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  1. youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
  2. - [INSTALLATION](#installation)
  3. - [DESCRIPTION](#description)
  4. - [OPTIONS](#options)
  5. - [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
  6. - [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
  7. - [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
  8. - [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
  9. - [FAQ](#faq)
  10. - [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
  11. - [EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL](#embedding-youtube-dl)
  12. - [BUGS](#bugs)
  13. - [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
  14. # INSTALLATION
  15. To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
  16. sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  17. sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  18. If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
  19. sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  20. sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  21. Windows users can [download an .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in any location on their [PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29) except for `%SYSTEMROOT%\System32` (e.g. **do not** put in `C:\Windows\System32`).
  22. You can also use pip:
  23. sudo pip install --upgrade youtube-dl
  24. This command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it. See the [pypi page](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/youtube_dl) for more information.
  25. OS X users can install youtube-dl with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/):
  26. brew install youtube-dl
  27. Or with [MacPorts](https://www.macports.org/):
  28. sudo port install youtube-dl
  29. Alternatively, refer to the [developer instructions](#developer-instructions) for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see the [youtube-dl Download Page](https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html).
  30. # DESCRIPTION
  31. **youtube-dl** is a command-line program to download videos from
  32. YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
  33. 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
  34. your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
  35. which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
  36. youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
  37. # OPTIONS
  38. -h, --help Print this help text and exit
  39. --version Print program version and exit
  40. -U, --update Update this program to latest version. Make
  41. sure that you have sufficient permissions
  42. (run with sudo if needed)
  43. -i, --ignore-errors Continue on download errors, for example to
  44. skip unavailable videos in a playlist
  45. --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
  46. playlist or the command line) if an error
  47. occurs
  48. --dump-user-agent Display the current browser identification
  49. --list-extractors List all supported extractors
  50. --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
  51. extractors
  52. --force-generic-extractor Force extraction to use the generic
  53. extractor
  54. --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
  55. example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
  56. from google videos for youtube-dl "large
  57. apple". Use the value "auto" to let
  58. youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
  59. warning when guessing). "error" just throws
  60. an error. The default value "fixup_error"
  61. repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
  62. this is not possible instead of searching.
  63. --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
  64. in the global configuration file
  65. /etc/youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
  66. configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
  67. dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
  68. on Windows)
  69. --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
  70. only list them.
  71. --mark-watched Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
  72. --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
  73. --no-color Do not emit color codes in output
  74. --abort-on-unavailable-fragment Abort downloading when some fragment is not
  75. available
  76. ## Network Options:
  77. --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy.
  78. To enable experimental SOCKS proxy, specify
  79. a proper scheme. For example
  80. socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass in an empty
  81. string (--proxy "") for direct connection
  82. --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
  83. --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
  84. (experimental)
  85. -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
  86. (experimental)
  87. -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
  88. (experimental)
  89. --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
  90. some geo-restricted sites. The default
  91. proxy specified by --proxy (or none, if the
  92. options is not present) is used for the
  93. actual downloading. (experimental)
  94. ## Video Selection:
  95. --playlist-start NUMBER Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
  96. --playlist-end NUMBER Playlist video to end at (default is last)
  97. --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Playlist video items to download. Specify
  98. indices of the videos in the playlist
  99. separated by commas like: "--playlist-items
  100. 1,2,5,8" if you want to download videos
  101. indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You can
  102. specify range: "--playlist-items
  103. 1-3,7,10-13", it will download the videos
  104. at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
  105. --match-title REGEX Download only matching titles (regex or
  106. caseless sub-string)
  107. --reject-title REGEX Skip download for matching titles (regex or
  108. caseless sub-string)
  109. --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
  110. --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
  111. SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
  112. --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
  113. (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
  114. --date DATE Download only videos uploaded in this date
  115. --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
  116. this date (i.e. inclusive)
  117. --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
  118. this date (i.e. inclusive)
  119. --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
  120. COUNT views
  121. --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
  122. COUNT views
  123. --match-filter FILTER Generic video filter (experimental).
  124. Specify any key (see help for -o for a list
  125. of available keys) to match if the key is
  126. present, !key to check if the key is not
  127. present,key > NUMBER (like "comment_count >
  128. 12", also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to
  129. compare against a number, and & to require
  130. multiple matches. Values which are not
  131. known are excluded unless you put a
  132. question mark (?) after the operator.For
  133. example, to only match videos that have
  134. been liked more than 100 times and disliked
  135. less than 50 times (or the dislike
  136. functionality is not available at the given
  137. service), but who also have a description,
  138. use --match-filter "like_count > 100 &
  139. dislike_count <? 50 & description" .
  140. --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
  141. to a video and a playlist.
  142. --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
  143. a video and a playlist.
  144. --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
  145. age
  146. --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
  147. archive file. Record the IDs of all
  148. downloaded videos in it.
  149. --include-ads Download advertisements as well
  150. (experimental)
  151. ## Download Options:
  152. -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second
  153. (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
  154. -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
  155. "infinite".
  156. --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default
  157. is 10), or "infinite" (DASH and hlsnative
  158. only)
  159. --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments (DASH and
  160. hlsnative only)
  161. --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
  162. (default is 1024)
  163. --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer
  164. size. By default, the buffer size is
  165. automatically resized from an initial value
  166. of SIZE.
  167. --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
  168. --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
  169. expected filesize (experimental)
  170. --hls-prefer-native Use the native HLS downloader instead of
  171. ffmpeg
  172. --hls-prefer-ffmpeg Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS
  173. downloader
  174. --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos,
  175. allowing to play the video while
  176. downloading (some players may not be able
  177. to play it)
  178. --external-downloader COMMAND Use the specified external downloader.
