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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. - [VIDEO SELECTION](#video-selection)
  8. - [FAQ](#faq)
  9. - [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
  10. - [BUGS](#bugs)
  11. - [COPYRIGHT](#copyright)
  12. # INSTALLATION
  13. To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
  14. sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  15. sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  16. If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
  17. sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  18. sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  19. Windows users can [download a .exe file](https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl.exe) and place it in their home directory or any other location on their [PATH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_%28variable%29).
  20. OS X users can install **youtube-dl** with [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/).
  21. brew install youtube-dl
  22. You can also use pip:
  23. sudo pip install youtube-dl
  24. Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions below for how to check out and work with the git repository. For further options, including PGP signatures, see https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html .
  25. # DESCRIPTION
  26. **youtube-dl** is a small command-line program to download videos from
  27. YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version
  28. 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on
  29. your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the public domain,
  30. which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like.
  31. youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
  32. # OPTIONS
  33. -h, --help print this help text and exit
  34. --version print program version and exit
  35. -U, --update update this program to latest version. Make
  36. sure that you have sufficient permissions
  37. (run with sudo if needed)
  38. -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors, for example to
  39. skip unavailable videos in a playlist
  40. --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
  41. playlist or the command line) if an error
  42. occurs
  43. --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
  44. --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs
  45. they would handle
  46. --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
  47. extractors
  48. --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
  49. example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
  50. from google videos for youtube-dl "large
  51. apple". Use the value "auto" to let
  52. youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
  53. warning when guessing). "error" just throws
  54. an error. The default value "fixup_error"
  55. repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
  56. this is not possible instead of searching.
  57. --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
  58. in the global configuration file /etc
  59. /youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
  60. configuration in ~/.config/youtube-
  61. dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt
  62. on Windows)
  63. --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
  64. only list them.
  65. ## Network Options:
  66. --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
  67. an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
  68. connection
  69. --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
  70. --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
  71. (experimental)
  72. -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
  73. (experimental)
  74. -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
  75. (experimental)
  76. ## Video Selection:
  77. --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
  78. --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
  79. --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or
  80. caseless sub-string)
  81. --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
  82. caseless sub-string)
  83. --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
  84. --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
  85. SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
  86. --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
  87. (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
  88. --date DATE download only videos uploaded in this date
  89. --datebefore DATE download only videos uploaded on or before
  90. this date (i.e. inclusive)
  91. --dateafter DATE download only videos uploaded on or after
  92. this date (i.e. inclusive)
  93. --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
  94. COUNT views
  95. --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
  96. COUNT views
  97. --no-playlist If the URL refers to a video and a
  98. playlist, download only the video.
  99. --age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given
  100. age
  101. --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
  102. archive file. Record the IDs of all
  103. downloaded videos in it.
  104. --include-ads Download advertisements as well
  105. (experimental)
  106. ## Download Options:
  107. -r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
  108. (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
  109. -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
  110. --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
  111. (default is 1024)
  112. --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer
  113. size. By default, the buffer size is
  114. automatically resized from an initial value
  115. of SIZE.
  116. --playlist-reverse Download playlist videos in reverse order
  117. ## Filesystem Options:
  118. -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
  119. stdin)
  120. --id use only video ID in file name
  121. -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to
  122. get the title, %(uploader)s for the
  123. uploader name, %(uploader_id)s for the
  124. uploader nickname if different,
  125. %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
  126. incremented number, %(ext)s for the
  127. filename extension, %(format)s for the
  128. format description (like "22 - 1280x720" or
  129. "HD"), %(format_id)s for the unique id of
  130. the format (like Youtube's itags: "137"),
  131. %(upload_date)s for the upload date
  132. (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
  133. (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
  134. video id, %(playlist_title)s,
  135. %(playlist_id)s, or %(playlist)s (=title if
  136. present, ID otherwise) for the playlist the
  137. video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
  138. position in the playlist. %(height)s and
  139. %(width)s for the width and height of the
  140. video format. %(resolution)s for a textual
  141. description of the resolution of the video
  142. format. %% for a literal percent. Use - to
  143. output to stdout. Can also be used to
  144. download to a different directory, for
  145. example with -o '/my/downloads/%(uploader)s
  146. /%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
  147. --autonumber-size NUMBER Specifies the number of digits in
  148. %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
  149. filename template or --auto-number option
  150. is given
  151. --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
  152. characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
  153. filenames
  154. -A, --auto-number [deprecated; use -o
  155. "%(autonumber)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s" ] number
  156. downloaded files starting from 00000
  157. -t, --title [deprecated] use title in file name
  158. (default)
  159. -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
  160. -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
  161. -c, --continue force resume of partially downloaded files.
