported are subtitle, thumbnail, description, annotation (deprecated), infoj‐
son, link, pl_thumbnail, pl_description, pl_infojson, chapter, pl_video. For example, -o "%(ti‐
tle)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. If any of the templates is empty, that type of file will not be written. Eg:
--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:" will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
The available fields are:
• id (string): Video identifier
• title (string): Video title
• fulltitle (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
• url (string): Video URL
• ext (string): Video filename extension
• alt_title (string): A secondary title of the video
• description (string): The description of the video
• display_id (string): An alternative identifier for the video
• uploader (string): Full name of the video uploader
• license (string): License name the video is licensed under
• creator (string): The creator of the video
• timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
• upload_date (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
• release_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
• release_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
• modified_timestamp (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
• modified_date (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
• uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
• channel (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
• channel_id (string): Id of the channel
• channel_follower_count (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
• location (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
• duration (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
• duration_string (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
• view_count (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
• like_count (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
• dislike_count (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
• repost_count (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
• average_rating (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
• comment_count (numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some extractors, comments are only down‐
loaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)
• age_limit (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
• live_status (string): One of "is_live", "was_live", "is_upcoming", "not_live"
• is_live (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
• was_live (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
• playable_in_embed (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
• availability (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 URL
• end_time (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
• format (string): A human-readable description of the format
• format_id (string): Format code specified by --format
• format_note (string): Additional info about the format
• width (numeric): Width of the video
• height (numeric): Height of the video
• resolution (string): Textual description of width and height
• tbr (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
• abr (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• acodec (string): Name of the audio codec in use
• asr (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
• vbr (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• fps (numeric): Frame rate
• dynamic_range (string): The dynamic range of the video
• vcodec (string): Name of the video codec in use
• container (string): Name of the container format
• filesize (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
• filesize_approx (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
• protocol (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual download
• extractor (string): Name of the extractor
• extractor_key (string): Key name of the extractor
• epoch (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
• autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at --autonumber-start
• video_autonumber (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
• n_entries (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
• playlist_id (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
• playlist_title (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
• playlist (string): playlist_id or playlist_title
• playlist_count (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist
is not extracted
• playlist_index (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the
final index
• playlist_autonumber (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading
zeros according to the total length of the playlist
• playlist_uploader (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
• playlist_uploader_id (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
• webpage_url (string): A URL to the video webpage which if given to yt-dlp should allow to get the same
result again
• webpage_url_basename (string): The basename of the webpage URL
• webpage_url_domain (string): The domain of the webpage URL
• original_url (string): The URL given by the user (or same as webpage_url for playlist entries)
Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
• chapter (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
• chapter_number (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
• chapter_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 to
• season (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
• season_number (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
• season_id (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
• episode (string): Title of the video episode
• episode_number (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
• episode_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 track
• track_number (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
• track_id (string): Id of the track
• artist (string): Artist(s) of the track
• genre (string): Genre(s) of the track
• album (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
• album_type (string): Type of the album
• album_artist (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
• disc_number (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
• release_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 chapter
• section_number (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
• section_start (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
• section_end (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
Available only when used in --print:
• urls (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
• filename (string): Name of the video file. Note that the actual filename may be different due to post-
processing. Use --exec echo to get the name after all postprocessing is complete
• formats_table (table): The video format table as printed by --list-formats
• thumbnails_table (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by --list-thumbnails
• subtitles_table (table): The subtitle format table as printed by --list-subs
• automatic_captions_table (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by --list-subs
Available only in --sponsorblock-chapter-title:
• start_time (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
• end_time (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
• categories (list): The SponsorBlock categories the chapter belongs to
• category (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
• category_names (list): Friendly names of the categories
• name (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value
corresponding to the sequence name. For example for -o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s and an mp4 video with
title yt-dlp test video and id BaW_jenozKc, this will result in a yt-dlp test video-BaW_jenozKc.mp4 file
created in the current directory.
Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata ob‐
tained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with
--output-na-placeholder (NA by default).
