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1 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
2 <div align="center">
4 [](#readme)
6 [](#installation "Installation")
7 [](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp "PyPi")
8 [](Collaborators.md#collaborators "Donate")
9 [](https://matrix.to/#/#yt-dlp:matrix.org "Matrix")
10 [](https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r "Discord")
11 [](supportedsites.md "Supported Sites")
12 [](LICENSE "License")
13 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/actions "CI Status")
14 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits "Commit History")
15 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pulse/monthly "Last activity")
17 </div>
18 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
20 yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with support for [thousands of sites](supportedsites.md). The project is a fork of [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) based on the now inactive [youtube-dlc](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc).
22 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "USAGE AND OPTIONS" SECTION HERE -->
24 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
25 * [INSTALLATION](#installation)
26 * [Detailed instructions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation)
27 * [Release Files](#release-files)
28 * [Update](#update)
29 * [Dependencies](#dependencies)
30 * [Compile](#compile)
31 * [USAGE AND OPTIONS](#usage-and-options)
32 * [General Options](#general-options)
33 * [Network Options](#network-options)
34 * [Geo-restriction](#geo-restriction)
35 * [Video Selection](#video-selection)
36 * [Download Options](#download-options)
37 * [Filesystem Options](#filesystem-options)
38 * [Thumbnail Options](#thumbnail-options)
39 * [Internet Shortcut Options](#internet-shortcut-options)
40 * [Verbosity and Simulation Options](#verbosity-and-simulation-options)
41 * [Workarounds](#workarounds)
42 * [Video Format Options](#video-format-options)
43 * [Subtitle Options](#subtitle-options)
44 * [Authentication Options](#authentication-options)
45 * [Post-processing Options](#post-processing-options)
46 * [SponsorBlock Options](#sponsorblock-options)
47 * [Extractor Options](#extractor-options)
48 * [CONFIGURATION](#configuration)
49 * [Configuration file encoding](#configuration-file-encoding)
50 * [Authentication with netrc](#authentication-with-netrc)
51 * [Notes about environment variables](#notes-about-environment-variables)
52 * [OUTPUT TEMPLATE](#output-template)
53 * [Output template examples](#output-template-examples)
54 * [FORMAT SELECTION](#format-selection)
55 * [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats)
56 * [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats)
57 * [Format Selection examples](#format-selection-examples)
58 * [MODIFYING METADATA](#modifying-metadata)
59 * [Modifying metadata examples](#modifying-metadata-examples)
60 * [EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS](#extractor-arguments)
61 * [PLUGINS](#plugins)
62 * [Installing Plugins](#installing-plugins)
63 * [Developing Plugins](#developing-plugins)
64 * [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](#embedding-yt-dlp)
65 * [Embedding examples](#embedding-examples)
66 * [CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL](#changes-from-youtube-dl)
67 * [New features](#new-features)
68 * [Differences in default behavior](#differences-in-default-behavior)
69 * [Deprecated options](#deprecated-options)
70 * [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp)
71 * [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue)
72 * [Developer Instructions](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
73 * [WIKI](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki)
74 * [FAQ](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ)
75 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
78 # INSTALLATION
80 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
81 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)
82 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)
83 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)
84 [](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp)
85 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
86 [](#release-files)
87 [](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases)
88 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
90 You can install yt-dlp using [the binaries](#release-files), [pip](https://pypi.org/project/yt-dlp) or one using a third-party package manager. See [the wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation) for detailed instructions
93 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
94 ## RELEASE FILES
96 #### Recommended
98 File|Description
99 :---|:---
100 [yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp)|Platform-independent [zipimport](https://docs.python.org/3/library/zipimport.html) binary. Needs Python (recommended for **Linux/BSD**)
101 [yt-dlp.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary (recommended for **Windows**)
102 [yt-dlp_macos](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos)|Universal MacOS (10.15+) standalone executable (recommended for **MacOS**)
104 #### Alternatives
106 File|Description
107 :---|:---
108 [yt-dlp_x86.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_x86.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x86 (32-bit) binary
109 [yt-dlp_min.exe](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_min.exe)|Windows (Win7 SP1+) standalone x64 binary built with `py2exe`<br/> ([Not recommended](#standalone-py2exe-builds-windows))
110 [yt-dlp_linux](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux)|Linux standalone x64 binary
111 [yt-dlp_linux_armv7l](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux_armv7l)|Linux standalone armv7l (32-bit) binary
112 [yt-dlp_linux_aarch64](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux_aarch64)|Linux standalone aarch64 (64-bit) binary
113 [yt-dlp_win.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_win.zip)|Unpackaged Windows executable (no auto-update)
114 [yt-dlp_macos.zip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos.zip)|Unpackaged MacOS (10.15+) executable (no auto-update)
115 [yt-dlp_macos_legacy](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_macos_legacy)|MacOS (10.9+) standalone x64 executable
117 #### Misc
119 File|Description
120 :---|:---
121 [yt-dlp.tar.gz](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)|Source tarball
122 [SHA2-512SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-512SUMS)|GNU-style SHA512 sums
123 [SHA2-512SUMS.sig](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-512SUMS.sig)|GPG signature file for SHA512 sums
124 [SHA2-256SUMS](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-256SUMS)|GNU-style SHA256 sums
125 [SHA2-256SUMS.sig](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/SHA2-256SUMS.sig)|GPG signature file for SHA256 sums
127 The public key that can be used to verify the GPG signatures is [available here](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/public.key)
128 Example usage:
129 ```
130 curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/raw/master/public.key | gpg --import
131 gpg --verify SHA2-256SUMS.sig SHA2-256SUMS
132 gpg --verify SHA2-512SUMS.sig SHA2-512SUMS
133 ```
134 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
136 **Note**: The manpages, shell completion (autocomplete) files etc. are available inside the [source tarball](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp.tar.gz)
139 ## UPDATE
140 You can use `yt-dlp -U` to update if you are using the [release binaries](#release-files)
142 If you [installed with pip](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation#with-pip), simply re-run the same command that was used to install the program
144 For other third-party package managers, see [the wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation#third-party-package-managers) or refer to their documentation
146 <a id="update-channels"></a>
148 There are currently three release channels for binaries: `stable`, `nightly` and `master`.
150 * `stable` is the default channel, and many of its changes have been tested by users of the `nightly` and `master` channels.
151 * The `nightly` channel has releases scheduled to build every day around midnight UTC, for a snapshot of the project's new patches and changes. This is the **recommended channel for regular users** of yt-dlp. The `nightly` releases are available from [yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases) or as development releases of the `yt-dlp` PyPI package (which can be installed with pip's `--pre` flag).
152 * The `master` channel features releases that are built after each push to the master branch, and these will have the very latest fixes and additions, but may also be more prone to regressions. They are available from [yt-dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-master-builds/releases).
154 When using `--update`/`-U`, a release binary will only update to its current channel.
155 `--update-to CHANNEL` can be used to switch to a different channel when a newer version is available. `--update-to [CHANNEL@]TAG` can also be used to upgrade or downgrade to specific tags from a channel.
157 You may also use `--update-to <repository>` (`<owner>/<repository>`) to update to a channel on a completely different repository. Be careful with what repository you are updating to though, there is no verification done for binaries from different repositories.
159 Example usage:
161 * `yt-dlp --update-to master` switch to the `master` channel and update to its latest release
162 * `yt-dlp --update-to stable@2023.07.06` upgrade/downgrade to release to `stable` channel tag `2023.07.06`
163 * `yt-dlp --update-to 2023.10.07` upgrade/downgrade to tag `2023.10.07` if it exists on the current channel
164 * `yt-dlp --update-to example/yt-dlp@2023.09.24` upgrade/downgrade to the release from the `example/yt-dlp` repository, tag `2023.09.24`
166 **Important**: Any user experiencing an issue with the `stable` release should install or update to the `nightly` release before submitting a bug report:
167 ```
168 # To update to nightly from stable executable/binary:
169 yt-dlp --update-to nightly
171 # To install nightly with pip:
172 python3 -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"
173 ```
175 ## DEPENDENCIES
176 Python versions 3.8+ (CPython and PyPy) are supported. Other versions and implementations may or may not work correctly.