  162. By default, youtube-dl will resume
  163. downloads if possible.
  164. --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files
  165. (restart from beginning)
  166. --no-part do not use .part files - write directly
  167. into output file
  168. --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set
  169. the file modification time
  170. --write-description write video description to a .description
  171. file
  172. --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
  173. --write-annotations write video annotations to a .annotation
  174. file
  175. --write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
  176. --load-info FILE json file containing the video information
  177. (created with the "--write-json" option)
  178. --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie
  179. jar in
  180. --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
  181. can store some downloaded information
  182. permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
  183. /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
  184. moment, only YouTube player files (for
  185. videos with obfuscated signatures) are
  186. cached, but that may change.
  187. --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
  188. --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
  189. ## Verbosity / Simulation Options:
  190. -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
  191. --no-warnings Ignore warnings
  192. -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write
  193. anything to disk
  194. --skip-download do not download the video
  195. -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
  196. -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
  197. --get-id simulate, quiet but print id
  198. --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
  199. --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
  200. --get-duration simulate, quiet but print video length
  201. --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
  202. --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
  203. -j, --dump-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
  204. See --output for a description of available
  205. keys.
  206. -J, --dump-single-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information
  207. for each command-line argument. If the URL
  208. refers to a playlist, dump the whole
  209. playlist information in a single line.
  210. --print-json Be quiet and print the video information as
  211. JSON (video is still being downloaded).
  212. --newline output progress bar as new lines
  213. --no-progress do not print progress bar
  214. --console-title display progress in console titlebar
  215. -v, --verbose print various debugging information
  216. --dump-intermediate-pages print downloaded pages to debug problems
  217. (very verbose)
  218. --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
  219. files in the current directory to debug
  220. problems
  221. --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
  222. -C, --call-home Contact the youtube-dl server for
  223. debugging. (Experimental)
  224. ## Workarounds:
  225. --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
  226. --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
  227. --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
  228. information about the video. (Currently
  229. supported only for YouTube)
  230. --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
  231. --referer URL specify a custom referer, use if the video
  232. access is restricted to one domain
  233. --add-header FIELD:VALUE specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
  234. separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
  235. option multiple times
  236. --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
  237. bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
  238. or fribidi executable in PATH
  239. ## Video Format Options:
  240. -f, --format FORMAT video format code, specify the order of
  241. preference using slashes, as in -f 22/17/18
  242. . Instead of format codes, you can select
  243. by extension for the extensions aac, m4a,
  244. mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, webm. You can also use
  245. the special names "best", "bestvideo",
  246. "bestaudio", "worst". By default, youtube-
  247. dl will pick the best quality. Use commas
  248. to download multiple audio formats, such as
  249. -f
  250. 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio.
  251. You can merge the video and audio of two
  252. formats into a single file using -f <video-
  253. format>+<audio-format> (requires ffmpeg or
  254. avconv), for example -f
  255. bestvideo+bestaudio.
  256. --all-formats download all available video formats
  257. --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific
  258. one is requested
  259. --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
  260. -F, --list-formats list all available formats
  261. --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifest on
  262. YouTube videos
  263. --merge-output-format FORMAT If a merge is required (e.g.