Tip: Look at the -j output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting (https://docs.python.org/3/library/std‐
types.html#printf-style-string-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 examples
$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
$ yt-dlp --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted 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"
# Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
$ yt-dlp -o '%(playlist_index|)s%(playlist_index& - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
# 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"
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
# and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
# Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
$ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
# 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.
Deprecation warning: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously
using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to -f bv*+ba/b similar to normal
downloads. If you want to preserve the -f b/bv+ba setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in
the configuration options.
The general syntax for format selection is -f FORMAT (or --format FORMAT) where FORMAT is a selector ex‐
pression, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
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 use -f - to interactively provide the format selector for each video
You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
• all: Select all formats separately
• mergeall: Select and merge all formats (Must be used with --audio-multistreams, --video-multistreams or
both)
• b*, best*: Select the best quality format that contains either a video or an audio
• b, best: Select the best quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
• bv, bestvideo: Select the best quality video-only format. Equivalent to best*[acodec=none]
• bv*, bestvideo*: Select the best quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio.
Equivalent to best*[vcodec!=none]
• ba, bestaudio: Select the best quality audio-only format. Equivalent to best*[vcodec=none]
• ba*, bestaudio*: Select the best quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video.
Equivalent to best*[acodec!=none] (Do not use! (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/979#issuecom‐
ment-919629354))
• w*, worst*: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
• w, worst: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to
worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]
• wv, worstvideo: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to worst*[acodec=none]
• wv*, worstvideo*: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio.
Equivalent to worst*[vcodec!=none]
• wa, worstaudio: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to worst*[vcodec=none]
• wa*, worstaudio*: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video.
Equivalent to worst*[acodec!=none]
For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use -f worstvideo. It is however
recommended 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 -S +size or more rigorously, -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 exam‐
ple -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.
Deprecation warning: Since the below described behavior is complex and counter-intuitive, this will be
removed and multistreams will be enabled by default in the future. A new operator will be instead added
to limit formats to single audio/video
Unless --video-multistreams is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored.
Similarly, unless --audio-multistreams is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are
ignored. For example, -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --video-multistreams --audio-multistreams will down‐
load 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 advance
• width: Width of the video, if known
• height: Height of the video, if known
• tbr: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
• abr: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• vbr: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• asr: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
• fps: Frame rate
Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *= (contains), ~=
(matches regex) and following string meta fields:
• ext: File extension
• acodec: Name of the audio codec in use
• vcodec: Name of the video codec in use
• container: Name of the container format
• protocol: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (http, https, rtsp, rtmp,
rtmpe, mms, f4m, ism, http_dash_segments, m3u8, or m3u8_native)
• format_id: A short description of the format
• language: Language code
Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ! in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g.
!*= (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or
single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than ._-.
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 website. 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 opera‐
tor. 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 fil‐
ters with all to download all formats that satisfy the filter. For example, -f "all[vcodec=none]" se‐
lects all audio-only formats.
Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best pre-
merged 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 for‐
mat for this is --format-sort field1,field2....
The available fields are:
• hasvid: Gives priority to formats that has a video stream
• hasaud: Gives priority to formats that has a audio stream
• ie_pref: The format preference
• lang: The language preference
• quality: The quality of the format
• source: The preference of the source
• proto: Protocol used for download (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native/m3u8 > http_dash_segments> web‐
socket_frag > mms/rtsp > f4f/f4m)
• vcodec: Video Codec (av01 > vp9.2 > vp9 > h265 > h264 > vp8 > h263 > theora > other)
• acodec: Audio Codec (flac/alac > wav/aiff > opus > vorbis > aac > mp4a > mp3 > eac3 > ac3 > dts > oth‐
er)
• codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
• vext: Video Extension (mp4 > webm > flv > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used, webm is preferred.
• aext: Audio Extension (m4a > aac > mp3 > ogg > opus > webm > other). If --prefer-free-formats is used,
the order changes to opus > ogg > webm > m4a > mp3 > aac.
• ext: Equivalent to vext,aext
• filesize: Exact filesize, if known in advance
• fs_approx: Approximate filesize calculated from the manifests
• size: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
• height: Height of video
• width: Width of video
• res: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
• fps: Framerate of video
• hdr: The dynamic range of the video (DV > HDR12 > HDR10+ > HDR10 > HLG > SDR)
• tbr: Total average bitrate in KBit/s
• vbr: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
• abr: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
• br: Equivalent to using tbr,vbr,abr
• asr: Audio sample rate in Hz
Deprecation warning: Many of these fields have (currently undocumented) aliases, that may be removed in a
future version. It is recommended to use only the documented field names.
