Provided by: yt-dlp_2023.03.04-1_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
-U, --update
Update this program to the latest version
--no-update
Do not check for updates (default)
--update-to [CHANNEL]@[TAG]
Upgrade/downgrade to a specific version. CHANNEL and TAG defaults to "stable" and
"latest" respectively if omitted; See "UPDATE" for details. Supported channels:
stable, nightly
-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 (default)
--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
--use-extractors NAMES
Extractor names to use separated by commas. You can also use regexes, "all",
"default" and "end" (end URL matching); e.g. --ies "holodex.*,end,youtube".
Prefix the name with a "-" to exclude it, e.g. --ies default,-generic. Use
--list-extractors for a list of extractor names. (Alias: --ies)
--default-search PREFIX
Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g. "gvsearch2:python" downloads two
videos from google videos for the search term "python". Use the value "auto" to
let yt-dlp guess ("auto_warning" to emit a warning when guessing). "error" just
throws an error. The default value "fixup_error" repairs broken URLs, but emits an
error if this is not possible instead of searching
--ignore-config
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 configuration is not loaded. (Alias: --no-config)
--no-config-locations
Do not load any custom configuration files (default). When given inside a
configuration file, ignore 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 directory ("-" for stdin). 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 (Alias: --no-colours)
--compat-options OPTS
Options that can help keep compatibility with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
configurations by reverting some of the changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences
in default behavior" for details
--alias ALIASES OPTIONS
Create aliases for an option string. Unless an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed according to the Python string formatting
mini-language. E.g. --alias get-audio,-X "-S=aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}"
creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
"-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0". All defined aliases are listed in the
--help output. Alias options can trigger more aliases; so be careful to avoid
defining recursive options. As a safety measure, each alias may be triggered a
maximum of 100 times. This option can be used multiple times
Network Options:
--proxy URL
Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper
scheme, e.g. socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty string (--proxy
"") for direct connection
--socket-timeout SECONDS
Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
--source-address IP
Client-side IP address to bind to
-4, --force-ipv4
Make all connections via IPv4
-6, --force-ipv6
Make all connections via IPv6
--enable-file-urls
Enable file:// URLs. This is disabled by default for security reasons.
Geo-restriction:
--geo-verification-proxy URL
Use this proxy to verify the IP address for some geo-restricted sites. The default
proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the option is not present) is used for the
actual downloading
--geo-bypass
Bypass geographic restriction via faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (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:
-I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC
Comma separated playlist_index of the items to download. You can specify a range
using "[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward compatibility, START-STOP is also
supported. Use negative indices to count from the right and negative STEP to
download in reverse order. E.g. "-I 1:3,7,-5::2" used on a playlist of size 15
will download the items at index 1,2,3,7,11,13,15
--min-filesize SIZE
Abort download if filesize is smaller than SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
--max-filesize SIZE
Abort download if filesize is 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|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]]. E.g. "--date today-2weeks"
downloads only videos uploaded on the same day two weeks ago
--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 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" field 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 multiple conditions. Use a "" to escape "&"
or quotes if needed. If used multiple times, the filter matches if atleast one of
the conditions are met. E.g. --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" (caseless). Use
"--match-filter -" to interactively ask whether to download each video
--no-match-filter
Do not use any --match-filter (default)
--break-match-filters FILTER
Same as "--match-filters" but stops the download process when a video is rejected
--no-break-match-filters
Do not use any --break-match-filters (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-per-input
Alters --max-downloads, --break-on-existing, --break-match-filter, and autonumber
to reset per input URL
--no-break-per-input
--break-on-existing and similar options 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 3), or "infinite"
--fragment-retries RETRIES
Number of retries for a fragment (default is 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative
and ISM)
--retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR
Time to sleep between retries in seconds (optionally) prefixed by the type of retry
(http (default), fragment, file_access, extractor) to apply the sleep to. EXPR can
be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=1]] or exp=START[:END[:BASE=2]]. This option
can be used multiple times to set the sleep for the different retry types, e.g.