  264. bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
  265. container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg,
  266. webm, flv.Ignored if no merge is required
  267. ## Subtitle Options:
  268. --write-sub write subtitle file
  269. --write-auto-sub write automatic subtitle file (youtube
  270. only)
  271. --all-subs downloads all the available subtitles of
  272. the video
  273. --list-subs lists all available subtitles for the video
  274. --sub-format FORMAT subtitle format (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt]
  275. youtube only)
  276. --sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download
  277. (optional) separated by commas, use IETF
  278. language tags like 'en,pt'
  279. ## Authentication Options:
  280. -u, --username USERNAME login with this account ID
  281. -p, --password PASSWORD account password
  282. -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR two-factor auth code
  283. -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
  284. --video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo, smotri)
  285. ## Post-processing Options:
  286. -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files
  287. (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
  288. avprobe)
  289. --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a",
  290. "opus", or "wav"; "best" by default
  291. --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification,
  292. insert a value between 0 (better) and 9
  293. (worse) for VBR or a specific bitrate like
  294. 128K (default 5)
  295. --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
  296. necessary (currently supported:
  297. mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv)
  298. -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the
  299. post-processing; the video is erased by
  300. default
  301. --no-post-overwrites do not overwrite post-processed files; the
  302. post-processed files are overwritten by
  303. default
  304. --embed-subs embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
  305. videos)
  306. --embed-thumbnail embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
  307. --add-metadata write metadata to the video file
  308. --xattrs write metadata to the video file's xattrs
  309. (using dublin core and xdg standards)
  310. --fixup POLICY (experimental) Automatically correct known
  311. faults of the file. One of never (do
  312. nothing), warn (only emit a warning),
  313. detect_or_warn(check whether we can do
  314. anything about it, warn otherwise
  315. --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
  316. postprocessors (default)
  317. --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
  318. postprocessors
  319. --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
  320. downloading, similar to find's -exec
  321. syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
  322. /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
  323. # CONFIGURATION
  324. You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as `--extract-audio --no-mtime` to always extract the audio and not copy the mtime) into `/etc/youtube-dl.conf` and/or `~/.config/youtube-dl/config`. On Windows, the configuration file locations are `%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt` and `C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf`.
  325. # OUTPUT TEMPLATE
  326. The `-o` option allows users to indicate a template for the output file names. 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 parenthesis, followed by a lowercase S. Allowed names are:
  327. - `id`: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
  328. - `url`: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
  329. - `uploader`: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who uploaded the video.
  330. - `upload_date`: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in YYYYMMDD format.
  331. - `title`: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
  332. - `ext`: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like flv or mp4).
  333. - `epoch`: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the file.
  334. - `autonumber`: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
  335. - `playlist`: The name or the id of the playlist that contains the video.
  336. - `playlist_index`: The index of the video in the playlist, a five-digit number.
  337. The current default template is `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`.
  338. 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:
  339. ```bash
  340. $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
  341. youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
  342. $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
  343. youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
  344. ```
  345. # VIDEO SELECTION
  346. Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options `--date`, `--datebefore` or `--dateafter`, they accept dates in two formats:
  347. - Absolute dates: Dates in the format `YYYYMMDD`.
  348. - Relative dates: Dates in the format `(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?`
  349. Examples:
  350. ```bash
  351. # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
  352. $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
  353. # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
  354. $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
  355. $ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
  356. $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
  357. ```
  358. # FAQ
  359. ### How do I update youtube-dl?
  360. 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`).
  361. If you have used pip, a simple `sudo pip install -U youtube-dl` is sufficient to update.
  362. 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 distributions serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
  363. 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
  364. sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
  365. Afterwards, simply follow [our manual installation instructions](http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html):
  366. ```
  367. sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  368. sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
  369. hash -r
  370. ```
  371. Again, from then on you'll be able to update with `sudo youtube-dl -U`.
  372. ### I'm getting an error `Unable to extract OpenGraph title` on YouTube playlists
  373. 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.
  374. 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.
  375. ### Do I always have to pass in `--max-quality FORMAT`, or `-citw`?
  376. 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, `--max-quality` *limits* the video quality (so if you want the best quality, do NOT pass it in), and the only option out of `-citw` that is regularly useful is `-i`.
  377. ### Can you please put the -b option back?
  378. 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.
  379. ### I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
  380. 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.
  381. ### I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
  382. Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as [vlc](http://www.videolan.org) or [mplayer](http://www.mplayerhq.hu/).
  383. ### The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
  384. The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct 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.
  385. ### ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
  386. youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
  387. ### ERROR: unable to download video ###
  388. youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with `sudo youtube-dl --update`.