178 <!-- Python 3.5+ uses VC++14 and it is already embedded in the binary created
179 <!x-- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26999 --x>
180 On windows, [Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86)](https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/5/165255E7-1014-4D0A-B094-B6A430A6BFFC/vcredist_x86.exe) is also necessary to run yt-dlp. You probably already have this, but if the executable throws an error due to missing `MSVCR100.dll` you need to install it manually.
181 -->
183 While all the other dependencies are optional, `ffmpeg` and `ffprobe` are highly recommended
185 ### Strongly recommended
187 * [**ffmpeg** and **ffprobe**](https://www.ffmpeg.org) - Required for [merging separate video and audio files](#format-selection), as well as for various [post-processing](#post-processing-options) tasks. License [depends on the build](https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html)
189 There are bugs in ffmpeg that cause various issues when used alongside yt-dlp. Since ffmpeg is such an important dependency, we provide [custom builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#ffmpeg-static-auto-builds) with patches for some of these issues at [yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds). See [the readme](https://github.com/yt-dlp/FFmpeg-Builds#patches-applied) for details on the specific issues solved by these builds
191 **Important**: What you need is ffmpeg *binary*, **NOT** [the Python package of the same name](https://pypi.org/project/ffmpeg)
193 ### Networking
194 * [**certifi**](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi)\* - Provides Mozilla's root certificate bundle. Licensed under [MPLv2](https://github.com/certifi/python-certifi/blob/master/LICENSE)
195 * [**brotli**](https://github.com/google/brotli)\* or [**brotlicffi**](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi) - [Brotli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotli) content encoding support. Both licensed under MIT <sup>[1](https://github.com/google/brotli/blob/master/LICENSE) [2](https://github.com/python-hyper/brotlicffi/blob/master/LICENSE) </sup>
196 * [**websockets**](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets)\* - For downloading over websocket. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blob/main/LICENSE)
197 * [**requests**](https://github.com/psf/requests)\* - HTTP library. For HTTPS proxy and persistent connections support. Licensed under [Apache-2.0](https://github.com/psf/requests/blob/main/LICENSE)
199 #### Impersonation
201 The following provide support for impersonating browser requests. This may be required for some sites that employ TLS fingerprinting.
203 * [**curl_cffi**](https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi) (recommended) - Python binding for [curl-impersonate](https://github.com/lexiforest/curl-impersonate). Provides impersonation targets for Chrome, Edge and Safari. Licensed under [MIT](https://github.com/lexiforest/curl_cffi/blob/main/LICENSE)
204 * Can be installed with the `curl-cffi` group, e.g. `pip install "yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi]"`
205 * Currently included in `yt-dlp.exe`, `yt-dlp_linux` and `yt-dlp_macos` builds
208 ### Metadata
210 * [**mutagen**](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen)\* - For `--embed-thumbnail` in certain formats. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/quodlibet/mutagen/blob/master/COPYING)
211 * [**AtomicParsley**](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley) - For `--embed-thumbnail` in `mp4`/`m4a` files when `mutagen`/`ffmpeg` cannot. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/wez/atomicparsley/blob/master/COPYING)
212 * [**xattr**](https://github.com/xattr/xattr), [**pyxattr**](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr) or [**setfattr**](http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/attr) - For writing xattr metadata (`--xattr`) on **Mac** and **BSD**. Licensed under [MIT](https://github.com/xattr/xattr/blob/master/LICENSE.txt), [LGPL2.1](https://github.com/iustin/pyxattr/blob/master/COPYING) and [GPLv2+](http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/attr.git/tree/doc/COPYING) respectively
214 ### Misc
216 * [**pycryptodomex**](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome)\* - For decrypting AES-128 HLS streams and various other data. Licensed under [BSD-2-Clause](https://github.com/Legrandin/pycryptodome/blob/master/LICENSE.rst)
217 * [**phantomjs**](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs) - Used in extractors where javascript needs to be run. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/LICENSE.BSD)
218 * [**secretstorage**](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage)\* - For `--cookies-from-browser` to access the **Gnome** keyring while decrypting cookies of **Chromium**-based browsers on **Linux**. Licensed under [BSD-3-Clause](https://github.com/mitya57/secretstorage/blob/master/LICENSE)
219 * Any external downloader that you want to use with `--downloader`
221 ### Deprecated
223 * [**avconv** and **avprobe**](https://www.libav.org) - Now **deprecated** alternative to ffmpeg. License [depends on the build](https://libav.org/legal)
224 * [**sponskrub**](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) - For using the now **deprecated** [sponskrub options](#sponskrub-options). Licensed under [GPLv3+](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub/blob/master/LICENCE.md)
225 * [**rtmpdump**](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu) - For downloading `rtmp` streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with `--downloader ffmpeg`. Licensed under [GPLv2+](http://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu)
226 * [**mplayer**](http://mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html) or [**mpv**](https://mpv.io) - For downloading `rstp`/`mms` streams. ffmpeg can be used instead with `--downloader ffmpeg`. Licensed under [GPLv2+](https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/blob/master/Copyright)
228 To use or redistribute the dependencies, you must agree to their respective licensing terms.
230 The standalone release binaries are built with the Python interpreter and the packages marked with **\*** included.
232 If you do not have the necessary dependencies for a task you are attempting, yt-dlp will warn you. All the currently available dependencies are visible at the top of the `--verbose` output
235 ## COMPILE
237 ### Standalone PyInstaller Builds
238 To build the standalone executable, you must have Python and `pyinstaller` (plus any of yt-dlp's [optional dependencies](#dependencies) if needed). The executable will be built for the same CPU architecture as the Python used.
240 You can run the following commands:
242 ```
243 python3 devscripts/install_deps.py --include pyinstaller
244 python3 devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
245 python3 -m bundle.pyinstaller
246 ```
248 On some systems, you may need to use `py` or `python` instead of `python3`.
250 `python -m bundle.pyinstaller` accepts any arguments that can be passed to `pyinstaller`, such as `--onefile/-F` or `--onedir/-D`, which is further [documented here](https://pyinstaller.org/en/stable/usage.html#what-to-generate).
252 **Note**: Pyinstaller versions below 4.4 [do not support](https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller#requirements-and-tested-platforms) Python installed from the Windows store without using a virtual environment.
254 **Important**: Running `pyinstaller` directly **instead of** using `python -m bundle.pyinstaller` is **not** officially supported. This may or may not work correctly.
256 ### Platform-independent Binary (UNIX)
257 You will need the build tools `python` (3.8+), `zip`, `make` (GNU), `pandoc`\* and `pytest`\*.
259 After installing these, simply run `make`.
261 You can also run `make yt-dlp` instead to compile only the binary without updating any of the additional files. (The build tools marked with **\*** are not needed for this)
263 ### Standalone Py2Exe Builds (Windows)
265 While we provide the option to build with [py2exe](https://www.py2exe.org), it is recommended to build [using PyInstaller](#standalone-pyinstaller-builds) instead since the py2exe builds **cannot contain `pycryptodomex`/`certifi`/`requests` and need VC++14** on the target computer to run.
267 If you wish to build it anyway, install Python (if it is not already installed) and you can run the following commands:
269 ```
270 py devscripts/install_deps.py --include py2exe
271 py devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py
272 py -m bundle.py2exe
273 ```
275 ### Related scripts
277 * **`devscripts/install_deps.py`** - Install dependencies for yt-dlp.
278 * **`devscripts/update-version.py`** - Update the version number based on the current date.
279 * **`devscripts/set-variant.py`** - Set the build variant of the executable.
280 * **`devscripts/make_changelog.py`** - Create a markdown changelog using short commit messages and update `CONTRIBUTORS` file.
281 * **`devscripts/make_lazy_extractors.py`** - Create lazy extractors. Running this before building the binaries (any variant) will improve their startup performance. Set the environment variable `YTDLP_NO_LAZY_EXTRACTORS=1` if you wish to forcefully disable lazy extractor loading.
283 Note: See their `--help` for more info.
285 ### Forking the project
286 If you fork the project on GitHub, you can run your fork's [build workflow](.github/workflows/build.yml) to automatically build the selected version(s) as artifacts. Alternatively, you can run the [release workflow](.github/workflows/release.yml) or enable the [nightly workflow](.github/workflows/release-nightly.yml) to create full (pre-)releases.
288 # USAGE AND OPTIONS
290 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
291 yt-dlp [OPTIONS] [--] URL [URL...]