--retry-sleep linear=1::2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=1:20
--skip-unavailable-fragments
Skip unavailable fragments for DASH, hlsnative and ISM downloads (default) (Alias:
--no-abort-on-unavailable-fragments)
--abort-on-unavailable-fragments
Abort download 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-random
Download playlist videos in random order
--lazy-playlist
Process entries in the playlist as they are received. This disables n_entries,
--playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
--no-lazy-playlist
Process videos in the playlist only after the entire playlist is parsed (default)
--xattr-set-filesize
Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with expected file size
--hls-use-mpegts
Use the mpegts container for HLS videos; allowing some players to play the video
while downloading, and reducing the chance of file corruption if download is
interrupted. This is enabled by default for live streams
--no-hls-use-mpegts
Do not use the mpegts container for HLS videos. This is default when not
downloading live streams
--download-sections REGEX
Download only chapters whose title matches the given regular expression. Time
ranges prefixed by a "" can also be used in place of chapters to download the
specified range. Needs ffmpeg. This option can be used multiple times to download
multiple sections, e.g. --download-sections "10:15-inf" --download-sections
"intro"
--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. You can use
this option multiple times to set different downloaders for different protocols.
E.g. --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 arguments 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 for unavailable fields in "OUTPUT 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-comments)
--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][::CONTAINER]
The name of the browser to load cookies from. Currently supported browsers are:
brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox, opera, safari, vivaldi. Optionally, the
KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium cookies on Linux, the name/path of the PROFILE
to load cookies from, and the CONTAINER name (if Firefox) ("none" for no container)
can be given with their respective seperators. By default, all containers of the
most recently accessed profile are used. 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 yt-dlp can store some downloaded information (such
as client ids and signatures) permanently. By default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/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 actually 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, separated by a ":". Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
--use-postprocessor (default: video). Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
--no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are 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 simulation 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 accessible 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-headers 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
--format-sort-force
Force user specified sort order to have precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
--no-format-sort-force
Some fields have precedence over the user specified sort order (default)
--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
Containers that may be used when merging formats, separated by "/", e.g.
"mp4/mkv". Ignored if no merge is required. (currently supported: avi, flv, mkv,
mov, mp4, webm)
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, e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
--sub-langs LANGS
Languages of the subtitles to download (can be regex) or "all" separated by commas,
e.g. --sub-langs "en.*,ja". You can prefix the language code with a "-" to
exclude it from the requested languages, e.g. --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 interactively
--ap-list-mso
List all supported multiple-system operators
--client-certificate CERTFILE
Path to client certificate file in PEM format. May include the private key
--client-certificate-key KEYFILE
Path to private key file for client certificate
--client-certificate-password PASSWORD
Password for client certificate private key, if encrypted. If not provided, and
the key is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
Post-Processing Options:
-x, --extract-audio
Convert video files to audio-only files (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
--audio-format FORMAT
Format to convert the audio to when -x is used. (currently supported: best
(default), aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis, wav). You can specify multiple
rules using similar syntax as --remux-video
--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: avi, flv,
gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac, flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis,
wav). If target container does not support the video/audio codec, remuxing will
fail. You can specify multiple rules; e.g. "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 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 arguments separated by a colon ":" to give the argument to the
specified postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are: Merger, ModifyChapters,
SplitChapters, ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor, Metadata, EmbedSubtitle,
EmbedThumbnail, SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor, FixupStretched, 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, e.g. --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 [WHEN:]FROM:TO
Parse additional metadata like title/artist from other fields; see "MODIFYING
METADATA" for details. Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-
postprocessor (default: pre_process)
--replace-in-metadata [WHEN:]FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
Replace text in a metadata field using the given regex. This option can be used
multiple times. Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-
postprocessor (default: pre_process)
--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 concatenated
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, separated by a ":".
Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as that of --use-postprocessor (default:
after_move). 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,_filename|)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: ass, lrc, srt, vtt)
(Alias: --convert-subtitles)
--convert-thumbnails FORMAT
Convert the thumbnails to another format (currently supported: jpg, png, webp).