  389. ### SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ###
  390. The error
  391. File "youtube-dl", line 2
  392. SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
  393. means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.
  394. ### What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
  395. Since June 2012 (#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`.
  396. ### The exe throws a *Runtime error from Visual C++*
  397. To run the exe you need to install first the [Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29).
  398. ### On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
  399. 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.
  400. 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.
  401. 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.
  402. ### How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
  403. For one, have a look at the [list of supported sites](docs/supportedsites). Note that it can sometimes happen that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from http://example.com/v/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.
  404. 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.
  405. 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.
  406. # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
  407. 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.
  408. To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
  409. python -m youtube_dl
  410. To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
  411. python -m unittest discover
  412. python test/test_download.py
  413. nosetests
  414. If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
  415. * python
  416. * make
  417. * pandoc
  418. * zip
  419. * nosetests
  420. ### Adding support for a new site
  421. If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
  422. 1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork)
  423. 2. Check out the source code with `git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git`
  424. 3. Start a new git branch with `cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor`
  425. 4. Start with this simple template and save it to `youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
  426. ```python
  427. # coding: utf-8
  428. from __future__ import unicode_literals
  429. from .common import InfoExtractor
  430. class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
  431. _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
  432. _TEST = {
  433. 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
  434. 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
  435. 'info_dict': {
  436. 'id': '42',
  437. 'ext': 'mp4',
  438. 'title': 'Video title goes here',
  439. 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
  440. # TODO more properties, either as:
  441. # * A value
  442. # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
  443. # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
  444. # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
  445. }
  446. }
  447. def _real_extract(self, url):
  448. video_id = self._match_id(url)
  449. webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
  450. # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
  451. title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
  452. return {
  453. 'id': video_id,
  454. 'title': title,
  455. 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
  456. # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
  457. }
  458. ```
  459. 5. Add an import in [`youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py`](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py).
  460. 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 be then be named `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc.
  461. 7. Have a look at [`youtube_dl/common/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 return](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L38). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
  462. 8. If you can, check the code with [pyflakes](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyflakes) (a good idea) and [pep8](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8) (optional, ignore E501).
  463. 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:
  464. $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
  465. $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
  466. $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
  467. $ git push origin yourextractor
  468. 10. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
  469. In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
  470. # EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
  471. 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).
  472. From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful fashion, like this:
  473. ```python
  474. import youtube_dl
  475. ydl_opts = {}
  476. with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
  477. ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
  478. ```
  479. Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of what can be done, have a look at [youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L69). For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a `logger` object.
  480. 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:
  481. ```python
  482. import youtube_dl
  483. class MyLogger(object):
  484. def debug(self, msg):
  485. pass
  486. def warning(self, msg):
  487. pass
  488. def error(self, msg):
  489. print(msg)
  490. def my_hook(d):
  491. if d['status'] == 'finished':
  492. print('Done downloading, now converting ...')
  493. ydl_opts = {
  494. 'format': 'bestaudio/best',
  495. 'postprocessors': [{
  496. 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
  497. 'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
  498. 'preferredquality': '192',
  499. }],
  500. 'logger': MyLogger(),
  501. 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
  502. }
  503. with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
  504. ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
  505. ```
  506. # BUGS
  507. 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 on freenode.
  508. **Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with `-v`**.
  509. The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
  510. Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
  511. ### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
  512. 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.
  513. So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
  514. - What the problem is
  515. - How it could be fixed
  516. - How your proposed solution would look like
  517. 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 commiter 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.
  518. 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.
  519. 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.
  520. ### Are you using the latest version?
  521. 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.
  522. ### Is the issue already documented?
  523. Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or at https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . 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.
  524. ### Why are existing options not enough?
  525. 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#synopsis). 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.
  526. ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
  527. 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).
  528. 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.
  529. ### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
  530. 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.
  531. 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.
  532. ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
  533. Only post features that you (or an incapicated 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.
  534. ### Is your question about youtube-dl?
  535. 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.
  536. # COPYRIGHT
  537. youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
  538. This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton (<https://github.com/dbbolton>) and is likewise released into the public domain.