  179. Currently supports
  180. aria2c,avconv,axel,curl,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
  181. --external-downloader-args ARGS Give these arguments to the external
  182. downloader
  183. ## Filesystem Options:
  184. -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ('-' for
  185. stdin)
  186. --id Use only video ID in file name
  187. -o, --output TEMPLATE Output filename template, see the "OUTPUT
  188. TEMPLATE" for all the info
  189. --autonumber-size NUMBER Specify the number of digits in
  190. %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
  191. filename template or --auto-number option
  192. is given
  193. --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
  194. characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
  195. filenames
  196. -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
  197. "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] Number
  198. downloaded files starting from 00000
  199. -t, --title [deprecated] Use title in file name
  200. (default)
  201. -l, --literal [deprecated] Alias of --title
  202. -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite files
  203. -c, --continue Force resume of partially downloaded files.
  204. By default, youtube-dl will resume
  205. downloads if possible.
  206. --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded files
  207. (restart from beginning)
  208. --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly
  209. into output file
  210. --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
  211. the file modification time
  212. --write-description Write video description to a .description
  213. file
  214. --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
  215. --write-annotations Write video annotations to a
  216. .annotations.xml file
  217. --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
  218. (created with the "--write-info-json"
  219. option)
  220. --cookies FILE File to read cookies from and dump cookie
  221. jar in
  222. --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
  223. can store some downloaded information
  224. permanently. By default
  225. $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
  226. ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the moment, only
  227. YouTube player files (for videos with
  228. obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that
  229. may change.
  230. --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
  231. --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
  232. ## Thumbnail images:
  233. --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
  234. --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
  235. --list-thumbnails Simulate and list all available thumbnail
  236. formats
  237. ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
  238. -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode
  239. --no-warnings Ignore warnings
  240. -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
  241. anything to disk
  242. --skip-download Do not download the video
  243. -g, --get-url Simulate, quiet but print URL
  244. -e, --get-title Simulate, quiet but print title
  245. --get-id Simulate, quiet but print id
  246. --get-thumbnail Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
  247. --get-description Simulate, quiet but print video description
  248. --get-duration Simulate, quiet but print video length
  249. --get-filename Simulate, quiet but print output filename
  250. --get-format Simulate, quiet but print output format
  251. -j, --dump-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
  252. See --output for a description of available
  253. keys.
  254. -J, --dump-single-json Simulate, quiet but print JSON information
  255. for each command-line argument. If the URL
  256. refers to a playlist, dump the whole
  257. playlist information in a single line.
  258. --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
  259. JSON (video is still being downloaded).
  260. --newline Output progress bar as new lines
  261. --no-progress Do not print progress bar
  262. --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
  263. -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
  264. --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
  265. to debug problems (very verbose)
  266. --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
  267. files in the current directory to debug
  268. problems
  269. --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
  270. -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
  271. --no-call-home Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for
  272. debugging
  273. ## Workarounds:
  274. --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
  275. --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
  276. --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
  277. information about the video. (Currently
  278. supported only for YouTube)
  279. --user-agent UA Specify a custom user agent
  280. --referer URL Specify a custom referer, use if the video
  281. access is restricted to one domain
  282. --add-header FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
  283. separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
  284. option multiple times
  285. --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
  286. bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
  287. or fribidi executable in PATH
  288. --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
  289. download when used alone or a lower bound
  290. of a range for randomized sleep before each
  291. download (minimum possible number of
  292. seconds to sleep) when used along with
  293. --max-sleep-interval.
  294. --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep
  295. before each download (maximum possible
  296. number of seconds to sleep). Must only be
  297. used along with --min-sleep-interval.
  298. ## Video Format Options:
  299. -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see the "FORMAT
  300. SELECTION" for all the info
  301. --all-formats Download all available video formats
  302. --prefer-free-formats Prefer free video formats unless a specific
  303. one is requested
  304. -F, --list-formats List all available formats of requested
  305. videos
  306. --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifests and
  307. related data on YouTube videos
  308. --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
  309. bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
  310. container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
  311. webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required
  312. ## Subtitle Options:
  313. --write-sub Write subtitle file
  314. --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file
  315. (YouTube only)
  316. --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the
  317. video
  318. --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video
  319. --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
  320. preference, for example: "srt" or
  321. "ass/srt/best"
  322. --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download
  323. (optional) separated by commas, use --list-
  324. subs for available language tags
  325. ## Authentication Options:
  326. -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
  327. -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
  328. out, youtube-dl will ask interactively.
  329. -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor auth code
  330. -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
  331. --video-password PASSWORD Video password (vimeo, smotri, youku)
  332. ## Adobe Pass Options:
  333. --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
  334. provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
  335. a list of available MSOs
  336. --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
  337. --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
  338. If this option is left out, youtube-dl will
  339. ask interactively.
  340. --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system
  341. operators
  342. ## Post-processing Options:
  343. -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
  344. (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
  345. avprobe)
  346. --audio-format FORMAT Specify audio format: "best", "aac",
  347. "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a", "opus", or "wav";
  348. "best" by default
  349. --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert
  350. a value between 0 (better) and 9 (worse)
  351. for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
  352. (default 5)
  353. --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
  354. necessary (currently supported:
  355. mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
  356. --postprocessor-args ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessor
  357. -k, --keep-video Keep the video file on disk after the post-
  358. processing; the video is erased by default
  359. --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files; the
  360. post-processed files are overwritten by
  361. default
  362. --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
  363. webm and mkv videos)
  364. --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
  365. --add-metadata Write metadata to the video file
  366. --metadata-from-title FORMAT Parse additional metadata like song title /
  367. artist from the video title. The format
  368. syntax is the same as --output, the parsed
  369. parameters replace existing values.
