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Once your YouTube video collection grows, it becomes hard to search and find a specific video. That's where Tube Archivist comes in: By indexing your video collection with metadata from YouTube, you can organize, search and enjoy your archived YouTube videos without hassle offline through a convenient web interface. This includes:
- [Browser Extension](https://github.com/tubearchivist/browser-extension) Tube Archivist Companion, for [Firefox](https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/tubearchivist-companion/) and [Chrome](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tubearchivist-companion/jjnkmicfnfojkkgobdfeieblocadmcie)
For minimal system requirements, the Tube Archivist stack needs around 2GB of available memory for a small testing setup and around 4GB of available memory for a mid to large sized installation. Minimal with dual core with 4 threads, better quad core plus.
This project requires docker. Ensure it is installed and running on your system.
The documentation has additional user provided instructions for [Unraid](https://docs.tubearchivist.com/installation/unraid/), [Synology](https://docs.tubearchivist.com/installation/synology/), [Podman](https://docs.tubearchivist.com/installation/podman/) and [True NAS](https://docs.tubearchivist.com/installation/truenas-scale/).
The instructions here should get you up and running quickly, for Docker beginners and full explanation about each environment variable, see the [docs](https://docs.tubearchivist.com/installation/docker-compose/).
Take a look at the example [docker-compose.yml](https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist/blob/master/docker-compose.yml) and configure the required environment variables.
Always use the *latest* (the default) or a named semantic version tag for the docker images. The *unstable* tags are only for your testing environment, there might not be an update path for these testing builds.
You will see the current version number of **Tube Archivist** in the footer of the interface. There is a daily version check task querying tubearchivist.com, notifying you of any new releases in the footer. To take advantage of the latest fixes and improvements, make sure you are running the *latest and greatest*. After updating, check the footer to verify you are running the expected version.
- This project is tested for updates between one or two releases maximum. Further updates back may or may not be supported and you might have to reset your index and configurations to update. Ideally apply new updates at least once per month.
- There can be breaking changes between updates, particularly as the application grows, new environment variables or settings might be required for you to set in the your docker-compose file. *Always* check the **release notes**: Any breaking changes will be marked there.
- All testing and development is done with the Elasticsearch version number as mentioned in the provided *docker-compose.yml* file. This will be updated when a new release of Elasticsearch is available. Running an older version of Elasticsearch is most likely not going to result in any issues, but it's still recommended to run the same version as mentioned. Use `bbilly1/tubearchivist-es` to automatically get the recommended version.
1. Go through the **settings** page and look at the available options. Particularly set *Download Format* to your desired video quality before downloading. **Tube Archivist** downloads the best available quality by default. To support iOS or MacOS and some other browsers a compatible format must be specified. For example:
2. Subscribe to some of your favorite YouTube channels on the **channels** page.
3. On the **downloads** page, click on *Rescan subscriptions* to add videos from the subscribed channels to your Download queue or click on *Add to download queue* to manually add Video IDs, links, channels or playlists.
4. Click on *Start download* and let **Tube Archivist** to it's thing.
If you have a collision on port `8000`, best solution is to use dockers *HOST_PORT* and *CONTAINER_PORT* distinction: To for example change the interface to port 9000 use `9000:8000` in your docker-compose file.
If you see a message similar to `Unable to access 'path.repo' (/usr/share/elasticsearch/data/snapshot)` or `failed to obtain node locks, tried [/usr/share/elasticsearch/data]` and `maybe these locations are not writable` when initially starting elasticsearch, that probably means the container is not allowed to write files to the volume.
The Elasticsearch index will turn to ***read only*** if the disk usage of the container goes above 95% until the usage drops below 90% again, you will see error messages like `disk usage exceeded flood-stage watermark`.
Similar to that, TubeArchivist will become all sorts of messed up when running out of disk space. There are some error messages in the logs when that happens, but it's best to make sure to have enough disk space before starting to download.
- Video files created by Tube Archivist need to be playable in your browser of choice. Not every codec is compatible with every browser and might require some testing with format selection.
- Every limitation of **yt-dlp** will also be present in Tube Archivist. If **yt-dlp** can't download or extract a video for any reason, Tube Archivist won't be able to either.
- There is currently no flexibility in naming of the media files.
We have come far, nonetheless we are not short of ideas on how to improve and extend this project. Issues waiting for you to be tackled in no particular order:
- [ ] User created playlists, random and repeat controls ([#108](https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist/issues/108), [#220](https://github.com/tubearchivist/tubearchivist/issues/220))
* **console.substack.com**: Interview With Simon of Tube Archivist, [2023-01-29] [[link](https://console.substack.com/p/console-142#%C2%A7interview-with-simon-of-tube-archivist)]
* **reddit.com**: Tube Archivist v0.2 - Now with Full Text Search, [2022-07-24] [[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/w6jfa1/tube_archivist_v02_now_with_full_text_search/)]
* **noted.lol**: How I Control What Media My Kids Watch Using Tube Archivist, [2022-03-27] [[link](https://noted.lol/how-i-control-what-media-my-kids-watch-using-tube-archivist/)]
* **thehomelab.wiki**: Tube Archivist - A Youtube-DL Alternative on Steroids, [2022-01-27] [[link](https://thehomelab.wiki/books/news/page/tube-archivist-a-youtube-dl-alternative-on-steroids)]
* **linuxunplugged.com**: Pick: tubearchivist — Your self-hosted YouTube media server, [2021-09-11] [[link](https://linuxunplugged.com/425)] and [2021-10-05] [[link](https://linuxunplugged.com/426)]
* **reddit.com**: Introducing Tube Archivist, your self hosted Youtube media server, [2021-09-12] [[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/pmj07b/introducing_tube_archivist_your_self_hosted/)]