293 `Ctrl+F` is your friend :D
294 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
296 <!-- Auto generated -->
297 ## General Options:
298 -h, --help Print this help text and exit
299 --version Print program version and exit
300 -U, --update Update this program to the latest version
301 --no-update Do not check for updates (default)
302 --update-to [CHANNEL]@[TAG] Upgrade/downgrade to a specific version.
303 CHANNEL can be a repository as well. CHANNEL
304 and TAG default to "stable" and "latest"
305 respectively if omitted; See "UPDATE" for
306 details. Supported channels: stable,
307 nightly, master
308 -i, --ignore-errors Ignore download and postprocessing errors.
309 The download will be considered successful
310 even if the postprocessing fails
311 --no-abort-on-error Continue with next video on download errors;
312 e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a
313 playlist (default)
314 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos if an
315 error occurs (Alias: --no-ignore-errors)
316 --dump-user-agent Display the current user-agent and exit
317 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and exit
318 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
319 extractors and exit
320 --use-extractors NAMES Extractor names to use separated by commas.
321 You can also use regexes, "all", "default"
322 and "end" (end URL matching); e.g. --ies
323 "holodex.*,end,youtube". Prefix the name
324 with a "-" to exclude it, e.g. --ies
325 default,-generic. Use --list-extractors for
326 a list of extractor names. (Alias: --ies)
327 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g.
328 "gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from
329 google videos for the search term "python".
330 Use the value "auto" to let yt-dlp guess
331 ("auto_warning" to emit a warning when
332 guessing). "error" just throws an error. The
333 default value "fixup_error" repairs broken
334 URLs, but emits an error if this is not
335 possible instead of searching
336 --ignore-config Don't load any more configuration files
337 except those given to --config-locations.
338 For backward compatibility, if this option
339 is found inside the system configuration
340 file, the user configuration is not loaded.
341 (Alias: --no-config)
342 --no-config-locations Do not load any custom configuration files
343 (default). When given inside a configuration
344 file, ignore all previous --config-locations
345 defined in the current file
346 --config-locations PATH Location of the main configuration file;
347 either the path to the config or its
348 containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be
349 used multiple times and inside other
350 configuration files
351 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
352 only list them
353 --no-flat-playlist Fully extract the videos of a playlist
354 (default)
355 --live-from-start Download livestreams from the start.
356 Currently only supported for YouTube
357 (Experimental)
358 --no-live-from-start Download livestreams from the current time
359 (default)
360 --wait-for-video MIN[-MAX] Wait for scheduled streams to become
361 available. Pass the minimum number of
362 seconds (or range) to wait between retries
363 --no-wait-for-video Do not wait for scheduled streams (default)
364 --mark-watched Mark videos watched (even with --simulate)
365 --no-mark-watched Do not mark videos watched (default)
366 --color [STREAM:]POLICY Whether to emit color codes in output,
367 optionally prefixed by the STREAM (stdout or
368 stderr) to apply the setting to. Can be one
369 of "always", "auto" (default), "never", or
370 "no_color" (use non color terminal
371 sequences). Use "auto-tty" or "no_color-tty"
372 to decide based on terminal support only.
373 Can be used multiple times
374 --compat-options OPTS Options that can help keep compatibility
375 with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc
376 configurations by reverting some of the
377 changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in
378 default behavior" for details
379 --alias ALIASES OPTIONS Create aliases for an option string. Unless
380 an alias starts with a dash "-", it is
381 prefixed with "--". Arguments are parsed
382 according to the Python string formatting
383 mini-language. E.g. --alias get-audio,-X
384 "-S=aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}"
385 creates options "--get-audio" and "-X" that
386 takes an argument (ARG0) and expands to
387 "-S=aext:ARG0,abr -x --audio-format ARG0".
388 All defined aliases are listed in the --help
389 output. Alias options can trigger more
390 aliases; so be careful to avoid defining
391 recursive options. As a safety measure, each
392 alias may be triggered a maximum of 100
393 times. This option can be used multiple times
395 ## Network Options:
396 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To
397 enable SOCKS proxy, specify a proper scheme,
398 e.g. socks5://user:pass@127.0.0.1:1080/.
399 Pass in an empty string (--proxy "") for
400 direct connection
401 --socket-timeout SECONDS Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
402 --source-address IP Client-side IP address to bind to
403 --impersonate CLIENT[:OS] Client to impersonate for requests. E.g.
404 chrome, chrome-110, chrome:windows-10. Pass
405 --impersonate="" to impersonate any client.
406 Note that forcing impersonation for all
407 requests may have a detrimental impact on
408 download speed and stability
409 --list-impersonate-targets List available clients to impersonate.
410 -4, --force-ipv4 Make all connections via IPv4
411 -6, --force-ipv6 Make all connections via IPv6
412 --enable-file-urls Enable file:// URLs. This is disabled by
413 default for security reasons.
415 ## Geo-restriction:
416 --geo-verification-proxy URL Use this proxy to verify the IP address for
417 some geo-restricted sites. The default proxy
418 specified by --proxy (or none, if the option
419 is not present) is used for the actual
420 downloading
421 --xff VALUE How to fake X-Forwarded-For HTTP header to
422 try bypassing geographic restriction. One of
423 "default" (only when known to be useful),
424 "never", an IP block in CIDR notation, or a
425 two-letter ISO 3166-2 country code
427 ## Video Selection:
428 -I, --playlist-items ITEM_SPEC Comma separated playlist_index of the items
429 to download. You can specify a range using
430 "[START]:[STOP][:STEP]". For backward
431 compatibility, START-STOP is also supported.
432 Use negative indices to count from the right
433 and negative STEP to download in reverse
434 order. E.g. "-I 1:3,7,-5::2" used on a
435 playlist of size 15 will download the items
436 at index 1,2,3,7,11,13,15
437 --min-filesize SIZE Abort download if filesize is smaller than
438 SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
439 --max-filesize SIZE Abort download if filesize is larger than
440 SIZE, e.g. 50k or 44.6M
441 --date DATE Download only videos uploaded on this date.
442 The date can be "YYYYMMDD" or in the format
443 [now|today|yesterday][-N[day|week|month|year]].