  370. Additional templates: %(album)s,
  371. %(artist)s. Example: --metadata-from-title
  372. "%(artist)s - %(title)s" matches a title
  373. like "Coldplay - Paradise"
  374. --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
  375. (using dublin core and xdg standards)
  376. --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
  377. file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
  378. emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
  379. default; fix file if we can, warn
  380. otherwise)
  381. --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
  382. postprocessors (default)
  383. --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
  384. postprocessors
  385. --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary;
  386. either the path to the binary or its
  387. containing directory.
  388. --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
  389. downloading, similar to find's -exec
  390. syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
  391. /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
  392. --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to other format
  393. (currently supported: srt|ass|vtt)
  394. # CONFIGURATION
  395. You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. On Linux and OS X, the system wide configuration file is located at `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and the user wide configuration file at `~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the user wide configuration file locations are `%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` or `C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf`. Note that by default configuration file may not exist so you may need to create it yourself.
  396. For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under `Movies` directory in your home directory:
  397. ```
  398. # Lines starting with # are comments
  399. # Always extract audio
  400. -x
  401. # Do not copy the mtime
  402. --no-mtime
  403. # Use this proxy
  404. --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
  405. # Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
  406. -o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s
  407. ```
  408. Note that options in configuration file are just the same options aka switches used in regular command line calls thus there **must be no whitespace** after `-` or `--`, e.g. `-o` or `--proxy` but not `- o` or `-- proxy`.
  409. You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable the configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.
  410. ### Authentication with `.netrc` file
  411. 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 youtube-dl execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a [`.netrc` file](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on per extractor basis. For that you will need to create a `.netrc` file in your `$HOME` and restrict permissions to read/write by you only:
  412. ```
  413. touch $HOME/.netrc
  414. chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc
  415. ```
  416. After that you can add credentials for extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of extractor in lowercase:
  417. ```
  418. machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>
  419. ```
  420. For example:
  421. ```
  422. machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
  423. machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
  424. ```
  425. To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to youtube-dl or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
  426. On Windows you may also need to setup the `%HOME%` environment variable manually.
  427. # OUTPUT TEMPLATE
  428. The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names.
  429. **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
  430. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video"`. However, it may contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences have the format `%(NAME)s`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
  431. - `id`: Video identifier
  432. - `title`: Video title
  433. - `url`: Video URL
  434. - `ext`: Video filename extension
  435. - `alt_title`: A secondary title of the video
  436. - `display_id`: An alternative identifier for the video
  437. - `uploader`: Full name of the video uploader
  438. - `license`: License name the video is licensed under
  439. - `creator`: The creator of the video
  440. - `release_date`: The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released
  441. - `timestamp`: UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
  442. - `upload_date`: Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
  443. - `uploader_id`: Nickname or id of the video uploader
  444. - `location`: Physical location where the video was filmed
  445. - `duration`: Length of the video in seconds
  446. - `view_count`: How many users have watched the video on the platform
  447. - `like_count`: Number of positive ratings of the video
  448. - `dislike_count`: Number of negative ratings of the video
  449. - `repost_count`: Number of reposts of the video
  450. - `average_rating`: Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
  451. - `comment_count`: Number of comments on the video
  452. - `age_limit`: Age restriction for the video (years)
  453. - `format`: A human-readable description of the format
  454. - `format_id`: Format code specified by `--format`
  455. - `format_note`: Additional info about the format
  456. - `width`: Width of the video
  457. - `height`: Height of the video
  458. - `resolution`: Textual description of width and height
  459. - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
  460. - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
  461. - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
  462. - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
  463. - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
  464. - `fps`: Frame rate
  465. - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
  466. - `container`: Name of the container format
  467. - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
  468. - `filesize_approx`: An estimate for the number of bytes
  469. - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download
  470. - `extractor`: Name of the extractor
  471. - `extractor_key`: Key name of the extractor
  472. - `epoch`: Unix epoch when creating the file
  473. - `autonumber`: Five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero
  474. - `playlist`: Name or id of the playlist that contains the video
  475. - `playlist_index`: Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
  476. - `playlist_id`: Playlist identifier
  477. - `playlist_title`: Playlist title
  478. Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
  479. - `chapter`: Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
  480. - `chapter_number`: Number of the chapter the video belongs to
  481. - `chapter_id`: Id of the chapter the video belongs to
  482. Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:
  483. - `series`: Title of the series or programme the video episode belongs to
  484. - `season`: Title of the season the video episode belongs to
  485. - `season_number`: Number of the season the video episode belongs to
  486. - `season_id`: Id of the season the video episode belongs to
  487. - `episode`: Title of the video episode
  488. - `episode_number`: Number of the video episode within a season
  489. - `episode_id`: Id of the video episode
  490. Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
  491. - `track`: Title of the track
  492. - `track_number`: Number of the track within an album or a disc
  493. - `track_id`: Id of the track
  494. - `artist`: Artist(s) of the track
  495. - `genre`: Genre(s) of the track
  496. - `album`: Title of the album the track belongs to
  497. - `album_type`: Type of the album
  498. - `album_artist`: List of all artists appeared on the album
  499. - `disc_number`: Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
  500. - `release_year`: Year (YYYY) when the album was released
  501. Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they depend on the metadata obtained by particular extractor, such sequences will be replaced with `NA`.
  502. For example for `-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and mp4 video with title `youtube-dl test video` and id `BaW_jenozKcj` this will result in a `youtube-dl test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4` file created in the current directory.