All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the
field with a +. Eg: +res prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a
preferred 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 preferred 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 and ie_pref are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-de‐
fined order. This behaviour can be changed by using --format-sort-force. Apart from these, the default
order used is: lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,codec:vp9.2,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id. The ex‐
tractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
Note that the default has codec:vp9.2; i.e. av1 is not preferred. Similarly, the default for hdr is
hdr:12; i.e. dolby vision is not preferred. These choices are made since DV and AV1 formats are not yet
fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future as more devices become capable of
smoothly playing back these formats.
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 respects. 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
# Download and merge the 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 either h264 or h265 codec,
# or the best video if there is no such video
$ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (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 preferring framerate greater than 30,
# or the worst video (still preferring 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,
# preferring 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,
# preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
$ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
MODIFYING METADATA
The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using --parse-metadata and --replace-in-meta‐
data
--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE is used to replace text in any metadata field using python
regular expression (https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax). Backreferences
(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html?highlight=backreferences#re.sub) can be used in the replace
string for advanced use.
The general syntax of --parse-metadata FROM:TO is to give the name of a field or an output template to
extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon :. Either a python regular
expression (https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax) 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.
This option also has a few special uses: * You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of
the currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field additional_urls to the URL that you want to
download. Eg: --parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+) will down‐
load the first vimeo video found in the description * You can use this to change the metadata that is em‐
bedded 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.
For example, you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the metadata of
individual streams, use the meta<n>_ prefix (Eg: meta1_language). Any value set to the meta_ field will
overwrite all default values.
Note: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing
operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
Metadata fields From
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
title track or title
date upload_date
description, synopsis description
purl, comment webpage_url
track track_number
artist artist, creator, uploader or up‐
loader_id
genre genre
album album
album_artist album_artist
disc disc_number
show series
season_number season_number
episode_id episode or episode_id
episode_sort episode_number
language of each stream the format's language
Note: The file format may not support some of these fields
Modifying metadata examples
# 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"
# Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --add-metadata
# Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
# handling multiple lines correctly
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --add-metadata
# Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<formats>)" -j
# Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
$ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using --extractor-args KEY:ARGS. ARGS is
a ; (semicolon) separated string of ARG=VAL1,VAL2. Eg: --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=an‐
droid_embedded,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"
The following extractors use this feature:
youtube
• skip: One or more of hls, dash or translated_subs to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash mani‐
fests and auto-translated subtitles respectively
• player_client: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are web, android and ios with
variants _music, _embedded, _embedscreen, _creator (Eg: web_embedded); and mweb and tv_embedded (age‐
gate bypass) with no variants. By default, android,web is used, but tv_embedded and creator variants
are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly the music variants are added for mu‐
sic.youtube.com urls. You can use all to use all the clients, and default for the default clients.
• player_skip: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more
of configs (skip client configs), webpage (skip initial webpage), js (skip js player). While these op‐
tions can help reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting, they could cause some
issues. See #860 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) for more details
• include_live_dash: Include live dash formats even without --live-from-start (These formats don't down‐
load properly)
• comment_sort: top or new (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
• max_comments: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing
max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread. Default is all,all,all,all
• E.g. all,all,1000,10 will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread.
1000,all,100 will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
• skip: One or more of webpage (skip initial webpage download), authcheck (allow the download of
playlists requiring authentication when no initial webpage is downloaded. This may cause unwanted be‐
havior, see #1122 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122) for more details)
• approximate_date: Extract approximate upload_date in flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters
to be slightly off
funimation
• language: Languages to extract. Eg: funimation:language=english,japanese
• version: The video version to extract - uncut or simulcast
crunchyroll
• language: Languages to extract. Eg: crunchyroll:language=jaJp
• hardsub: Which hard-sub versions to extract. Eg: crunchyroll:hardsub=None,enUS
crunchyrollbeta
• format: Which stream type(s) to extract. Default is adaptive_hls Eg: crunchyrollbeta:format=vo_adap‐
tive_hls
• Potentially useful values include adaptive_hls, adaptive_dash, vo_adaptive_hls, vo_adaptive_dash,
download_hls, trailer_hls, trailer_dash
• hardsub: Preference order for which hardsub versions to extract. Default is None (no hardsubs). Eg:
crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,None
vikichannel
• video_types: Types of videos to download - one or more of episodes, movies, clips, trailers
niconico
• segment_duration: Segment duration in milliseconds for HLS-DMC formats. Use it at your own risk since
this feature may result in your account termination.