444 E.g. "--date today-2weeks" downloads only
445 videos uploaded on the same day two weeks ago
446 --datebefore DATE Download only videos uploaded on or before
447 this date. The date formats accepted is the
448 same as --date
449 --dateafter DATE Download only videos uploaded on or after
450 this date. The date formats accepted is the
451 same as --date
452 --match-filters FILTER Generic video filter. Any "OUTPUT TEMPLATE"
453 field can be compared with a number or a
454 string using the operators defined in
455 "Filtering Formats". You can also simply
456 specify a field to match if the field is
457 present, use "!field" to check if the field
458 is not present, and "&" to check multiple
459 conditions. Use a "\" to escape "&" or
460 quotes if needed. If used multiple times,
461 the filter matches if at least one of the
462 conditions is met. E.g. --match-filters
463 !is_live --match-filters "like_count>?100 &
464 description~='(?i)\bcats \& dogs\b'" matches
465 only videos that are not live OR those that
466 have a like count more than 100 (or the like
467 field is not available) and also has a
468 description that contains the phrase "cats &
469 dogs" (caseless). Use "--match-filters -" to
470 interactively ask whether to download each
471 video
472 --no-match-filters Do not use any --match-filters (default)
473 --break-match-filters FILTER Same as "--match-filters" but stops the
474 download process when a video is rejected
475 --no-break-match-filters Do not use any --break-match-filters (default)
476 --no-playlist Download only the video, if the URL refers
477 to a video and a playlist
478 --yes-playlist Download the playlist, if the URL refers to
479 a video and a playlist
480 --age-limit YEARS Download only videos suitable for the given
481 age
482 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
483 archive file. Record the IDs of all
484 downloaded videos in it
485 --no-download-archive Do not use archive file (default)
486 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
487 --break-on-existing Stop the download process when encountering
488 a file that is in the archive
489 --no-break-on-existing Do not stop the download process when
490 encountering a file that is in the archive
491 (default)
492 --break-per-input Alters --max-downloads, --break-on-existing,
493 --break-match-filters, and autonumber to
494 reset per input URL
495 --no-break-per-input --break-on-existing and similar options
496 terminates the entire download queue
497 --skip-playlist-after-errors N Number of allowed failures until the rest of
498 the playlist is skipped
500 ## Download Options:
501 -N, --concurrent-fragments N Number of fragments of a dash/hlsnative
502 video that should be downloaded concurrently
503 (default is 1)
504 -r, --limit-rate RATE Maximum download rate in bytes per second,
505 e.g. 50K or 4.2M
506 --throttled-rate RATE Minimum download rate in bytes per second
507 below which throttling is assumed and the
508 video data is re-extracted, e.g. 100K
509 -R, --retries RETRIES Number of retries (default is 10), or
510 "infinite"
511 --file-access-retries RETRIES Number of times to retry on file access
512 error (default is 3), or "infinite"
513 --fragment-retries RETRIES Number of retries for a fragment (default is
514 10), or "infinite" (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
515 --retry-sleep [TYPE:]EXPR Time to sleep between retries in seconds
516 (optionally) prefixed by the type of retry
517 (http (default), fragment, file_access,
518 extractor) to apply the sleep to. EXPR can
519 be a number, linear=START[:END[:STEP=1]] or
520 exp=START[:END[:BASE=2]]. This option can be
521 used multiple times to set the sleep for the
522 different retry types, e.g. --retry-sleep
523 linear=1::2 --retry-sleep fragment:exp=1:20
524 --skip-unavailable-fragments Skip unavailable fragments for DASH,
525 hlsnative and ISM downloads (default)
526 (Alias: --no-abort-on-unavailable-fragments)
527 --abort-on-unavailable-fragments
528 Abort download if a fragment is unavailable
529 (Alias: --no-skip-unavailable-fragments)
530 --keep-fragments Keep downloaded fragments on disk after
531 downloading is finished
532 --no-keep-fragments Delete downloaded fragments after
533 downloading is finished (default)
534 --buffer-size SIZE Size of download buffer, e.g. 1024 or 16K
535 (default is 1024)
536 --resize-buffer The buffer size is automatically resized
537 from an initial value of --buffer-size
538 (default)
539 --no-resize-buffer Do not automatically adjust the buffer size
540 --http-chunk-size SIZE Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP
541 downloading, e.g. 10485760 or 10M (default
542 is disabled). May be useful for bypassing
543 bandwidth throttling imposed by a webserver
544 (experimental)
545 --playlist-random Download playlist videos in random order
546 --lazy-playlist Process entries in the playlist as they are
547 received. This disables n_entries,
548 --playlist-random and --playlist-reverse
549 --no-lazy-playlist Process videos in the playlist only after
550 the entire playlist is parsed (default)
551 --xattr-set-filesize Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with
552 expected file size
553 --hls-use-mpegts Use the mpegts container for HLS videos;
554 allowing some players to play the video
555 while downloading, and reducing the chance
556 of file corruption if download is
557 interrupted. This is enabled by default for
558 live streams
559 --no-hls-use-mpegts Do not use the mpegts container for HLS
560 videos. This is default when not downloading
561 live streams
562 --download-sections REGEX Download only chapters that match the
563 regular expression. A "*" prefix denotes
564 time-range instead of chapter. Negative
565 timestamps are calculated from the end.
566 "*from-url" can be used to download between
567 the "start_time" and "end_time" extracted
568 from the URL. Needs ffmpeg. This option can
569 be used multiple times to download multiple
570 sections, e.g. --download-sections
571 "*10:15-inf" --download-sections "intro"
572 --downloader [PROTO:]NAME Name or path of the external downloader to
573 use (optionally) prefixed by the protocols
574 (http, ftp, m3u8, dash, rstp, rtmp, mms) to
575 use it for. Currently supports native,
576 aria2c, avconv, axel, curl, ffmpeg, httpie,
577 wget. You can use this option multiple times
578 to set different downloaders for different
579 protocols. E.g. --downloader aria2c
580 --downloader "dash,m3u8:native" will use
581 aria2c for http/ftp downloads, and the
582 native downloader for dash/m3u8 downloads
583 (Alias: --external-downloader)
584 --downloader-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the external
585 downloader. Specify the downloader name and
586 the arguments separated by a colon ":". For
587 ffmpeg, arguments can be passed to different
588 positions using the same syntax as
589 --postprocessor-args. You can use this
590 option multiple times to give different
591 arguments to different downloaders (Alias:
592 --external-downloader-args)
594 ## Filesystem Options:
595 -a, --batch-file FILE File containing URLs to download ("-" for
596 stdin), one URL per line. Lines starting
597 with "#", ";" or "]" are considered as
598 comments and ignored
599 --no-batch-file Do not read URLs from batch file (default)
600 -P, --paths [TYPES:]PATH The paths where the files should be
601 downloaded. Specify the type of file and the
602 path separated by a colon ":". All the same
603 TYPES as --output are supported.
604 Additionally, you can also provide "home"
605 (default) and "temp" paths. All intermediary
606 files are first downloaded to the temp path
607 and then the final files are moved over to
608 the home path after download is finished.
609 This option is ignored if --output is an
610 absolute path
611 -o, --output [TYPES:]TEMPLATE Output filename template; see "OUTPUT
612 TEMPLATE" for details
613 --output-na-placeholder TEXT Placeholder for unavailable fields in
614 --output (default: "NA")
615 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters,
616 and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames
617 --no-restrict-filenames Allow Unicode characters, "&" and spaces in
618 filenames (default)
619 --windows-filenames Force filenames to be Windows-compatible
620 --no-windows-filenames Make filenames Windows-compatible only if
621 using Windows (default)
622 --trim-filenames LENGTH Limit the filename length (excluding
623 extension) to the specified number of
624 characters
625 -w, --no-overwrites Do not overwrite any files
626 --force-overwrites Overwrite all video and metadata files. This
627 option includes --no-continue
628 --no-force-overwrites Do not overwrite the video, but overwrite
629 related files (default)
630 -c, --continue Resume partially downloaded files/fragments
631 (default)
632 --no-continue Do not resume partially downloaded
633 fragments. If the file is not fragmented,
634 restart download of the entire file
635 --part Use .part files instead of writing directly
636 into output file (default)
637 --no-part Do not use .part files - write directly into
638 output file
639 --mtime Use the Last-modified header to set the file
640 modification time (default)
641 --no-mtime Do not use the Last-modified header to set
642 the file modification time
643 --write-description Write video description to a .description file
644 --no-write-description Do not write video description (default)
645 --write-info-json Write video metadata to a .info.json file
646 (this may contain personal information)
647 --no-write-info-json Do not write video metadata (default)
648 --write-playlist-metafiles Write playlist metadata in addition to the
649 video metadata when using --write-info-json,
650 --write-description etc. (default)
651 --no-write-playlist-metafiles Do not write playlist metadata when using
652 --write-info-json, --write-description etc.
653 --clean-info-json Remove some internal metadata such as
654 filenames from the infojson (default)
655 --no-clean-info-json Write all fields to the infojson
656 --write-comments Retrieve video comments to be placed in the
657 infojson. The comments are fetched even
658 without this option if the extraction is
659 known to be quick (Alias: --get-comments)
660 --no-write-comments Do not retrieve video comments unless the
661 extraction is known to be quick (Alias:
662 --no-get-comments)
663 --load-info-json FILE JSON file containing the video information
664 (created with the "--write-info-json" option)
665 --cookies FILE Netscape formatted file to read cookies from
666 and dump cookie jar in
667 --no-cookies Do not read/dump cookies from/to file
668 (default)
669 --cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]
670 The name of the browser to load cookies
671 from. Currently supported browsers are:
672 brave, chrome, chromium, edge, firefox,
673 opera, safari, vivaldi, whale. Optionally,
674 the KEYRING used for decrypting Chromium
675 cookies on Linux, the name/path of the
676 PROFILE to load cookies from, and the
677 CONTAINER name (if Firefox) ("none" for no
678 container) can be given with their
679 respective separators. By default, all
680 containers of the most recently accessed
681 profile are used. Currently supported
682 keyrings are: basictext, gnomekeyring,
683 kwallet, kwallet5, kwallet6
684 --no-cookies-from-browser Do not load cookies from browser (default)
685 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where yt-dlp can
686 store some downloaded information (such as
687 client ids and signatures) permanently. By
688 default ${XDG_CACHE_HOME}/yt-dlp
689 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
690 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
692 ## Thumbnail Options:
693 --write-thumbnail Write thumbnail image to disk
694 --no-write-thumbnail Do not write thumbnail image to disk (default)
695 --write-all-thumbnails Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
696 --list-thumbnails List available thumbnails of each video.