  503. Output template can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. `-o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s'` that will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
  504. To specify percent literal in output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
  505. The current default template is `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
  506. 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:
  507. #### Output template and Windows batch files
  508. If you are using output template inside a Windows batch file then you must escape plain percent characters (`%`) by doubling, so that `-o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"` should become `-o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s"`. However you should not touch `%`'s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for expansion should stay intact: `-o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s"`.
  509. #### Output template examples
  510. Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
  511. ```bash
  512. $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
  513. youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
  514. $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
  515. youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
  516. # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
  517. $ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re
  518. # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
  519. $ youtube-dl -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists
  520. # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
  521. $ youtube-dl -u user -p password -o '~/MyVideos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/
  522. # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
  523. $ youtube-dl -o "C:/MyVideos/%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" http://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617
  524. # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
  525. $ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc
  526. ```
  527. # FORMAT SELECTION
  528. By default youtube-dl tries to download the best available quality, i.e. if you want the best quality you **don't need** to pass any special options, youtube-dl will guess it for you by **default**.
  529. But sometimes you may want to download in a different format, for example when you are on a slow or intermittent connection. The key mechanism for achieving this is so called *format selection* based on which you can explicitly specify desired format, select formats based on some criterion or criteria, setup precedence and much more.
  530. The general syntax for format selection is `--format FORMAT` or shorter `-f FORMAT` where `FORMAT` is a *selector expression*, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
  531. **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
  532. The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with `-f 22` you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You can get the list of available format codes for particular video using `--list-formats` or `-F`. Note that these format codes are extractor specific.
  533. You can also use a file extension (currently `3gp`, `aac`, `flv`, `m4a`, `mp3`, `mp4`, `ogg`, `wav`, `webm` are supported) to download best quality format of particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. `-f webm` will download best quality format with `webm` extension served as a single file.
  534. You can also use special names to select particular edge case format:
  535. - `best`: Select best quality format represented by single file with video and audio
  536. - `worst`: Select worst quality format represented by single file with video and audio
  537. - `bestvideo`: Select best quality video only format (e.g. DASH video), may not be available
  538. - `worstvideo`: Select worst quality video only format, may not be available
  539. - `bestaudio`: Select best quality audio only format, may not be available
  540. - `worstaudio`: Select worst quality audio only format, may not be available
  541. For example, to download worst quality video only format you can use `-f worstvideo`.
  542. 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 slash is left-associative, i.e. formats on the left hand side are preferred, for example `-f 22/17/18` will download format 22 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 17 if it's available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it's available, otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for download.
  543. If you want to download several formats of the same video use comma as a separator, e.g. `-f 22,17,18` will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or more sophisticated example combined with precedence feature `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`.
  544. You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"`).
  545. The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
  546. - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
  547. - `width`: Width of the video, if known
  548. - `height`: Height of the video, if known
  549. - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
  550. - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
  551. - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
  552. - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
  553. - `fps`: Frame rate
  554. Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals), `^=` (begins with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains) and following string meta fields:
  555. - `ext`: File extension
  556. - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
  557. - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
  558. - `container`: Name of the container format
  559. - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case. `http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`
  560. - `format_id`: A short description of the format
  561. Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by video hoster.
  562. 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.
  563. You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file using `-f <video-format>+<audio-format>` (requires ffmpeg or avconv installed), for example `-f bestvideo+bestaudio` will download best video only format, best audio only format and mux them together with ffmpeg/avconv.
  564. Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480 you can use `-f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'`.
  565. Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26 youtube-dl uses `-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best` as default format selection (see [#5447](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/5447), [#5456](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/5456)). If ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading `bestvideo` and `bestaudio` separately and muxing them together into a single file giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to `best` and results in downloading the best available quality served as a single file. `best` is also needed for videos that don't come from YouTube because they don't provide the audio and video in two different files. If you want to only download some DASH formats (for example if you are not interested in getting videos with a resolution higher than 1080p), you can add `-f bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best` to your configuration file. Note that if you use youtube-dl to stream to `stdout` (and most likely to pipe it to your media player then), i.e. you explicitly specify output template as `-o -`, youtube-dl still uses `-f best` format selection in order to start content delivery immediately to your player and not to wait until `bestvideo` and `bestaudio` are downloaded and muxed.
  566. If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (prior to youtube-dl 2015.04.26), i.e. you want to download the best available quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify your choice with `-f best`. You may want to add it to the [configuration file](#configuration) in order not to type it every time you run youtube-dl.
  567. #### Format selection examples
  568. Note on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of single.
  569. ```bash
  570. # Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
  571. $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'
  572. # Download best format available but not better that 480p
  573. $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'
  574. # Download best video only format but no bigger that 50 MB
  575. $ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'
  576. # Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
  577. $ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'
  578. # Download the best video format and the best audio format without merging them
  579. $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'
  580. ```
  581. Note that in the last example, an output template is recommended as bestvideo and bestaudio may have the same file name.
  582. # VIDEO SELECTION
  583. Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`. They accept dates in two formats:
  584. - Absolute dates: Dates in the format `YYYYMMDD`.
  585. - Relative dates: Dates in the format `(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
  586. Examples:
  587. ```bash
  588. # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
  589. $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
  590. # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
  591. $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
  592. $ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
  593. $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
  594. ```
  595. # FAQ
  596. ### How do I update youtube-dl?
  597. If you've followed [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html), you can simply run `youtube-dl -U` (or, on Linux, `sudo youtube-dl -U`).