youtubewebarchive
• check_all: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more of thumbnails, captures
gamejolt
• comment_sort: hot (default), you (cookies needed), top, new - choose comment sorting mode (on Game‐
Jolt's side)
hotstar
• res: resolution to ignore - one or more of sd, hd, fhd
• vcodec: vcodec to ignore - one or more of h264, h265, dvh265
• dr: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of sdr, hdr10, dv
tiktok
• app_version: App version to call mobile APIs with - should be set along with manifest_app_version.
(e.g. 20.2.1)
• manifest_app_version: Numeric app version to call mobile APIs with. (e.g. 221)
rokfinchannel
• tab: Which tab to download. One of new, top, videos, podcasts, streams, stacks. (E.g. rokfinchan‐
nel:tab=streams)
NOTE: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
INSTALLATION
You can install yt-dlp using one of the following methods:
Using the release binary
You can simply download the correct binary file for your OS
Note: The manpages, shell completion files etc. are available in the source tarball
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
In UNIX-like OSes (MacOS, Linux, BSD), you can also install the same in 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 --dir /usr/local/bin -o yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
With PIP (https://pypi.org/project/pip)
You can install the PyPI package (https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) with:
python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp
You can install without any of the optional dependencies using:
python3 -m pip install --no-deps -U yt-dlp
If you want to be on the cutting edge, you can also install the master branch with:
python3 -m pip install --force-reinstall https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/archive/master.tar.gz
Note that on some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3
With Homebrew (https://brew.sh)
macOS or Linux users that are using Homebrew can also install it by:
brew install yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the provided release
If you installed with pip, simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
If you installed using Homebrew, run brew upgrade yt-dlp/taps/yt-dlp
DEPENDENCIES
Python versions 3.6+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not
work correctly.
While all the other dependencies are optional, ffmpeg and ffprobe are highly recommended
• ffmpeg and ffprobe (https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for merging separate video and audio files as
well as for various post-processing tasks. License depends on the build (https://www.ffmpeg.org/le‐
gal.html)
• mutagen (https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)* - For embedding thumbnail in certain formats. Licensed
under GPLv2+ (https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
• pycryptodomex (https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and
various other data. Licensed under BSD-2-Clause (https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/mas‐
ter/LICENSE.rst)
• websockets (https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under
BSD-3-Clause (https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
• secretstorage (https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage)* - For accessing the Gnome keyring while de‐
crypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux. Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
(https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
• brotli (https://github.com/google/brotli)* or brotlicffi (https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) -
Brotli (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT 1
(https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) 2 (https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicf‐
fi/blob/master/LICENSE)
• certifi (https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Li‐
censed under MPLv2 (https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
• AtomicParsley (https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For embedding thumbnail in mp4/m4a if muta‐
gen/ffmpeg cannot. Licensed under GPLv2+ (https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
• rtmpdump (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading rtmp streams. ffmpeg will be used as a fall‐
back. Licensed under GPLv2+ (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
• mplayer (http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or mpv (https://mpv.io) - For downloading rstp streams.
ffmpeg will be used as a fallback. Licensed under GPLv2+ (https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/mas‐
ter/Copyright)
• phantomjs (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run.
Licensed under BSD-3-Clause (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
• sponskrub (https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now deprecated sponskrub options.
Licensed under GPLv3+ (https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
• Any external downloader that you want to use with --downloader
To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
The Windows and MacOS standalone release binaries are already built with the python interpreter and all
optional python packages (marked with *) included.