You can specify multiple rules using similar syntax as --remux-video
--split-chapters
Split video into multiple files based on internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix
can be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set the output filename for the split
files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
--no-split-chapters
Do not split video based on chapters (default)
--remove-chapters REGEX
Remove chapters whose title matches the given regular expression. The syntax is
the same as --download-sections. 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 at cuts when downloading/splitting/removing sections. This is slow
due to needing a re-encode, 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), "video" (after --format; before
--print/--output), "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 sponsor, intro, outro, selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
music_offtopic, poi_highlight, chapter, all and default (=all). You can prefix the
category with a "-" to exclude it. See [1] for description of the categories.
E.g. --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview [1]
https://wiki.sponsor.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_highlight, chapter are not available
--sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
An output template for the title of the SponsorBlock chapters created by
--sponsorblock-mark. 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 IE_KEY:ARGS
Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY 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 configuration is loaded from the following locations:
1. Main Configuration:
• The file given by --config-location
2. Portable Configuration: (Recommended for portable installations)
• If using a binary, yt-dlp.conf in the same directory as the binary
• If running from source-code, yt-dlp.conf in the parent directory of yt_dlp
3. Home Configuration:
• yt-dlp.conf in the home path given by -P
• If -P is not given, the current directory is searched
4. User Configuration:
• ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp.conf
• ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Linux/macOS)
• ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config.txt
• ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp.conf
• ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config (recommended on Windows)
• ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config.txt
• ~/yt-dlp.conf
• ~/yt-dlp.conf.txt
• ~/.yt-dlp/config
• ~/.yt-dlp/config.txt See also: Notes about environment variables
5. System Configuration:
• /etc/yt-dlp.conf
• /etc/yt-dlp/config
• /etc/yt-dlp/config.txt
E.g. 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: 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. They must also be quoted when necessary as-if it were a UNIX
shell.
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.
Configuration file encoding
The configuration files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if present, and in the
encoding from system locale otherwise.
If you want your file to be decoded differently, add # coding: ENCODING to the beginning
of the file (e.g. # coding: shift-jis). There must be no characters before that, even
spaces or BOM.
Authentication with .netrc file
You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for extractors that support
authentication (by providing login and password with --username and --password) in order
not to pass credentials as command line arguments on every yt-dlp execution and prevent
tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a
.netrc file (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>
E.g.
machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
To activate authentication with the .netrc file you should pass --netrc to yt-dlp or place
it in the configuration file.
The default location of the .netrc file is ~ (see below).
Notes about environment variables
• Environment variables are normally specified as ${VARIABLE}/$VARIABLE on UNIX and
%VARIABLE% on Windows; but is always shown as ${VARIABLE} in this documentation
• yt-dlp also allow using UNIX-style variables on Windows for path-like options; e.g.
--output, --config-location
• If unset, ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME} defaults to ~/.config and ${XDG_CACHE_HOME} to ~/.cache
• On Windows, ~ points to ${HOME} if present; or, ${USERPROFILE} or
${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH} otherwise
• On Windows, ${USERPROFILE} generally points to C:\Users\<user name> and ${APPDATA} to
${USERPROFILE}\AppData\Roaming
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), e.g. %(NAME)s or %(NAME)05d. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed
by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting 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; e.g. %(tags.0)s, %(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s. You can do Python
slicing with colon :; E.g. %(id.3:7:-1)s, %(formats.:.format_id)s. Curly braces {}
can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys; e.g.
%(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j. An empty field name %()s refers to the entire
infodict; e.g. %(.{id,title})s. Note that all the fields that become available using
this method are not listed below. Use -j to see such fields
2. Addition: Addition and subtraction of numeric fields can be done using + and -
respectively. E.g. %(playlist_index+10)03d, %(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d
3. 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 >. E.g.
%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s, %(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s, %(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s
4. Alternatives: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a ,. E.g.
%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s
5. Replacement: A replacement value can be 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.
6. Default: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a |
separator. This overrides --output-na-placeholder. E.g. %(uploader|Unknown)s
7. More Conversions: In addition to the normal format types diouxXeEfFgGcrs, yt-dlp
additionally supports converting to B = Bytes, j = json (flag # for pretty-printing, +
for Unicode), h = HTML escaping, l = a comma separated list (flag # for \n newline-
separated), q = a string quoted for the terminal (flag # to split a list into different
arguments), D = add Decimal suffixes (e.g. 10M) (flag # to use 1024 as factor), and S
= Sanitize as filename (flag # for restricted)
8. 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. E.g. %(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), infojson, link, pl_thumbnail,
pl_description, pl_infojson, chapter, pl_video. E.g. -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o
"thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s" will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same
name as the video. If any of the templates is empty, that type of file will not be
written. E.g. --write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:" will write thumbnails only for playlists
and not for video.