  598. If you have used pip, a simple `sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
  599. If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get* or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately, there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distribution serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
  600. As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
  601. sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
  602. Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
  603. ```
  604. sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  605. sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  606. hash -r
  607. ```
  608. Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
  609. ### youtube-dl is extremely slow to start on Windows
  610. Add a file exclusion for `youtube-dl.exe` in Windows Defender settings.
  611. ### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
  612. YouTube changed their playlist format in March 2014 and later on, so you'll need at least youtube-dl 2014.07.25 to download all YouTube videos.
  613. If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to [report bugs](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug) to the [Ubuntu packaging guys](mailto:ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com?subject=outdated%20version%20of%20youtube-dl) - all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
  614. ### I'm getting an error when trying to use output template: `error: using output template conflicts with using title, video ID or auto number`
  615. Make sure you are not using `-o` with any of these options `-t`, `--title`, `--id`, `-A` or `--auto-number` set in command line or in a configuration file. Remove the latter if any.
  616. ### Do I always have to pass `-citw`?
  617. By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally, if you have a convincing case that these should be different, [please file an issue where you explain that](https://yt-dl.org/bug)). Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In particular, the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
  618. ### Can you please put the `-b` option back?
  619. Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the `-b` option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the `-f` option and youtube-dl will try to download it.
  620. ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
  621. Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. We're [considering to provide a way to let you solve the CAPTCHA](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/154), but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.
  622. ### Do I need any other programs?
  623. youtube-dl works fine on its own on most sites. However, if you want to convert video/audio, you'll need [avconv](https://libav.org/) or [ffmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/). On some sites - most notably YouTube - videos can be retrieved in a higher quality format without sound. youtube-dl will detect whether avconv/ffmpeg is present and automatically pick the best option.
  624. Videos or video formats streamed via RTMP protocol can only be downloaded when [rtmpdump](https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/) is installed. Downloading MMS and RTSP videos requires either [mplayer](http://mplayerhq.hu/) or [mpv](https://mpv.io/) to be installed.
  625. ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
  626. Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [mpv](https://mpv.io/), [vlc](http://www.videolan.org/) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
  627. ### I extracted a video URL with `-g`, but it does not play on another machine / in my webbrowser.
  628. It depends a lot on the service. In many cases, requests for the video (to download/play it) must come from the same IP address and with the same cookies. Use the `--cookies` option to write the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to be used, use `--dump-user-agent` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
  629. It may be beneficial to use IPv6; in some cases, the restrictions are only applied to IPv4. Some services (sometimes only for a subset of videos) do not restrict the video URL by IP address, cookie, or user-agent, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
  630. Please bear in mind that some URL protocols are **not** supported by browsers out of the box, including RTMP. If you are using `-g`, your own downloader must support these as well.
  631. If you want to play the video on a machine that is not running youtube-dl, you can relay the video content from the machine that runs youtube-dl. You can use `-o -` to let youtube-dl stream a video to stdout, or simply allow the player to download the files written by youtube-dl in turn.
  632. ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
  633. YouTube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
  634. ### ERROR: unable to download video
  635. YouTube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
  636. ### Video URL contains an ampersand and I'm getting some strange output `[1] 2839` or `'v' is not recognized as an internal or external command`
  637. That's actually the output from your shell. Since ampersand is one of the special shell characters it's interpreted by the shell preventing you from passing the whole URL to youtube-dl. To disable your shell from interpreting the ampersands (or any other special characters) you have to either put the whole URL in quotes or escape them with a backslash (which approach will work depends on your shell).
  638. For example if your URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc you should end up with following command:
  639. ```youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc'```
  640. or
  641. ```youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4\&v=BaW_jenozKc```
  642. For Windows you have to use the double quotes:
  643. ```youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc"```
  644. ### ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u'OF'
  645. In February 2015, the new YouTube player contained a character sequence in a string that was misinterpreted by old versions of youtube-dl. See [above](#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) for how to update youtube-dl.
  646. ### HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
  647. These two error codes indicate that the service is blocking your IP address because of overuse. Contact the service and ask them to unblock your IP address, or - if you have acquired a whitelisted IP address already - use the [`--proxy` or `--source-address` options](#network-options) to select another IP address.
  648. ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
  649. The error
  650. File "youtube-dl", line 2
  651. SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
  652. means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
  653. ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
  654. Since June 2012 ([#342](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/342)) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might need renaming to `youtube-dl.zip` first on some systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run it by executing the `__main__.py` file. To recompile the executable, run `make youtube-dl`.
  655. ### The exe throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll`
  656. To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)](https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=5555).
  657. ### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
  658. If you put youtube-dl and ffmpeg in the same directory that you're running the command from, it will work, but that's rather cumbersome.
  659. To make a different directory work - either for ffmpeg, or for youtube-dl, or for both - simply create the directory (say, `C:\bin`, or `C:\Users\<User name>\bin`), put all the executables directly in there, and then [set your PATH environment variable](https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml) to include that directory.
  660. From then on, after restarting your shell, you will be able to access both youtube-dl and ffmpeg (and youtube-dl will be able to find ffmpeg) by simply typing `youtube-dl` or `ffmpeg`, no matter what directory you're in.
  661. ### How do I put downloads into a specific folder?
  662. Use the `-o` to specify an [output template](#output-template), for example `-o "/home/user/videos/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"`. If you want this for all of your downloads, put the option into your [configuration file](#configuration).
  663. ### How do I download a video starting with a `-`?
  664. Either prepend `http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=` or separate the ID from the options with `--`:
  665. youtube-dl -- -wNyEUrxzFU
  666. youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wNyEUrxzFU"
  667. ### How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl?