Note: There are some regressions in newer ffmpeg versions that causes various issues when used alongside
yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide custom builds (https://github.com/yt-
dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) with patches for these issues at yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds). See the readme (https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-
Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specific issues solved by these builds
COMPILE
For Windows: To build the Windows executable, you must have pyinstaller (and any of yt-dlp's optional de‐
pendencies if needed). Once you have all the necessary dependencies installed, (optionally) build lazy
extractors using devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py, and then just run pyinst.py. The executable will be
built for the same architecture (32/64 bit) as the python used to build it.
py -m pip install -U pyinstaller -r requirements.txt
py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
py pyinst.py
Note that pyinstaller does not support (https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-test‐
ed-platforms) Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment
For Unix: You will need the required build tools: python, make (GNU), pandoc, zip, pytest
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
You can also fork the project on github and run your fork's build workflow to automatically build a re‐
lease
PLUGINS
Plugins are loaded from <root-dir>/ytdlp_plugins/<type>/__init__.py; where <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). Plugins are currently not supported for the pip version
Plugins can be of <type>s extractor or postprocessor. Extractor plugins do not need to be enabled from
the CLI and are automatically invoked when the input URL is suitable for it. Postprocessor plugins can
be invoked using --use-postprocessor NAME.
See ytdlp_plugins for example plugins.
Note that all plugins are imported even if not invoked, and that there are no checks performed on plugin
code. Use plugins at your own risk and only if you trust the code
If you are a plugin author, add ytdlp-plugins (https://github.com/topics/ytdlp-plugins) as a topic to
your repository for discoverability
EMBEDDING YT-DLP
yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any pro‐
gramming language.
Your program should avoid parsing the normal stdout since they may change in future versions. Instead
they should use options such as -J, --print, --progress-template, --exec etc to create console output
that you can reliably reproduce and parse.
From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
ydl_opts = {'format': 'bestaudio'}
with YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at
yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py.
Here's a more complete example demonstrating various functionality:
import json
import yt_dlp
class MyLogger:
def debug(self, msg):
# For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
# You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
pass
else:
self.info(msg)
def info(self, msg):
pass
def warning(self, msg):
pass
def error(self, msg):
print(msg)
# ℹ️ See the docstring of yt_dlp.postprocessor.common.PostProcessor
class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
# ℹ️ See docstring of yt_dlp.postprocessor.common.PostProcessor.run
def run(self, info):
self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
return [], info
# ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in the docstring of yt_dlp.YoutubeDL
def my_hook(d):
if d['status'] == 'finished':
print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
def format_selector(ctx):
""" Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
# formats are already sorted worst to best
formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
# acodec='none' means there is no audio
best_video = next(f for f in formats
if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
# find compatible audio extension
audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
# vcodec='none' means there is no video
best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
yield {
# These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
'ext': best_video['ext'],
'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
# Must be + separated list of protocols
'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
}
# ℹ️ See docstring of yt_dlp.YoutubeDL for a description of the options
ydl_opts = {
'format': format_selector,
'postprocessors': [{
# Embed metadata in video using ffmpeg.
# ℹ️ See yt_dlp.postprocessor.FFmpegMetadataPP for the arguments it accepts
'key': 'FFmpegMetadata',
'add_chapters': True,
'add_metadata': True,
}],
'logger': MyLogger(),
'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
# Add custom headers
'http_headers': {'Referer': 'https://www.google.com'}
}
# ℹ️ See the public functions in yt_dlp.YoutubeDL for for other available functions.
# Eg: "ydl.download", "ydl.download_with_info_file"
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP())
info = ydl.extract_info('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc')
# ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
Tip: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one important point to look out for is that
we do not guarantee the return value of YoutubeDL.extract_info to be json serializable, or even be a dic‐
tionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it is a serializable dictionary, pass it
through YoutubeDL.sanitize_info as shown in the example above
NEW FEATURES
• Based on youtube-dl 2021.12.17 commit/6508688 (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/com‐
mit/6508688e88c83bb811653083db9351702cd39a6a) (exceptions (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21))
and youtube-dlc 2020.11.11-3 commit/f9401f2 (https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/com‐
mit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee): You get all the features and patches of youtube-dlc
(https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc) in addition to the latest youtube-dl (https://github.com/yt‐
dl-org/youtube-dl)
• SponsorBlock Integration: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in youtube videos by utilizing the Spon‐
sorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
• Format Sorting: The default format sorting options have been changed so that higher resolution and bet‐
ter 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 than what is possible by
simply using --format (examples)
• Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl: You get most of the features and improvements from ani‐
melover1984/youtube-dl (https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including --write-comments, Bili‐
BiliSearch, BilibiliChannel, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that the
NicoNico livestreams are not available. See #31 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for de‐
tails.