Note: Due to post-processing (i.e. merging etc.), the actual output filename might
differ. Use --print after_move:filepath to get the name after all post-processing is
complete.
The available fields are:
• id (string): Video identifier
• title (string): Video title
• fulltitle (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
• 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
• concurrent_view_count (numeric): How many users are currently watching 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 downloaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)
• age_limit (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
• live_status (string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming", "was_live",
"post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)
• 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
• 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)
All the fields in Filtering Formats can also be used
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 only when using --download-sections and 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 differ
• 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
(https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Category) 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
• type (string): The SponsorBlock action type
(https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Action_Type) of the chapter
Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the
actual value corresponding to the sequence name. E.g. 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: Some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the
metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with
placeholder value provided with --output-na-placeholder (NA by default).
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/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting); e.g.
%(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 --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
$ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
$ yt-dlp --print 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 expression, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like
to download.
The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. 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 or
both (ie; vcodec!=none or acodec!=none)
• 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#issuecomment-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; e.g. -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); e.g. -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. E.g. -f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --video-
multistreams --audio-multistreams will download and merge all 3 given formats. The
resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But -f
bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams will download and merge only bestvideo
and bestaudio. best is ignored since another format containing a video stream (bestvideo)
has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. -f
best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams will download only best 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
• filesize_approx: An estimate for the number of bytes
• width: Width of the video, if known
• height: Height of the video, if known
• aspect_ratio: Aspect ratio 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
• audio_channels: The number of audio channels
• stretched_ratio: width:height of the video's pixels, if not square
Also filtering work for comparisons = (equals), ^= (starts with), $= (ends with), *=
(contains), ~= (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
• url: Video URL
• 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)
• language: Language code
• dynamic_range: The dynamic range of the video
• format_id: A short description of the format
• format: A human-readable description of the format
• format_note: Additional info about the format
• resolution: Textual description of width and height
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: 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 operator. You can combine format filters, so -f "[height<=?720][tbr>500]"
selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at
least 500 KBit/s. You can also use the filters with all to download all formats that
satisfy the filter, e.g. -f "all[vcodec=none]" selects all audio-only formats.
Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. -f "(mp4,webm)[height<480]"
will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480.
Sorting Formats
You can change the criteria for being considered the best by using -S (--format-sort).
The general format for this is --format-sort field1,field2....
The available fields are:
• hasvid: Gives priority to formats that have a video stream
• hasaud: Gives priority to formats that have an 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> websocket_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 > ac4 >
eac3 > ac3 > dts > other)
• codec: Equivalent to vcodec,acodec
• vext: Video Extension (mp4 > mov > 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 ogg > opus > webm > mp3 > m4a > 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)
• channels: The number of audio channels
• 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 +. E.g. +res prefers format with the smallest resolution.
Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a :. E.g.
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. E.g. +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. E.g. 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-defined 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,vcodec:vp9.2,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id.
The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided
order.
Note that the default has vcodec: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 > mov > 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-metadata
--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, a single field name, 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 these options preserve their relative order, allowing replacements to be made in
parsed fields and viceversa. Also, any field thus created can be used in the output
template and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using --embed-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.