  668. Use the `--cookies` option, for example `--cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt`.
  669. In order to extract cookies from browser use any conforming browser extension for exporting cookies. For example, [cookies.txt](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookiestxt/njabckikapfpffapmjgojcnbfjonfjfg) (for Chrome) or [Export Cookies](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/export-cookies/) (for Firefox).
  670. Note that the cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and the first line of the cookies file must be either `# HTTP Cookie File` or `# Netscape HTTP Cookie File`. Make sure you have correct [newline format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline) in the cookies file and convert newlines if necessary to correspond with your OS, namely `CRLF` (`\r\n`) for Windows, `LF` (`\n`) for Linux and `CR` (`\r`) for Mac OS. `HTTP Error 400: Bad Request` when using `--cookies` is a good sign of invalid newline format.
  671. Passing cookies to youtube-dl is a good way to workaround login when a particular extractor does not implement it explicitly. Another use case is working around [CAPTCHA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA) some websites require you to solve in particular cases in order to get access (e.g. YouTube, CloudFlare).
  672. ### How do I stream directly to media player?
  673. You will first need to tell youtube-dl to stream media to stdout with `-o -`, and also tell your media player to read from stdin (it must be capable of this for streaming) and then pipe former to latter. For example, streaming to [vlc](http://www.videolan.org/) can be achieved with:
  674. youtube-dl -o - "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj" | vlc -
  675. ### How do I download only new videos from a playlist?
  676. Use download-archive feature. With this feature you should initially download the complete playlist with `--download-archive /path/to/download/archive/file.txt` that will record identifiers of all the videos in a special file. Each subsequent run with the same `--download-archive` will download only new videos and skip all videos that have been downloaded before. Note that only successful downloads are recorded in the file.
  677. For example, at first,
  678. youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
  679. will download the complete `PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re` playlist and create a file `archive.txt`. Each subsequent run will only download new videos if any:
  680. youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
  681. ### Should I add `--hls-prefer-native` into my config?
  682. When youtube-dl detects an HLS video, it can download it either with the built-in downloader or ffmpeg. Since many HLS streams are slightly invalid and ffmpeg/youtube-dl each handle some invalid cases better than the other, there is an option to switch the downloader if needed.
  683. When youtube-dl knows that one particular downloader works better for a given website, that downloader will be picked. Otherwise, youtube-dl will pick the best downloader for general compatibility, which at the moment happens to be ffmpeg. This choice may change in future versions of youtube-dl, with improvements of the built-in downloader and/or ffmpeg.
  684. In particular, the generic extractor (used when your website is not in the [list of supported sites by youtube-dl](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html) cannot mandate one specific downloader.
  685. If you put either `--hls-prefer-native` or `--hls-prefer-ffmpeg` into your configuration, a different subset of videos will fail to download correctly. Instead, it is much better to [file an issue](https://yt-dl.org/bug) or a pull request which details why the native or the ffmpeg HLS downloader is a better choice for your use case.
  686. ### Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
  687. As a matter of policy (as well as legality), youtube-dl does not include support for services that specialize in infringing copyright. As a rule of thumb, if you cannot easily find a video that the service is quite obviously allowed to distribute (i.e. that has been uploaded by the creator, the creator's distributor, or is published under a free license), the service is probably unfit for inclusion to youtube-dl.
  688. A note on the service that they don't host the infringing content, but just link to those who do, is evidence that the service should **not** be included into youtube-dl. The same goes for any DMCA note when the whole front page of the service is filled with videos they are not allowed to distribute. A "fair use" note is equally unconvincing if the service shows copyright-protected videos in full without authorization.
  689. Support requests for services that **do** purchase the rights to distribute their content are perfectly fine though. If in doubt, you can simply include a source that mentions the legitimate purchase of content.
  690. ### How can I speed up work on my issue?
  691. (Also known as: Help, my important issue not being solved!) The youtube-dl core developer team is quite small. While we do our best to solve as many issues as possible, sometimes that can take quite a while. To speed up your issue, here's what you can do:
  692. First of all, please do report the issue [at our issue tracker](https://yt-dl.org/bugs). That allows us to coordinate all efforts by users and developers, and serves as a unified point. Unfortunately, the youtube-dl project has grown too large to use personal email as an effective communication channel.
  693. Please read the [bug reporting instructions](#bugs) below. A lot of bugs lack all the necessary information. If you can, offer proxy, VPN, or shell access to the youtube-dl developers. If you are able to, test the issue from multiple computers in multiple countries to exclude local censorship or misconfiguration issues.
  694. If nobody is interested in solving your issue, you are welcome to take matters into your own hands and submit a pull request (or coerce/pay somebody else to do so).
  695. Feel free to bump the issue from time to time by writing a small comment ("Issue is still present in youtube-dl version ...from France, but fixed from Belgium"), but please not more than once a month. Please do not declare your issue as `important` or `urgent`.
  696. ### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
  697. For one, have a look at the [list of supported sites](docs/supportedsites.md). Note that it can sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from http://example.com/video/1234567 to http://example.com/v/1234567 ) and youtube-dl reports an URL of a service in that list as unsupported. In that case, simply report a bug.
  698. It is *not* possible to detect whether a URL is supported or not. That's because youtube-dl contains a generic extractor which matches **all** URLs. You may be tempted to disable, exclude, or remove the generic extractor, but the generic extractor not only allows users to extract videos from lots of websites that embed a video from another service, but may also be used to extract video from a service that it's hosting itself. Therefore, we neither recommend nor support disabling, excluding, or removing the generic extractor.
