tubearchivist/docs/Downloads.md

# Downloads Page
Accessible at `/downloads/` of your Tube Archivist, this page handles all the download functionality.


## Rescan Subscriptions
The **Rescan Subscriptions** icon <img src="assets/icon-rescan.png?raw=true" alt="rescan icon" width="20px" style="margin:0 5px;"> will start a background task to look for new videos from the channels and playlists you are subscribed to.  
Tube Archivist will get available *videos*, *shorts* and *streams* from each channel, you can define the channel and playlist page size on the [settings page](Settings#subscriptions). With the default page size, expect this process to take around 2-3 seconds for each channel or playlist you are subscribed to. A status message will show the progress.

Then for every video found, **Tube Archivist** will skip the video if it has already been downloaded or if you added it to the *ignored* list before. All the other videos will get added to the download queue. Expect this to take around 2 seconds for each video as **Tube Archivist** needs to grab some additional metadata and artwork. New videos will get added at the bottom of the download queue.

## Download Queue
The **Start Download** icon <img src="assets/icon-download.png?raw=true" alt="download icon" width="20px" style="margin:0 5px;"> will start the download process starting from the top of the queue. Take a look at the relevant settings on the [Settings Page](Settings#downloads). Once the process started, a progress message will show with additional details and controls: 
- The stop icon <img src="assets/icon-stop.png?raw=true" alt="stop icon" width="20px" style="margin:0 5px;"> will gracefully stop the download process, once the current video has been finished successfully.
- The cancel icon <img src="assets/icon-close-red.png?raw=true" alt="close icon" width="20px" style="margin:0 5px;"> is equivalent to killing the process and will stop the download immediately. Any leftover files will get deleted, the canceled video will still be available in the download queue.

After downloading, Tube Archivist tries to add new videos to already indexed playlists and if activated on the settings page, get comments for the new videos.

## Add to Download Queue
The **Add to Download Queue** icon <img src="assets/icon-add.png?raw=true" alt="add icon" width="20px" style="margin:0 5px;"> opens a text field to manually add videos to the download queue. Add one item per line. You have a few options:

### Videos
- Add a YouTube video ID, for example *2tdiKTSdE9Y*
- Add a link to a YouTube video, for example *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tdiKTSdE9Y*
- Add a link to a YouTube video by providing the shortened URL, for example *https://youtu.be/2tdiKTSdE9Y*
- Add a link to a shorts video, for example *https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UOfe6e0k7cQ*

### Channels
- When adding a channel, Tube Archivist will ignore the channel page size as described above, this is meant for an initial download of the whole channel. You can still ignore selected videos from the queue before starting the download.
- Download a complete channel including shorts and streams by entering:
  - Channel ID: *UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A*
  - Channel URL: *https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A*
  - Channel *@* alias handler: For example *@TomScottGo*
  - Channel alias URL: *https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo*
- Download videos, live streams or shorts only, by providing a partial channel URL:
  - Videos only: *https://www.youtube.com/@IBRACORP/videos*
  - Shorts only: *https://www.youtube.com/@IBRACORP/shorts*
  - Streams only: *https://www.youtube.com/@IBRACORP/streams*
  - Every other channel sub page will default to download all, for example *https://www.youtube.com/@IBRACORP/featured* will download videos and shorts and streams.

### Playlist
- Add a playlist ID or URL to add every available video in the list to the download queue, for example *https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96C35uN7xGLLeET0dOWaKHkAlPsrkcha* or *PL96C35uN7xGLLeET0dOWaKHkAlPsrkcha*. 
- When adding a playlist to the queue, this playlist will automatically get [indexed](Playlists#playlist-detail).
- When you add a link to a video in a playlist, Tube Archivist assumes you want to download only the specific video and not the whole playlist, for example *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINVwWHlzTY&list=PL96C35uN7xGLLeET0dOWaKHkAlPsrkcha* will only add one video *CINVwWHlzTY* to the queue.

## The Download Queue
Below the three buttons you find the download queue. New items will get added at the bottom of the queue, the next video to download once you click on **Start Download** will be the first in the list.

You can filter the download queue with the **filter** dropdown box, the filter will show once you have more than one channel in the download queue. Select the channel to filter by name, the number in parentheses indicates how many videos you have pending from this channel. Reset the filter by selecting *all* from the dropdown. This will generate links for the top 30 channels with pending videos.

Every video in the download queue has two buttons:
- **Ignore**: This will remove that video from the download queue and this video will not get added again, even when you **Rescan Subscriptions**.
- **Download now**: This will give priority to this video. If the download process is already running, the prioritized video will get downloaded as soon as the current video is finished. If there is no download process running, this will start downloading this single video and stop after that.  

You can flip the view by activating **Show Only Ignored Videos**. This will show all videos you have previously *ignored*.  
Every video in the ignored list has two buttons:
- **Forget**: This will delete the item from the ignored list.
- **Add to Queue**: This will add the ignored video back to the download queue.  

You can delete your download queue from the [Settings](Settings#actions) page.