E.g. --parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)
will download the first vimeo video found in the description
• You can use this to change the metadata that is embedded in the media file. To do this,
set the value of the corresponding field with a meta_ prefix. For example, any value
you set to meta_description field will be added to the description field in the file -
you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the
metadata of individual streams, use the meta<n>_ prefix (e.g. 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 uploader_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" --embed-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>.+)" --embed-metadata
# Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
$ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"
# 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. E.g. --extractor-
args "youtube:player-client=android_embedded,web;include_live_dash" --extractor-args
"funimation:version=uncut"
Note: In CLI, ARG can use - instead of _; e.g. youtube:player-client" becomes
youtube:player_client"
The following extractors use this feature:
youtube
• lang: Prefer translated metadata (title, description etc) of this language code (case-
sensitive). By default, the video primary language metadata is preferred, with a
fallback to en translated. See youtube.py (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/blob/c26f9b991a0681fd3ea548d535919cec1fbbd430/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L381-L390)
for list of supported content language codes
• skip: One or more of hls, dash or translated_subs to skip extraction of the m3u8
manifests, dash manifests and auto-translated subtitles (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/4090#issuecomment-1158102032) respectively
• player_client: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are web, android
and ios with variants _music, _embedded, _embedscreen, _creator (e.g. web_embedded);
and mweb and tv_embedded (agegate 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 music.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 options 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
• 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
• include_incomplete_formats: Extract formats that cannot be downloaded completely (live
dash and post-live m3u8)
• innertube_host: Innertube API host to use for all API requests; e.g.
studio.youtube.com, youtubei.googleapis.com. Note that cookies exported from one
subdomain will not work on others
• innertube_key: Innertube API key to use for all API requests
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 behavior, see #1122 (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122)
for more details)
• approximate_date: Extract approximate upload_date and timestamp in flat-playlist. This
may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
generic
• fragment_query: Passthrough any query in mpd/m3u8 manifest URLs to their fragments.
Does not apply to ffmpeg
funimation
• language: Audio languages to extract, e.g. funimation:language=english,japanese
• version: The video version to extract - uncut or simulcast
crunchyrollbeta (Crunchyroll)
• format: Which stream type(s) to extract (default: adaptive_hls). Potentially useful
values include adaptive_hls, adaptive_dash, vo_adaptive_hls, vo_adaptive_dash,
download_hls, download_dash, multitrack_adaptive_hls_v2
• hardsub: Preference order for which hardsub versions to extract, or all (default: None =
no hardsubs), e.g. 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 GameJolt'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
• api_hostname: Hostname to use for mobile API requests, e.g. api-h2.tiktokv.com
• 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
twitter
• force_graphql: Force usage of the GraphQL API. By default it will only be used if login
cookies are provided
Note: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward
compatibility
INSTALLATION
You can install yt-dlp using the binaries, PIP (https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) or one
using a third-party package manager. See the wiki (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Installation) for detailed instructions
UPDATE
You can use yt-dlp -U to update if you are using the release binaries
If you installed with PIP (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation#with-pip),
simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
For other third-party package managers, see the wiki (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Installation#third-party-package-managers) or refer their documentation
There are currently two release channels for binaries, stable and nightly. stable is the
default channel, and many of its changes have been tested by users of the nightly channel.
The nightly channel has releases built after each push to the master branch, and will have
the most recent fixes and additions, but also have more risk of regressions. They are
available in their own repo (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases).
When using --update/-U, a release binary will only update to its current channel. This
release channel can be changed by using the --update-to option. --update-to can also be
used to upgrade or downgrade to specific tags from a channel.
Example usage: * yt-dlp --update-to nightly change to nightly channel and update to its
latest release * yt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.02.17 upgrade/downgrade to release to
stable channel tag 2023.02.17 * yt-dlp --update-to 2023.01.06 upgrade/downgrade to tag
2023.01.06 if it exists on the current channel
Note: The manpages, shell completion files etc. are available inside the source tarball
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
DEPENDENCIES
Python versions 3.7+ (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
Strongly 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/legal.html)
There are bugs in ffmpeg 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 some of 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
Important: What you need is ffmpeg binary, NOT the python package of the same name
(https://pypi.org/project/ffmpeg)
Networking
• certifi (https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)* - Provides Mozilla's root
certificate bundle. Licensed under MPLv2 (https://github.com/certifi/python-
certifi/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/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE)
• websockets (https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)* - For downloading over websocket.