  699. If you want to find out whether a given URL is supported, simply call youtube-dl with it. If you get no videos back, chances are the URL is either not referring to a video or unsupported. You can find out which by examining the output (if you run youtube-dl on the console) or catching an `UnsupportedError` exception if you run it from a Python program.
  700. # Why do I need to go through that much red tape when filing bugs?
  701. Before we had the issue template, despite our extensive [bug reporting instructions](#bugs), about 80% of the issue reports we got were useless, for instance because people used ancient versions hundreds of releases old, because of simple syntactic errors (not in youtube-dl but in general shell usage), because the problem was alrady reported multiple times before, because people did not actually read an error message, even if it said "please install ffmpeg", because people did not mention the URL they were trying to download and many more simple, easy-to-avoid problems, many of whom were totally unrelated to youtube-dl.
  702. youtube-dl is an open-source project manned by too few volunteers, so we'd rather spend time fixing bugs where we are certain none of those simple problems apply, and where we can be reasonably confident to be able to reproduce the issue without asking the reporter repeatedly. As such, the output of `youtube-dl -v YOUR_URL_HERE` is really all that's required to file an issue. The issue template also guides you through some basic steps you can do, such as checking that your version of youtube-dl is current.
  703. # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
  704. Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can [download the builds](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html) or get them from their distribution.
  705. To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
  706. python -m youtube_dl
  707. To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
  708. python -m unittest discover
  709. python test/test_download.py
  710. nosetests
  711. If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
  712. * python
  713. * make (only GNU make is supported)
  714. * pandoc
  715. * zip
  716. * nosetests
  717. ### Adding support for a new site
  718. If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure** this site is **not dedicated to [copyright infringement](#can-you-add-support-for-this-anime-video-site-or-site-which-shows-current-movies-for-free)**. youtube-dl does **not support** such sites thus pull requests adding support for them **will be rejected**.
  719. After you have ensured this site is distributing it's content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
  720. 1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
  721. 2. Check out the source code with:
  722. git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git
  723. 3. Start a new git branch with
  724. cd youtube-dl
  725. git checkout -b yourextractor
  726. 4. Start with this simple template and save it to `youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
  727. ```python
  728. # coding: utf-8
  729. from __future__ import unicode_literals
  730. from .common import InfoExtractor
  731. class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
  732. _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
  733. _TEST = {
  734. 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
  735. 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
  736. 'info_dict': {
  737. 'id': '42',
  738. 'ext': 'mp4',
  739. 'title': 'Video title goes here',
  740. 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
  741. # TODO more properties, either as:
  742. # * A value
  743. # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
  744. # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
  745. # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
  746. }
  747. }
  748. def _real_extract(self, url):
  749. video_id = self._match_id(url)
  750. webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
  751. # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
  752. title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
  753. return {
  754. 'id': video_id,
  755. 'title': title,
  756. 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
  757. 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
  758. # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
  759. }
  760. ```
  761. 5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py).
  762. 6. Run `python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename ``_TEST`` to ``_TESTS`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests will then be named `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
  763. 7. Have a look at [`youtube_dl/extractor/common.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a [detailed description of what your extractor should and may return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L74-L252). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
  764. 8. Make sure your code follows [youtube-dl coding conventions](#youtube-dl-coding-conventions) and check the code with [flake8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flake8). Also make sure your code works under all [Python](http://www.python.org/) versions claimed supported by youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2+.
  765. 9. When the tests pass, [add](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-add) the new files and [commit](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit) them and [push](http://git-scm.com/docs/git-push) the result, like this:
  766. $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
  767. $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
  768. $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
  769. $ git push origin yourextractor
  770. 10. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
  771. In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
  772. ## youtube-dl coding conventions
  773. This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
  774. Extractors are very fragile by nature since they depend on the layout of the source data provided by 3rd party media hoster out of your control and this layout tend to change. As an extractor implementer your task is not only to write code that will extract media links and metadata correctly but also to minimize code dependency on source's layout changes and even to make the code foresee potential future changes and be ready for that. This is important because it will allow extractor not to break on minor layout changes thus keeping old youtube-dl versions working. Even though this breakage issue is easily fixed by emitting a new version of youtube-dl with fix incorporated all the previous version become broken in all repositories and distros' packages that may not be so prompt in fetching the update from us. Needless to say some may never receive an update at all that is possible for non rolling release distros.
  775. ### Mandatory and optional metafields
  776. For extraction to work youtube-dl relies on metadata your extractor extracts and provides to youtube-dl expressed by [information dictionary](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L75-L257) or simply *info dict*. Only the following meta fields in *info dict* are considered mandatory for successful extraction process by youtube-dl:
  777. - `id` (media identifier)
  778. - `title` (media title)
  779. - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
  780. In fact only the last option is technically mandatory (i.e. if you can't figure out the download location of the media the extraction does not make any sense). But by convention youtube-dl also treats `id` and `title` to be mandatory. Thus aforementioned metafields are the critical data the extraction does not make any sense without and if any of them fail to be extracted then extractor is considered completely broken.
  781. [Any field](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L149-L257) apart from the aforementioned ones are considered **optional**. That means that extraction should be **tolerate** to situations when sources for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if they are always available at the moment) and **future-proof** in order not to break the extraction of general purpose mandatory fields.
  782. #### Example
  783. Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
  784. ```python
  785. meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
  786. ```
  787. Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
  788. ```python
  789. {
  790. ...
  791. "summary": "some fancy summary text",
  792. ...