697 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
699 ## Internet Shortcut Options:
700 --write-link Write an internet shortcut file, depending
701 on the current platform (.url, .webloc or
702 .desktop). The URL may be cached by the OS
703 --write-url-link Write a .url Windows internet shortcut. The
704 OS caches the URL based on the file path
705 --write-webloc-link Write a .webloc macOS internet shortcut
706 --write-desktop-link Write a .desktop Linux internet shortcut
708 ## Verbosity and Simulation Options:
709 -q, --quiet Activate quiet mode. If used with --verbose,
710 print the log to stderr
711 --no-quiet Deactivate quiet mode. (Default)
712 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
713 -s, --simulate Do not download the video and do not write
714 anything to disk
715 --no-simulate Download the video even if printing/listing
716 options are used
717 --ignore-no-formats-error Ignore "No video formats" error. Useful for
718 extracting metadata even if the videos are
719 not actually available for download
720 (experimental)
721 --no-ignore-no-formats-error Throw error when no downloadable video
722 formats are found (default)
723 --skip-download Do not download the video but write all
724 related files (Alias: --no-download)
725 -O, --print [WHEN:]TEMPLATE Field name or output template to print to
726 screen, optionally prefixed with when to
727 print it, separated by a ":". Supported
728 values of "WHEN" are the same as that of
729 --use-postprocessor (default: video).
730 Implies --quiet. Implies --simulate unless
731 --no-simulate or later stages of WHEN are
732 used. This option can be used multiple times
733 --print-to-file [WHEN:]TEMPLATE FILE
734 Append given template to the file. The
735 values of WHEN and TEMPLATE are same as that
736 of --print. FILE uses the same syntax as the
737 output template. This option can be used
738 multiple times
739 -j, --dump-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
740 video. Simulate unless --no-simulate is
741 used. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for a
742 description of available keys
743 -J, --dump-single-json Quiet, but print JSON information for each
744 url or infojson passed. Simulate unless
745 --no-simulate is used. If the URL refers to
746 a playlist, the whole playlist information
747 is dumped in a single line
748 --force-write-archive Force download archive entries to be written
749 as far as no errors occur, even if -s or
750 another simulation option is used (Alias:
751 --force-download-archive)
752 --newline Output progress bar as new lines
753 --no-progress Do not print progress bar
754 --progress Show progress bar, even if in quiet mode
755 --console-title Display progress in console titlebar
756 --progress-template [TYPES:]TEMPLATE
757 Template for progress outputs, optionally
758 prefixed with one of "download:" (default),
759 "download-title:" (the console title),
760 "postprocess:", or "postprocess-title:".
761 The video's fields are accessible under the
762 "info" key and the progress attributes are
763 accessible under "progress" key. E.g.
764 --console-title --progress-template
765 "download-title:%(info.id)s-%(progress.eta)s"
766 --progress-delta SECONDS Time between progress output (default: 0)
767 -v, --verbose Print various debugging information
768 --dump-pages Print downloaded pages encoded using base64
769 to debug problems (very verbose)
770 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to files
771 in the current directory to debug problems
772 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
774 ## Workarounds:
775 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
776 --legacy-server-connect Explicitly allow HTTPS connection to servers
777 that do not support RFC 5746 secure
778 renegotiation
779 --no-check-certificates Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
780 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
781 information about the video (Currently
782 supported only for YouTube)
783 --add-headers FIELD:VALUE Specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
784 separated by a colon ":". You can use this
785 option multiple times
786 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
787 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
788 or fribidi executable in PATH
789 --sleep-requests SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep between requests
790 during data extraction
791 --sleep-interval SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
792 download. This is the minimum time to sleep
793 when used along with --max-sleep-interval
794 (Alias: --min-sleep-interval)
795 --max-sleep-interval SECONDS Maximum number of seconds to sleep. Can only
796 be used along with --min-sleep-interval
797 --sleep-subtitles SECONDS Number of seconds to sleep before each
798 subtitle download
800 ## Video Format Options:
801 -f, --format FORMAT Video format code, see "FORMAT SELECTION"
802 for more details
803 -S, --format-sort SORTORDER Sort the formats by the fields given, see
804 "Sorting Formats" for more details
805 --format-sort-force Force user specified sort order to have
806 precedence over all fields, see "Sorting
807 Formats" for more details (Alias: --S-force)
808 --no-format-sort-force Some fields have precedence over the user
809 specified sort order (default)
810 --video-multistreams Allow multiple video streams to be merged
811 into a single file
812 --no-video-multistreams Only one video stream is downloaded for each
813 output file (default)
814 --audio-multistreams Allow multiple audio streams to be merged
815 into a single file
816 --no-audio-multistreams Only one audio stream is downloaded for each
817 output file (default)
818 --prefer-free-formats Prefer video formats with free containers
819 over non-free ones of same quality. Use with
820 "-S ext" to strictly prefer free containers
821 irrespective of quality
822 --no-prefer-free-formats Don't give any special preference to free
823 containers (default)
824 --check-formats Make sure formats are selected only from
825 those that are actually downloadable
826 --check-all-formats Check all formats for whether they are
827 actually downloadable
828 --no-check-formats Do not check that the formats are actually
829 downloadable
830 -F, --list-formats List available formats of each video.
831 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
832 --merge-output-format FORMAT Containers that may be used when merging
833 formats, separated by "/", e.g. "mp4/mkv".
834 Ignored if no merge is required. (currently
835 supported: avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, webm)
837 ## Subtitle Options:
838 --write-subs Write subtitle file
839 --no-write-subs Do not write subtitle file (default)
840 --write-auto-subs Write automatically generated subtitle file
841 (Alias: --write-automatic-subs)
842 --no-write-auto-subs Do not write auto-generated subtitles
843 (default) (Alias: --no-write-automatic-subs)
844 --list-subs List available subtitles of each video.
845 Simulate unless --no-simulate is used
846 --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format; accepts formats preference,
847 e.g. "srt" or "ass/srt/best"
848 --sub-langs LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (can
849 be regex) or "all" separated by commas, e.g.
850 --sub-langs "en.*,ja". You can prefix the
851 language code with a "-" to exclude it from
852 the requested languages, e.g. --sub-langs
853 all,-live_chat. Use --list-subs for a list
854 of available language tags
856 ## Authentication Options:
857 -u, --username USERNAME Login with this account ID
858 -p, --password PASSWORD Account password. If this option is left
859 out, yt-dlp will ask interactively
860 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR Two-factor authentication code
861 -n, --netrc Use .netrc authentication data
862 --netrc-location PATH Location of .netrc authentication data;
863 either the path or its containing directory.
864 Defaults to ~/.netrc
865 --netrc-cmd NETRC_CMD Command to execute to get the credentials
866 for an extractor.
867 --video-password PASSWORD Video-specific password
868 --ap-mso MSO Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV
869 provider) identifier, use --ap-list-mso for
870 a list of available MSOs
871 --ap-username USERNAME Multiple-system operator account login
872 --ap-password PASSWORD Multiple-system operator account password.
873 If this option is left out, yt-dlp will ask
874 interactively
875 --ap-list-mso List all supported multiple-system operators
876 --client-certificate CERTFILE Path to client certificate file in PEM
877 format. May include the private key
878 --client-certificate-key KEYFILE
879 Path to private key file for client
880 certificate
881 --client-certificate-password PASSWORD
882 Password for client certificate private key,
883 if encrypted. If not provided, and the key
884 is encrypted, yt-dlp will ask interactively
886 ## Post-Processing Options:
887 -x, --extract-audio Convert video files to audio-only files
888 (requires ffmpeg and ffprobe)
889 --audio-format FORMAT Format to convert the audio to when -x is
890 used. (currently supported: best (default),
891 aac, alac, flac, m4a, mp3, opus, vorbis,
892 wav). You can specify multiple rules using
893 similar syntax as --remux-video
894 --audio-quality QUALITY Specify ffmpeg audio quality to use when
895 converting the audio with -x. Insert a value
896 between 0 (best) and 10 (worst) for VBR or a
897 specific bitrate like 128K (default 5)
898 --remux-video FORMAT Remux the video into another container if
899 necessary (currently supported: avi, flv,
900 gif, mkv, mov, mp4, webm, aac, aiff, alac,
901 flac, m4a, mka, mp3, ogg, opus, vorbis,
902 wav). If target container does not support
903 the video/audio codec, remuxing will fail.