• Youtube improvements:
• All Feeds (:ytfav, :ytwatchlater, :ytsubs, :ythistory, :ytrec) and private playlists supports down‐
loading multiple pages of content
• Search (ytsearch:, ytsearchdate:), search URLs and in-channel search works
• Mixes supports downloading multiple pages of content
• Some (but not all) age-gated content can be downloaded without cookies
• Fix for n-sig based throttling (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326)
• Redirect channel's home URL automatically to /video to preserve the old behaviour
• 255kbps audio is extracted (if available) from youtube music when premium cookies are given
• Youtube music Albums, channels etc can be downloaded (except self-uploaded music
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723))
• Download livestreams from the start using --live-from-start (experimental)
• Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using --cook‐
ies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE]
• Split video by chapters: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using --split-chap‐
ters
• 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 aria2c as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
• New and fixed extractors: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been
fixed. See the changelog or the list of supported sites
• New MSOs: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN
• Subtitle extraction from manifests: Subtitles can be extracted from streaming media manifests. See
commit/be6202f (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/be6202f12b97858b9d716e608394b51065d0419f) for
details
• 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 directo‐
ries. See configuration for details
• Output template improvements: Output templates can now have date-time formatting, numeric offsets, ob‐
ject traversal etc. See output template for details. Even more advanced operations can also be done
with the help of --parse-metadata and --replace-in-metadata
• Other new options: Many new options have been added such as --concat-playlist, --print, --wait-for-
video, --sleep-requests, --convert-thumbnails, --write-link, --force-download-archive, --force-over‐
writes, --break-on-reject etc
• Improvements: Regex and other operators in --format/--match-filter, multiple --postprocessor-args and
--downloader-args, faster archive checking, more format selection options, merge multi-video/audio,
multiple --config-locations, --exec at different stages, etc
• Plugins: Extractors and PostProcessors 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 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
Differences in default behavior
Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
• The options --auto-number (-A), --title (-t) and --literal (-l), no longer work. See removed options
for details
• avconv is not supported as an alternative to ffmpeg
• yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See configuration for a list
of correct locations
• The default output template is %(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s. There is no real reason for this change.
This was changed before yt-dlp was ever made public and now there are no plans to change it back to
%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s. Instead, you may use --compat-options filename
• The default format sorting is different from youtube-dl and prefers higher resolution and better codecs
rather than higher bitrates. You can use the --format-sort option to change this to any order you pre‐
fer, or use --compat-options format-sort to use youtube-dl's sorting order
• The default format selector is bv*+ba/b. This means that if a combined video + audio format that is
better than the best video-only format is found, the former will be preferred. Use -f bv+ba/b or
--compat-options format-spec to revert this
• Unlike youtube-dlc, yt-dlp does not allow merging multiple audio/video streams into one file by default
(since this conflicts with the use of -f bv*+ba). If needed, this feature must be enabled using --au‐
dio-multistreams and --video-multistreams. You can also use --compat-options multistreams to enable
both
• --no-abort-on-error is enabled by default. Use --abort-on-error or --compat-options abort-on-error to
abort on errors instead
• When writing metadata files such as thumbnails, description or infojson, the same information (if
available) is also written for playlists. Use --no-write-playlist-metafiles or --compat-options no-
playlist-metafiles to not write these files
• --add-metadata attaches the infojson to mkv files in addition to writing the metadata when used with
--write-info-json. Use --no-embed-info-json or --compat-options no-attach-info-json to revert this
• Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using --add-metadata as compared to youtube-dl.
Most notably, comment field contains the webpage_url and synopsis contains the description. You can
use --parse-metadata to modify this to your liking or use --compat-options embed-metadata to revert
this
• playlist_index behaves differently when used with options like --playlist-reverse and --playlist-items.
