youtube-dl: Download videos from YouTube.com

What is it?

youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.4 or later, and it's not platform specific. It should work in your Unix box, in Windows or in Mac OS X. The latest version is @PROGRAM_VERSION@. It's licensed under the MIT License, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like complying with a few simple conditions.

I'll try to keep it updated if YouTube.com changes the way you access their videos. After all, it's a simple and short program. However, I can't guarantee anything. If you detect it stops working, check for new versions and/or inform me about the problem, indicating the program version you are using. If the program stops working and I can't solve the problem but you have a solution, I'd like to know it. If that happens and you feel you can maintain the program yourself, tell me. My contact information is at freshmeat.net.

Thanks for all the feedback received so far. I'm glad people find my program useful.

Related projects: metacafe-dl pornotube-dl

Usage instructions

In Windows, once you have installed the Python interpreter, save the program with the .py extension and put it somewhere in the PATH. Try to follow the guide to install youtube-dl under Windows XP.

In Unix, download it, give it execution permission and copy it to one of the PATH directories (typically, /usr/local/bin).

After that, you should be able to call it from the command line as youtube-dl or youtube-dl.py. I will use youtube-dl in the following examples. Usage instructions are easy. Use youtube-dl followed by a video URL or identifier. Example: youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar". The video will be saved to the file foobar.flv in that example. As YouTube.com videos are in Flash Video format, their extension should be flv. In Linux and other unices, video players using a recent version of ffmpeg can play them. That includes MPlayer, VLC, etc. Those two work under Windows and other platforms, but you could also get a specific FLV player of your taste.

If you try to run the program and you receive an error message containing the keyword SyntaxError near the end, it means your Python interpreter is too old.

More usage tips

You can change the file name of the video using the -o option, like in youtube-dl -o vid.flv "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar".
Some videos require an account to be downloaded, mostly because they're flagged as mature content. You can pass the program a username and password for a YouTube.com account with the -u and -p options, like youtube-dl -u myusername -p mypassword "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar".
The account data can also be read from the user .netrc file by indicating the -n or --netrc option. The machine name is youtube in that case.
The simulate mode (activated with -s or --simulate) can be used to just get the real video URL and use it with a download manager if you prefer that option.
The quiet mode (activated with -q or --quiet) can be used to supress all output messages. This allows, in systems featuring /dev/stdout and other similar special files, outputting the video data to standard output in order to pipe it to another program without interferences.
The program can be told to simply print the final video URL to standard output using the -g or --get-url option.
Combined with the above option, the -2 or --title-too option tells the program to print the video title too.
The default filename is video_id.flv. But you can also use the video title in the filename with the -t or --title option, or preserve the literal title in the filename with the -l or --literal option.
You can make the program append &fmt=something to the URL by using the -f or --format option. This makes it possible to download high quality versions of the videos when available.
youtube-dl can attempt to download the best quality version of a video by using the -b or --best-quality option.
youtube-dl honors the http_proxy environment variable if you want to use a proxy. Set it to something like http://proxy.example.com:8080, and do not leave the http:// prefix out.
You can get the program version by calling it as youtube-dl -v or youtube-dl --version.
For usage instructions, use youtube-dl -h or youtube-dl --help.
You can cancel the program at any time pressing Ctrl+C. It may print some error lines saying something about KeyboardInterrupt. That's ok.

Download it

Note that if you directly click on these hyperlinks, your web browser will most likely display the program contents. It's usually better to right-click on it and choose the appropriate option, normally called Save Target As or Save Link As, depending on the web browser you are using.

@PROGRAM_VERSION@

MD5: @PROGRAM_MD5SUM@
SHA1: @PROGRAM_SHA1SUM@
SHA256: @PROGRAM_SHA256SUM@