904 You can specify multiple rules; e.g.
905 "aac>m4a/mov>mp4/mkv" will remux aac to m4a,
906 mov to mp4 and anything else to mkv
907 --recode-video FORMAT Re-encode the video into another format if
908 necessary. The syntax and supported formats
909 are the same as --remux-video
910 --postprocessor-args NAME:ARGS Give these arguments to the postprocessors.
911 Specify the postprocessor/executable name
912 and the arguments separated by a colon ":"
913 to give the argument to the specified
914 postprocessor/executable. Supported PP are:
915 Merger, ModifyChapters, SplitChapters,
916 ExtractAudio, VideoRemuxer, VideoConvertor,
917 Metadata, EmbedSubtitle, EmbedThumbnail,
918 SubtitlesConvertor, ThumbnailsConvertor,
919 FixupStretched, FixupM4a, FixupM3u8,
920 FixupTimestamp and FixupDuration. The
921 supported executables are: AtomicParsley,
922 FFmpeg and FFprobe. You can also specify
923 "PP+EXE:ARGS" to give the arguments to the
924 specified executable only when being used by
925 the specified postprocessor. Additionally,
926 for ffmpeg/ffprobe, "_i"/"_o" can be
927 appended to the prefix optionally followed
928 by a number to pass the argument before the
929 specified input/output file, e.g. --ppa
930 "Merger+ffmpeg_i1:-v quiet". You can use
931 this option multiple times to give different
932 arguments to different postprocessors.
933 (Alias: --ppa)
934 -k, --keep-video Keep the intermediate video file on disk
935 after post-processing
936 --no-keep-video Delete the intermediate video file after
937 post-processing (default)
938 --post-overwrites Overwrite post-processed files (default)
939 --no-post-overwrites Do not overwrite post-processed files
940 --embed-subs Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4,
941 webm and mkv videos)
942 --no-embed-subs Do not embed subtitles (default)
943 --embed-thumbnail Embed thumbnail in the video as cover art
944 --no-embed-thumbnail Do not embed thumbnail (default)
945 --embed-metadata Embed metadata to the video file. Also
946 embeds chapters/infojson if present unless
947 --no-embed-chapters/--no-embed-info-json are
948 used (Alias: --add-metadata)
949 --no-embed-metadata Do not add metadata to file (default)
950 (Alias: --no-add-metadata)
951 --embed-chapters Add chapter markers to the video file
952 (Alias: --add-chapters)
953 --no-embed-chapters Do not add chapter markers (default) (Alias:
954 --no-add-chapters)
955 --embed-info-json Embed the infojson as an attachment to
956 mkv/mka video files
957 --no-embed-info-json Do not embed the infojson as an attachment
958 to the video file
959 --parse-metadata [WHEN:]FROM:TO
960 Parse additional metadata like title/artist
961 from other fields; see "MODIFYING METADATA"
962 for details. Supported values of "WHEN" are
963 the same as that of --use-postprocessor
964 (default: pre_process)
965 --replace-in-metadata [WHEN:]FIELDS REGEX REPLACE
966 Replace text in a metadata field using the
967 given regex. This option can be used
968 multiple times. Supported values of "WHEN"
969 are the same as that of --use-postprocessor
970 (default: pre_process)
971 --xattrs Write metadata to the video file's xattrs
972 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
973 --concat-playlist POLICY Concatenate videos in a playlist. One of
974 "never", "always", or "multi_video"
975 (default; only when the videos form a single
976 show). All the video files must have same
977 codecs and number of streams to be
978 concatable. The "pl_video:" prefix can be
979 used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
980 the output filename for the concatenated
981 files. See "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
982 --fixup POLICY Automatically correct known faults of the
983 file. One of never (do nothing), warn (only
984 emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the
985 default; fix file if we can, warn
986 otherwise), force (try fixing even if file
987 already exists)
988 --ffmpeg-location PATH Location of the ffmpeg binary; either the
989 path to the binary or its containing directory
990 --exec [WHEN:]CMD Execute a command, optionally prefixed with
991 when to execute it, separated by a ":".
992 Supported values of "WHEN" are the same as
993 that of --use-postprocessor (default:
994 after_move). Same syntax as the output
995 template can be used to pass any field as
996 arguments to the command. If no fields are
997 passed, %(filepath,_filename|)q is appended
998 to the end of the command. This option can
999 be used multiple times
1000 --no-exec Remove any previously defined --exec
1001 --convert-subs FORMAT Convert the subtitles to another format
1002 (currently supported: ass, lrc, srt, vtt).
1003 Use "--convert-subs none" to disable
1004 conversion (default) (Alias: --convert-
1005 subtitles)
1006 --convert-thumbnails FORMAT Convert the thumbnails to another format
1007 (currently supported: jpg, png, webp). You
1008 can specify multiple rules using similar
1009 syntax as "--remux-video". Use "--convert-
1010 thumbnails none" to disable conversion
1011 (default)
1012 --split-chapters Split video into multiple files based on
1013 internal chapters. The "chapter:" prefix can
1014 be used with "--paths" and "--output" to set
1015 the output filename for the split files. See
1016 "OUTPUT TEMPLATE" for details
1017 --no-split-chapters Do not split video based on chapters (default)
1018 --remove-chapters REGEX Remove chapters whose title matches the
1019 given regular expression. The syntax is the
1020 same as --download-sections. This option can
1021 be used multiple times
1022 --no-remove-chapters Do not remove any chapters from the file
1023 (default)
1024 --force-keyframes-at-cuts Force keyframes at cuts when
1025 downloading/splitting/removing sections.
1026 This is slow due to needing a re-encode, but
1027 the resulting video may have fewer artifacts
1028 around the cuts
1029 --no-force-keyframes-at-cuts Do not force keyframes around the chapters
1030 when cutting/splitting (default)
1031 --use-postprocessor NAME[:ARGS]
1032 The (case sensitive) name of plugin
1033 postprocessors to be enabled, and
1034 (optionally) arguments to be passed to it,
1035 separated by a colon ":". ARGS are a
1036 semicolon ";" delimited list of NAME=VALUE.
1037 The "when" argument determines when the
1038 postprocessor is invoked. It can be one of
1039 "pre_process" (after video extraction),
1040 "after_filter" (after video passes filter),
1041 "video" (after --format; before
1042 --print/--output), "before_dl" (before each
1043 video download), "post_process" (after each
1044 video download; default), "after_move"
1045 (after moving video file to its final
1046 locations), "after_video" (after downloading
1047 and processing all formats of a video), or
1048 "playlist" (at end of playlist). This option
1049 can be used multiple times to add different
1050 postprocessors
1052 ## SponsorBlock Options:
1053 Make chapter entries for, or remove various segments (sponsor,
1054 introductions, etc.) from downloaded YouTube videos using the
1055 [SponsorBlock API](https://sponsor.ajay.app)
1057 --sponsorblock-mark CATS SponsorBlock categories to create chapters
1058 for, separated by commas. Available
1059 categories are sponsor, intro, outro,
1060 selfpromo, preview, filler, interaction,
1061 music_offtopic, poi_highlight, chapter, all
1062 and default (=all). You can prefix the
1063 category with a "-" to exclude it. See [1]
1064 for description of the categories. E.g.
1065 --sponsorblock-mark all,-preview
1066 [1] https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Segment_Categories
1067 --sponsorblock-remove CATS SponsorBlock categories to be removed from
1068 the video file, separated by commas. If a
1069 category is present in both mark and remove,
1070 remove takes precedence. The syntax and
1071 available categories are the same as for
1072 --sponsorblock-mark except that "default"
1073 refers to "all,-filler" and poi_highlight,
1074 chapter are not available
1075 --sponsorblock-chapter-title TEMPLATE
1076 An output template for the title of the
1077 SponsorBlock chapters created by
1078 --sponsorblock-mark. The only available
1079 fields are start_time, end_time, category,
1080 categories, name, category_names. Defaults
1081 to "[SponsorBlock]: %(category_names)l"
1082 --no-sponsorblock Disable both --sponsorblock-mark and
1083 --sponsorblock-remove
1084 --sponsorblock-api URL SponsorBlock API location, defaults to
1085 https://sponsor.ajay.app
1087 ## Extractor Options:
1088 --extractor-retries RETRIES Number of retries for known extractor errors
1089 (default is 3), or "infinite"
1090 --allow-dynamic-mpd Process dynamic DASH manifests (default)
1091 (Alias: --no-ignore-dynamic-mpd)
1092 --ignore-dynamic-mpd Do not process dynamic DASH manifests
1093 (Alias: --no-allow-dynamic-mpd)
1094 --hls-split-discontinuity Split HLS playlists to different formats at
1095 discontinuities such as ad breaks
1096 --no-hls-split-discontinuity Do not split HLS playlists to different
1097 formats at discontinuities such as ad breaks
1098 (default)
1099 --extractor-args IE_KEY:ARGS Pass ARGS arguments to the IE_KEY extractor.