See #302 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/302) for details. You can use --compat-options
playlist-index if you want to keep the earlier behavior
• The output of -F is listed in a new format. Use --compat-options list-formats to revert this
• All experiences of a funimation episode are considered as a single video. This behavior breaks exist‐
ing archives. Use --compat-options seperate-video-versions to extract information from only the de‐
fault player
• Youtube live chat (if available) is considered as a subtitle. Use --sub-langs all,-live_chat to down‐
load all subtitles except live chat. You can also use --compat-options no-live-chat to prevent live
chat from downloading
• Youtube channel URLs are automatically redirected to /video. Append a /featured to the URL to download
only the videos in the home page. If the channel does not have a videos tab, we try to download the
equivalent UU playlist instead. For all other tabs, if the channel does not show the requested tab, an
error will be raised. Also, /live URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently
downloading the entire channel. You may use --compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect to revert all
these redirections
• Unavailable videos are also listed for youtube playlists. Use --compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-
videos to remove this
• If ffmpeg is used as the downloader, the downloading and merging of formats happen in a single step
when possible. Use --compat-options no-direct-merge to revert this
• Thumbnail embedding in mp4 is done with mutagen if possible. Use --compat-options embed-thumbnail-
atomicparsley to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
• Some private fields such as filenames are removed by default from the infojson. Use --no-clean-infoj‐
son or --compat-options no-clean-infojson to revert this
• When --embed-subs and --write-subs are used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embed‐
ded in the media file. You can use just --embed-subs to embed the subs and automatically delete the
separate file. See #630 (comment) (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460)
for more info. --compat-options no-keep-subs can be used to revert this
• certifi will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use system certificates
(e.g. self-signed), use --compat-options no-certifi
• youtube-dl tries to remove some superfluous punctuations from filenames. While this can sometimes be
helpfull, it is often undesirable. So yt-dlp tries to keep the fields in the filenames as close to
their original values as possible. You can use --compat-options filename-sanitization to revert to
youtube-dl's behavior
For ease of use, a few more compat options are available: * --compat-options all: Use all compat options
* --compat-options youtube-dl: Same as --compat-options all,-multistreams * --compat-options youtube-dlc:
Same as --compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect
DEPRECATED OPTIONS
These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
Almost redundant options
While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that pre‐
vents them being redundant
-j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
-F, --list-formats --print formats_table
--list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
--list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
Redundant options
While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
--get-description --print description
--get-duration --print duration_string
--get-filename --print filename
--get-format --print format
--get-id --print id
--get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
-e, --get-title --print title
-g, --get-url --print urls
--match-title REGEX --match-filter "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
--reject-title REGEX --match-filter "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
--min-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count >=? COUNT"
--max-views COUNT --match-filter "view_count <=? COUNT"
--user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
--referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
Not recommended
While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to
achieve the same
--exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
--no-exec-before-download --no-exec
--all-formats -f all
--all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
--print-json -j --no-simulate
--autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting. Eg: %(autonumber)03d
--autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
--id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
--metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
--hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
--hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
--list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
--list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
--youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
--youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
--youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
--youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
Developer options
These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
--test Download only part of video for testing extractors
--youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
--allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
--no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
Old aliases
These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
--avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
--clean-infojson --clean-info-json
--cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
--dump-headers --print-traffic
--dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
--force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
--load-info --load-info-json
--no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
--no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
--no-write-srt --no-write-subs
--prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
--rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
--split-tracks --split-chapters
--srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
--trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
--write-srt --write-subs
--yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
Sponskrub Options
Support for SponSkrub (https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of the
--sponsorblock options
--sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
--no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
--sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
--no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
--sponskrub-force Not applicable
--no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
--sponskrub-location Not applicable
--sponskrub-args Not applicable
No longer supported
These options may no longer work as intended
--prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
--prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
-C, --call-home Not implemented
--no-call-home Default
--include-ads No longer supported
--no-include-ads Default
--write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
--no-write-annotations Default
Removed
These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
-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
CONTRIBUTING
See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on Opening an Issue and Contributing code to the project
MORE
For FAQ see the youtube-dl README (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#faq)
yt-dlp(1)