Licensed under BSD-3-Clause (https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
Metadata
• mutagen (https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)* - For --embed-thumbnail in certain
formats. Licensed under GPLv2+
(https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
• AtomicParsley (https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For --embed-thumbnail in mp4/m4a
files when mutagen/ffmpeg cannot. Licensed under GPLv2+
(https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
• xattr (https://github.com/xattr/xattr), pyxattr (https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or
setfattr (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr metadata
(--xattr) on Linux. Licensed under MIT
(https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt), LGPL2.1
(https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and GPLv2+
(http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING) respectively
Misc
• 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/master/LICENSE.rst)
• 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)
• secretstorage (https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage) - For --cookies-from-browser to
access the Gnome keyring while decrypting cookies of Chromium-based browsers on Linux.
Licensed under BSD-3-Clause
(https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
• Any external downloader that you want to use with --downloader
Deprecated
• avconv and avprobe (https://www.libav.org) - Now deprecated alternative to ffmpeg.
License depends on the build (https://libav.org/legal)
• 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)
• rtmpdump (http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading rtmp streams. ffmpeg can be
used instead with --downloader ffmpeg. Licensed under GPLv2+
(http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
• mplayer (http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or mpv (https://mpv.io) - For
downloading rstp/mms streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with --downloader ffmpeg.
Licensed under GPLv2+ (https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing
terms.
The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages
marked with * included.
If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are attempting, yt-dlp will
warn you. All the currently available dependencies are visible at the top of the
--verbose output
COMPILE
Standalone PyInstaller Builds
To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and pyinstaller (plus any of yt-
dlp's optional dependencies if needed). Once you have all the necessary dependencies
installed, simply run pyinst.py. The executable will be built for the same architecture
(x86/ARM, 32/64 bit) as the Python used.
python3 -m pip install -U pyinstaller -r requirements.txt
python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
python3 pyinst.py
On some systems, you may need to use py or python instead of python3.
pyinst.py accepts any arguments that can be passed to pyinstaller, such as --onefile/-F or
--onedir/-D, which is further documented here
(https://pyinstaller.org/en/stable/usage.html#what-to-generate).
Note: Pyinstaller versions below 4.4 do not support
(https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-tested-platforms) Python
installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment.
Important: Running pyinstaller directly without using pyinst.py is not officially
supported. This may or may not work correctly.
Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
You will need the build tools python (3.7+), zip, make (GNU), pandoc* and pytest*.
After installing these, simply run make.
You can also run make yt-dlp instead to compile only the binary without updating any of
the additional files. (The build tools marked with * are not needed for this)
Standalone Py2Exe Builds (Windows)
While we provide the option to build with py2exe (https://www.py2exe.org), it is
recommended to build using PyInstaller instead since the py2exe builds cannot contain
pycryptodomex/certifi and needs VC++14 on the target computer to run.
If you wish to build it anyway, install Python and py2exe, and then simply run setup.py
py2exe
py -m pip install -U py2exe -r requirements.txt
py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
py setup.py py2exe
Related scripts
• devscripts/update-version.py - Update the version number based on current date.
• devscripts/set-variant.py - Set the build variant of the executable.
• devscripts/make_changelog.py - Create a markdown changelog using short commit messages
and update CONTRIBUTORS file.
• devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py - Create lazy extractors. Running this before
building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the
environment variable YTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS=1 if you wish to forcefully disable lazy
extractor loading.
Note: See their --help for more info.
Forking the project
If you fork the project on GitHub, you can run your fork's build workflow to automatically
build the selected version(s) as artifacts. Alternatively, you can run the release
workflow or enable the nightly workflow to create full (pre-)releases.
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!
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. - Extractor plugins take priority over builtin extractors. - Postprocessor plugins
can be invoked using --use-postprocessor NAME.
Plugins are loaded from the namespace packages yt_dlp_plugins.extractor and
yt_dlp_plugins.postprocessor.
In other words, the file structure on the disk looks something like:
yt_dlp_plugins/
extractor/
myplugin.py
postprocessor/
myplugin.py
yt-dlp looks for these yt_dlp_plugins namespace folders in many locations (see below) and
loads in plugins from all of them.
See the wiki for some known plugins (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Plugins)
Installing Plugins
Plugins can be installed using various methods and locations.