1100 See "EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS" for details. You
1101 can use this option multiple times to give
1102 arguments for different extractors
1104 # CONFIGURATION
1106 You can configure yt-dlp by placing any supported command line option to a configuration file. The configuration is loaded from the following locations:
1108 1. **Main Configuration**:
1109 * The file given to `--config-location`
1110 1. **Portable Configuration**: (Recommended for portable installations)
1111 * If using a binary, `yt-dlp.conf` in the same directory as the binary
1112 * If running from source-code, `yt-dlp.conf` in the parent directory of `yt_dlp`
1113 1. **Home Configuration**:
1114 * `yt-dlp.conf` in the home path given to `-P`
1115 * If `-P` is not given, the current directory is searched
1116 1. **User Configuration**:
1117 * `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp.conf`
1118 * `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
1119 * `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/config.txt`
1120 * `${APPDATA}/yt-dlp.conf`
1121 * `${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config` (recommended on Windows)
1122 * `${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/config.txt`
1123 * `~/yt-dlp.conf`
1124 * `~/yt-dlp.conf.txt`
1125 * `~/.yt-dlp/config`
1126 * `~/.yt-dlp/config.txt`
1128 See also: [Notes about environment variables](#notes-about-environment-variables)
1129 1. **System Configuration**:
1130 * `/etc/yt-dlp.conf`
1131 * `/etc/yt-dlp/config`
1132 * `/etc/yt-dlp/config.txt`
1134 E.g. with the following configuration file, yt-dlp will always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all videos under `YouTube` directory in your home directory:
1135 ```
1136 # Lines starting with # are comments
1138 # Always extract audio
1139 -x
1141 # Do not copy the mtime
1142 --no-mtime
1144 # Use this proxy
1145 --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128
1147 # Save all videos under YouTube directory in your home directory
1148 -o ~/YouTube/%(title)s.%(ext)s
1149 ```
1151 **Note**: 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`. They must also be quoted when necessary, as if it were a UNIX shell.
1153 You can use `--ignore-config` if you want to disable all configuration files for a particular yt-dlp run. If `--ignore-config` is found inside any configuration file, no further configuration will be loaded. For example, having the option in the portable configuration file prevents loading of home, user, and system configurations. Additionally, (for backward compatibility) if `--ignore-config` is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.
1155 ### Configuration file encoding
1157 The configuration files are decoded according to the UTF BOM if present, and in the encoding from system locale otherwise.
1159 If you want your file to be decoded differently, add `# coding: ENCODING` to the beginning of the file (e.g. `# coding: shift-jis`). There must be no characters before that, even spaces or BOM.
1161 ### Authentication with netrc
1163 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 yt-dlp execution and prevent tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can achieve this using a [`.netrc` file](https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info) on a per-extractor basis. For that, you will need to create a `.netrc` file in `--netrc-location` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:
1164 ```
1165 touch ${HOME}/.netrc
1166 chmod a-rwx,u+rw ${HOME}/.netrc
1167 ```
1168 After that, you can add credentials for an extractor in the following format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:
1169 ```
1170 machine <extractor> login <username> password <password>
1171 ```
1172 E.g.
1173 ```
1174 machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
1175 machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password
1176 ```
1177 To activate authentication with the `.netrc` file you should pass `--netrc` to yt-dlp or place it in the [configuration file](#configuration).
1179 The default location of the .netrc file is `~` (see below).
1181 As an alternative to using the `.netrc` file, which has the disadvantage of keeping your passwords in a plain text file, you can configure a custom shell command to provide the credentials for an extractor. This is done by providing the `--netrc-cmd` parameter, it shall output the credentials in the netrc format and return `0` on success, other values will be treated as an error. `{}` in the command will be replaced by the name of the extractor to make it possible to select the credentials for the right extractor.
1183 E.g. To use an encrypted `.netrc` file stored as `.authinfo.gpg`
1184 ```
1185 yt-dlp --netrc-cmd 'gpg --decrypt ~/.authinfo.gpg' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc
1186 ```
1189 ### Notes about environment variables
1190 * Environment variables are normally specified as `${VARIABLE}`/`$VARIABLE` on UNIX and `%VARIABLE%` on Windows; but is always shown as `${VARIABLE}` in this documentation
1191 * yt-dlp also allow using UNIX-style variables on Windows for path-like options; e.g. `--output`, `--config-location`
1192 * If unset, `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}` defaults to `~/.config` and `${XDG_CACHE_HOME}` to `~/.cache`
1193 * On Windows, `~` points to `${HOME}` if present; or, `${USERPROFILE}` or `${HOMEDRIVE}${HOMEPATH}` otherwise
1194 * On Windows, `${USERPROFILE}` generally points to `C:\Users\<user name>` and `${APPDATA}` to `${USERPROFILE}\AppData\Roaming`
1196 # OUTPUT TEMPLATE
1198 The `-o` option is used to indicate a template for the output file names while `-P` option is used to specify the path each type of file should be saved to.
1200 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1201 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#output-template-examples).
1202 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1204 The simplest usage of `-o` is not to set any template arguments when downloading a single file, like in `yt-dlp -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video"` (hard-coding file extension like this is _not_ recommended and could break some post-processing).
1206 It may however also contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each video. The special sequences may be formatted according to [Python string formatting operations](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting), e.g. `%(NAME)s` or `%(NAME)05d`. To clarify, that is a percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting operations.
1208 The field names themselves (the part inside the parenthesis) can also have some special formatting:
1210 1. **Object traversal**: The dictionaries and lists available in metadata can be traversed by using a dot `.` separator; e.g. `%(tags.0)s`, `%(subtitles.en.-1.ext)s`. You can do Python slicing with colon `:`; E.g. `%(id.3:7)s`, `%(id.6:2:-1)s`, `%(formats.:.format_id)s`. Curly braces `{}` can be used to build dictionaries with only specific keys; e.g. `%(formats.:.{format_id,height})#j`. An empty field name `%()s` refers to the entire infodict; e.g. `%(.{id,title})s`. Note that all the fields that become available using this method are not listed below. Use `-j` to see such fields
1212 1. **Arithmetic**: Simple arithmetic can be done on numeric fields using `+`, `-` and `*`. E.g. `%(playlist_index+10)03d`, `%(n_entries+1-playlist_index)d`
1214 1. **Date/time Formatting**: Date/time fields can be formatted according to [strftime formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-and-strptime-format-codes) by specifying it separated from the field name using a `>`. E.g. `%(duration>%H-%M-%S)s`, `%(upload_date>%Y-%m-%d)s`, `%(epoch-3600>%H-%M-%S)s`
1216 1. **Alternatives**: Alternate fields can be specified separated with a `,`. E.g. `%(release_date>%Y,upload_date>%Y|Unknown)s`
1218 1. **Replacement**: A replacement value can be specified using a `&` separator according to the [`str.format` mini-language](https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#format-specification-mini-language). If the field is *not* empty, this replacement value will be used instead of the actual field content. This is done after alternate fields are considered; thus the replacement is used if *any* of the alternative fields is *not* empty. E.g. `%(chapters&has chapters|no chapters)s`, `%(title&TITLE={:>20}|NO TITLE)s`
1220 1. **Default**: A literal default value can be specified for when the field is empty using a `|` separator. This overrides `--output-na-placeholder`. E.g. `%(uploader|Unknown)s`
1222 1. **More Conversions**: In addition to the normal format types `diouxXeEfFgGcrs`, yt-dlp additionally supports converting to `B` = **B**ytes, `j` = **j**son (flag `#` for pretty-printing, `+` for Unicode), `h` = HTML escaping, `l` = a comma separated **l**ist (flag `#` for `\n` newline-separated), `q` = a string **q**uoted for the terminal (flag `#` to split a list into different arguments), `D` = add **D**ecimal suffixes (e.g. 10M) (flag `#` to use 1024 as factor), and `S` = **S**anitize as filename (flag `#` for restricted)
1224 1. **Unicode normalization**: The format type `U` can be used for NFC [Unicode normalization](https://docs.python.org/3/library/unicodedata.html#unicodedata.normalize). The alternate form flag (`#`) changes the normalization to NFD and the conversion flag `+` can be used for NFKC/NFKD compatibility equivalence normalization. E.g. `%(title)+.100U` is NFKC
1226 To summarize, the general syntax for a field is:
1227 ```
1228 %(name[.keys][addition][>strf][,alternate][&replacement][|default])[flags][width][.precision][length]type
1229 ```
1231 Additionally, you can set different output templates for the various metadata files separately from the general output template by specifying the type of file followed by the template separated by a colon `:`. The different file types supported are `subtitle`, `thumbnail`, `description`, `annotation` (deprecated), `infojson`, `link`, `pl_thumbnail`, `pl_description`, `pl_infojson`, `chapter`, `pl_video`. E.g. `-o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "thumbnail:%(title)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s"` will put the thumbnails in a folder with the same name as the video. If any of the templates is empty, that type of file will not be written. E.g. `--write-thumbnail -o "thumbnail:"` will write thumbnails only for playlists and not for video.