  793. }
  794. ```
  795. Assume you want to extract `summary` and put into resulting info dict as `description`. Since `description` is optional metafield you should be ready that this key may be missing from the `meta` dict, so that you should extract it like:
  796. ```python
  797. description = meta.get('summary') # correct
  798. ```
  799. and not like:
  800. ```python
  801. description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
  802. ```
  803. The latter will break extraction process with `KeyError` if `summary` disappears from `meta` at some time later but with former approach extraction will just go ahead with `description` set to `None` that is perfectly fine (remember `None` is equivalent for absence of data).
  804. Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
  805. ```python
  806. description = self._search_regex(
  807. r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
  808. webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
  809. ```
  810. With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
  811. You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
  812. ```python
  813. description = self._search_regex(
  814. r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
  815. webpage, 'description', default=None)
  816. ```
  817. On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with `description` set to `None`. That is useful for metafields that are known to may or may not be present.
  818. ### Provide fallbacks
  819. When extracting metadata try to provide several scenarios for that. For example if `title` is present in several places/sources try extracting from at least some of them. This would make it more future-proof in case some of the sources became unavailable.
  820. #### Example
  821. Say `meta` from previous example has a `title` and you are about to extract it. Since `title` is mandatory meta field you should end up with something like:
  822. ```python
  823. title = meta['title']
  824. ```
  825. If `title` disappeares from `meta` in future due to some changes on hoster's side the extraction would fail since `title` is mandatory. That's expected.
  826. Assume that you have some another source you can extract `title` from, for example `og:title` HTML meta of a `webpage`. In this case you can provide a fallback scenario:
  827. ```python
  828. title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
  829. ```
  830. This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`.
  831. ### Make regular expressions flexible
  832. When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy and flexible.
  833. #### Example
  834. Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
  835. ```html
  836. <span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
  837. ```
  838. The code for that task should look similar to:
  839. ```python
  840. title = self._search_regex(
  841. r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
  842. ```
  843. Or even better:
  844. ```python
  845. title = self._search_regex(
  846. r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
  847. webpage, 'title', group='title')
  848. ```
  849. Note how you tolerate potential changes in `style` attribute's value or switch from using double quotes to single for `class` attribute:
  850. The code definitely should not look like:
  851. ```python
  852. title = self._search_regex(
  853. r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
  854. webpage, 'title', group='title')
  855. ```
  856. ### Use safe conversion functions
  857. Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from `utils`: `int_or_none`, `float_or_none`. Use them for string to number conversions as well.
  858. # EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
  859. youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter any problems parsing its output, feel free to [create a report](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/new).
  860. From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
  861. ```python
  862. from __future__ import unicode_literals
  863. import youtube_dl
  864. ydl_opts = {}
  865. with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
  866. ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
  867. ```
  868. Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at [`youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L128-L278). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
  869. Here's a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors (and a short message after the download is finished), and downloads/converts the video to an mp3 file:
  870. ```python
  871. from __future__ import unicode_literals
  872. import youtube_dl
  873. class MyLogger(object):
  874. def debug(self, msg):
  875. pass
  876. def warning(self, msg):
  877. pass
  878. def error(self, msg):
  879. print(msg)
  880. def my_hook(d):
  881. if d['status'] == 'finished':
  882. print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
  883. ydl_opts = {
  884. 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
  885. 'postprocessors': [{
  886. 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
  887. 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
  888. 'preferredquality': '192',
  889. }],
  890. 'logger': MyLogger(),
  891. 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
  892. }
  893. with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
  894. ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
  895. ```
  896. # BUGS
  897. Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: <https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>. Unless you were prompted so or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email. For discussions, join us in the IRC channel [#youtube-dl](irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl) on freenode ([webchat](http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl)).
  898. **Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with `-v`**, i.e. **add** `-v` flag to **your command line**, copy the **whole** output and post it in the issue body wrapped in \`\`\` for better formatting. It should look similar to this:
  899. ```
  900. $ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
  901. [debug] System config: []
  902. [debug] User config: []
  903. [debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
  904. [debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
  905. [debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
  906. [debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
  907. [debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
  908. [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
  909. [debug] Proxy map: {}
  910. ...
  911. ```
  912. **Do not post screenshots of verbose log only plain text is acceptable.**
  913. The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
  914. Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
  915. ### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
  916. We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most cases we eventually get the required information after asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may misread some parts.
  917. So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
  918. - What the problem is
  919. - How it could be fixed
  920. - How your proposed solution would look like
  921. If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. As a committer myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
  922. For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the *complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the `-v` flag. The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
  923. If your server has multiple IPs or you suspect censorship, adding `--call-home` may be a good idea to get more diagnostics. If the error is `ERROR: Unable to extract ...` and you cannot reproduce it from multiple countries, add `--dump-pages` (warning: this will yield a rather large output, redirect it to the file `log.txt` by adding `>log.txt 2>&1` to your command-line) or upload the `.dump` files you get when you add `--write-pages` [somewhere](https://gist.github.com/).
  924. **Site support requests must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like `http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc`. There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. `http://www.youtube.com/`) is *not* an example URL.
  925. ### Are you using the latest version?
  926. Before reporting any issue, type `youtube-dl -U`. This should report that you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature requests as well.
  927. ### Is the issue already documented?
  928. Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or browse the [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues) of this repository. If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
  929. ### Why are existing options not enough?
  930. Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at [the list of supported options](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#options). Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.
  931. ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
  932. People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
  933. We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing feature would be useful.
  934. ### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
  935. Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.
  936. In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue. Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand. Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new video service.
  937. ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
  938. Only post features that you (or an incapacitated friend you can personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who requires them.
  939. ### Is your question about youtube-dl?
  940. It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's own application. Please make sure that you are actually using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
  941. # COPYRIGHT
  942. youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
  943. This README file was originally written by [Daniel Bolton](https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public domain.