1. Configuration directories: Plugin packages (containing a yt_dlp_plugins namespace
folder) can be dropped into the following standard configuration locations:
• User Plugins
• ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/ (recommended on
Linux/macOS)
• ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/ (recommended on Windows)
• ${APPDATA}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• ~/.yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• ~/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• System Plugins
• /etc/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• /etc/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
2. Executable location: Plugin packages can similarly be installed in a yt-dlp-plugins
directory under the executable location:
• Binary: where <root-dir>/yt-dlp.exe, <root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package
name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
• Source: where <root-dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py, <root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package
name>/yt_dlp_plugins/
3. pip and other locations in PYTHONPATH
• Plugin packages can be installed and managed using pip. See yt-dlp-sample-plugins
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-plugins) for an example.
• Note: plugin files between plugin packages installed with pip must have unique
filenames.
• Any path in PYTHONPATH is searched in for the yt_dlp_plugins namespace folder.
• Note: This does not apply for Pyinstaller/py2exe builds.
.zip, .egg and .whl archives containing a yt_dlp_plugins namespace folder in their root
are also supported as plugin packages. * e.g. ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-
dlp/plugins/mypluginpkg.zip where mypluginpkg.zip contains
yt_dlp_plugins/<type>/myplugin.py
Run yt-dlp with --verbose to check if the plugin has been loaded.
Developing Plugins
See the yt-dlp-sample-plugins (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-plugins) repo for a
template plugin package and the Plugin Development (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/wiki/Plugin-Development) section of the wiki for a plugin development guide.
All public classes with a name ending in IE/PP are imported from each file for extractors
and postprocessors repectively. This respects underscore prefix (e.g. _MyBasePluginIE is
private) and __all__. Modules can similarly be excluded by prefixing the module name with
an underscore (e.g. _myplugin.py).
To replace an existing extractor with a subclass of one, set the plugin_name class keyword
argument (e.g. class MyPluginIE(ABuiltInIE, plugin_name='myplugin') will replace
ABuiltInIE with MyPluginIE). Since the extractor replaces the parent, you should exclude
the subclass extractor from being imported separately by making it private using one of
the methods described above.
If you are a plugin author, add yt-dlp-plugins (https://github.com/topics/yt-dlp-plugins)
as a topic to your repository for discoverability.
See the Developer Instructions (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions) on how to write and test an
extractor.
EMBEDDING YT-DLP
yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be
callable from any programming 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
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a
look at yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py.
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 dictionary. 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 below
Embedding examples
Extracting information
import json
import yt_dlp
URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
ydl_opts = {}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
# ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
Download using an info-json
import yt_dlp
INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
Extract audio
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
ydl_opts = {
'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
}]
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Filter videos
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
"""Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
duration = info.get('duration')
if duration and duration < 60:
return 'The video is too short'
ydl_opts = {
'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
Adding logger and progress hook
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
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 "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
def my_hook(d):
if d['status'] == 'finished':
print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
ydl_opts = {
'logger': MyLogger(),
'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
Add a custom PostProcessor
import yt_dlp
URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
# ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
def run(self, info):
self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
return [], info
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
# ℹ️ "when" can take any value in yt_dlp.utils.POSTPROCESS_WHEN
ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP(), when='pre_process')
ydl.download(URLS)
Use a custom format selector
import yt_dlp
URL = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
def format_selector(ctx):
""" Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
NOTE: 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))
# These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
yield {
'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"]}'
}
ydl_opts = {
'format': format_selector,
}
with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
ydl.download(URLS)
NEW FEATURES
• Merged with youtube-dl v2021.12.17+ commit/2dd6c6e (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-
dl/commit/2dd6c6e) (exceptions (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21)) and
youtube-dlc v2020.11.11-3+ commit/f9401f2 (https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-
dlc/commit/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/ytdl-org/youtube-dl)
• SponsorBlock Integration: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in YouTube videos by
utilizing the SponsorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
• Format Sorting: The default format sorting options have been changed so that higher
resolution and better codecs will be now preferred instead of simply using larger
bitrate. Furthermore, you can now specify the sort order using -S. This allows for
much easier format selection than what is possible by simply using --format (examples)
• Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl: You get most of the features and improvements
from animelover1984/youtube-dl (https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including
--write-comments, BiliBiliSearch, BilibiliChannel, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus,
playlist infojson etc. Note that NicoNico livestreams are not available. See #31
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
• YouTube improvements:
• Supports Clips, Stories (ytstories:<channel UCID>), Search (including filters)*,
YouTube Music Search, Channel-specific search, Search prefixes (ytsearch:,
ytsearchdate:)*, Mixes, YouTube Music Albums/Channels (except self-uploaded music
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/723)), and Feeds (:ytfav, :ytwatchlater,
:ytsubs, :ythistory, :ytrec, :ytnotif)
• Fix for n-sig based throttling (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326) *
• Supports some (but not all) age-gated content without cookies
• Download livestreams from the start using --live-from-start (experimental)
• 255kbps audio is extracted (if available) from YouTube Music when premium cookies are
given
• Channel URLs download all uploads of the channel, including shorts and live
• Cookies from browser: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers
using --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
• Download time range: Videos can be downloaded partially based on either timestamps or
chapters using --download-sections
• Split video by chapters: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using
--split-chapters
• Multi-threaded fragment downloads: Download multiple fragments of m3u8/mpd videos in
parallel. Use --concurrent-fragments (-N) option to set the number of threads used
• Aria2c with HLS/DASH: You can use 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 etc.
• 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 directories. See CONFIGURATION for details
• Output template improvements: Output templates can now have date-time formatting,
numeric offsets, object 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 --alias, --print, --concat-
playlist, --wait-for-video, --retry-sleep, --sleep-requests, --convert-thumbnails,
--force-download-archive, --force-overwrites, --break-match-filter 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, and downgraded using
--update-to if required
• Nightly builds: Automated nightly builds can be used with --update-to nightly
See changelog or commits (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of
changes
Features marked with a * have been back-ported to youtube-dl
Differences in default behavior
Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
• yt-dlp supports only Python 3.7+, and may remove support for more versions as they
become EOL (https://devguide.python.org/versions/#python-release-cycle); while youtube-
dl still supports Python 2.6+ and 3.2+ (https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-
dl/issues/30568#issue-1118238743)
• 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 prefer, 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 --audio-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
• Live chats (if available) are considered as subtitles. Use --sub-langs all,-live_chat
to download all subtitles except live chat. You can also use --compat-options no-live-
chat to prevent any live chat/danmaku from downloading
• YouTube channel URLs download all uploads of the channel. To download only the videos
in a specific tab, pass the tab's URL. 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
• The upload dates extracted from YouTube are in UTC when available
(https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/blob/89e4d86171c7b7c997c77d4714542e0383bf0db0/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L3898-L3900).
Use --compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date to prefer the non-UTC upload
date.
• 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-infojson 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 embedded 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
• yt-dlp's sanitization of invalid characters in filenames is different/smarter than in
youtube-dl. You can use --compat-options filename-sanitization to revert to youtube-
dl's behavior
• yt-dlp tries to parse the external downloader outputs into the standard progress output
if possible (Currently implemented: [STRIKEOUT:aria2c] (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-
dlp/issues/5931)). You can use --compat-options no-external-downloader-progress to get
the downloader output as-is
For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
• --compat-options all: Use all compat options (Do NOT use)
• --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
• --compat-options 2021: Same as --compat-options 2022,no-certifi,filename-
sanitization,no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date
• --compat-options 2022: Same as --compat-options no-external-downloader-progress. Use
this to enable all future compat options
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 prevents 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"
--break-on-reject Use --break-match-filter
--user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
--referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
--playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
--playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
--playlist-reverse -I ::-1
--no-playlist-reverse Default
Not recommended
While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other
alternatives to achieve the same
--force-generic-extractor --ies generic,default
--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, e.g. %(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
--load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
--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
--compat-options seperate-video-versions No longer needed
Removed
These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
-A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
-t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
CONTRIBUTING
See CONTRIBUTING.md for instructions on Opening an Issue and Contributing code to the
project
WIKI
See the Wiki (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki) for more information
yt-dlp(1)