1233 <a id="outtmpl-postprocess-note"></a>
1235 **Note**: Due to post-processing (i.e. merging etc.), the actual output filename might differ. Use `--print after_move:filepath` to get the name after all post-processing is complete.
1237 The available fields are:
1239 - `id` (string): Video identifier
1240 - `title` (string): Video title
1241 - `fulltitle` (string): Video title ignoring live timestamp and generic title
1242 - `ext` (string): Video filename extension
1243 - `alt_title` (string): A secondary title of the video
1244 - `description` (string): The description of the video
1245 - `display_id` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
1246 - `uploader` (string): Full name of the video uploader
1247 - `uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
1248 - `uploader_url` (string): URL to the video uploader's profile
1249 - `license` (string): License name the video is licensed under
1250 - `creators` (list): The creators of the video
1251 - `creator` (string): The creators of the video; comma-separated
1252 - `timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video became available
1253 - `upload_date` (string): Video upload date in UTC (YYYYMMDD)
1254 - `release_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was released
1255 - `release_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was released in UTC
1256 - `release_year` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the video or album was released
1257 - `modified_timestamp` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video was last modified
1258 - `modified_date` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was last modified in UTC
1259 - `channel` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded on
1260 - `channel_id` (string): Id of the channel
1261 - `channel_url` (string): URL of the channel
1262 - `channel_follower_count` (numeric): Number of followers of the channel
1263 - `channel_is_verified` (boolean): Whether the channel is verified on the platform
1264 - `location` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
1265 - `duration` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
1266 - `duration_string` (string): Length of the video (HH:mm:ss)
1267 - `view_count` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on the platform
1268 - `concurrent_view_count` (numeric): How many users are currently watching the video on the platform.
1269 - `like_count` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
1270 - `dislike_count` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
1271 - `repost_count` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
1272 - `average_rating` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale used depends on the webpage
1273 - `comment_count` (numeric): Number of comments on the video (For some extractors, comments are only downloaded at the end, and so this field cannot be used)
1274 - `age_limit` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
1275 - `live_status` (string): One of "not_live", "is_live", "is_upcoming", "was_live", "post_live" (was live, but VOD is not yet processed)
1276 - `is_live` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a fixed-length video
1277 - `was_live` (boolean): Whether this video was originally a live stream
1278 - `playable_in_embed` (string): Whether this video is allowed to play in embedded players on other sites
1279 - `availability` (string): Whether the video is "private", "premium_only", "subscriber_only", "needs_auth", "unlisted" or "public"
1280 - `media_type` (string): The type of media as classified by the site, e.g. "episode", "clip", "trailer"
1281 - `start_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should start, as specified in the URL
1282 - `end_time` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should end, as specified in the URL
1283 - `extractor` (string): Name of the extractor
1284 - `extractor_key` (string): Key name of the extractor
1285 - `epoch` (numeric): Unix epoch of when the information extraction was completed
1286 - `autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each download, starting at `--autonumber-start`, padded with leading zeros to 5 digits
1287 - `video_autonumber` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each video
1288 - `n_entries` (numeric): Total number of extracted items in the playlist
1289 - `playlist_id` (string): Identifier of the playlist that contains the video
1290 - `playlist_title` (string): Name of the playlist that contains the video
1291 - `playlist` (string): `playlist_title` if available or else `playlist_id`
1292 - `playlist_count` (numeric): Total number of items in the playlist. May not be known if entire playlist is not extracted
1293 - `playlist_index` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist padded with leading zeros according the final index
1294 - `playlist_autonumber` (numeric): Position of the video in the playlist download queue padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the playlist
1295 - `playlist_uploader` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
1296 - `playlist_uploader_id` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist uploader
1297 - `playlist_channel` (string): Display name of the channel that uploaded the playlist
1298 - `playlist_channel_id` (string): Identifier of the channel that uploaded the playlist
1299 - `webpage_url` (string): A URL to the video webpage which, if given to yt-dlp, should yield the same result again
1300 - `webpage_url_basename` (string): The basename of the webpage URL
1301 - `webpage_url_domain` (string): The domain of the webpage URL
1302 - `original_url` (string): The URL given by the user (or same as `webpage_url` for playlist entries)
1303 - `categories` (list): List of categories the video belongs to
1304 - `tags` (list): List of tags assigned to the video
1305 - `cast` (list): List of cast members
1307 All the fields in [Filtering Formats](#filtering-formats) can also be used
1309 Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:
1311 - `chapter` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs to
1312 - `chapter_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs to
1313 - `chapter_id` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to
1315 Available for the video that is an episode of some series or program:
1317 - `series` (string): Title of the series or program the video episode belongs to
1318 - `series_id` (string): Id of the series or program the video episode belongs to
1319 - `season` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
1320 - `season_number` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode belongs to
1321 - `season_id` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
1322 - `episode` (string): Title of the video episode
1323 - `episode_number` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a season
1324 - `episode_id` (string): Id of the video episode
1326 Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:
1328 - `track` (string): Title of the track
1329 - `track_number` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a disc
1330 - `track_id` (string): Id of the track
1331 - `artists` (list): Artist(s) of the track
1332 - `artist` (string): Artist(s) of the track; comma-separated
1333 - `genres` (list): Genre(s) of the track
1334 - `genre` (string): Genre(s) of the track; comma-separated
1335 - `composers` (list): Composer(s) of the piece
1336 - `composer` (string): Composer(s) of the piece; comma-separated
1337 - `album` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
1338 - `album_type` (string): Type of the album
1339 - `album_artists` (list): All artists appeared on the album
1340 - `album_artist` (string): All artists appeared on the album; comma-separated
1341 - `disc_number` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical medium the track belongs to
1343 Available only when using `--download-sections` and for `chapter:` prefix when using `--split-chapters` for videos with internal chapters:
1345 - `section_title` (string): Title of the chapter
1346 - `section_number` (numeric): Number of the chapter within the file
1347 - `section_start` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1348 - `section_end` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1350 Available only when used in `--print`:
1352 - `urls` (string): The URLs of all requested formats, one in each line
1353 - `filename` (string): Name of the video file. Note that the [actual filename may differ](#outtmpl-postprocess-note)
1354 - `formats_table` (table): The video format table as printed by `--list-formats`
1355 - `thumbnails_table` (table): The thumbnail format table as printed by `--list-thumbnails`
1356 - `subtitles_table` (table): The subtitle format table as printed by `--list-subs`
1357 - `automatic_captions_table` (table): The automatic subtitle format table as printed by `--list-subs`
1359 Available only after the video is downloaded (`post_process`/`after_move`):
1361 - `filepath`: Actual path of downloaded video file
1363 Available only in `--sponsorblock-chapter-title`:
1365 - `start_time` (numeric): Start time of the chapter in seconds
1366 - `end_time` (numeric): End time of the chapter in seconds
1367 - `categories` (list): The [SponsorBlock categories](https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Category) the chapter belongs to
1368 - `category` (string): The smallest SponsorBlock category the chapter belongs to
1369 - `category_names` (list): Friendly names of the categories
1370 - `name` (string): Friendly name of the smallest category
1371 - `type` (string): The [SponsorBlock action type](https://wiki.sponsor.ajay.app/w/Types#Action_Type) of the chapter
1373 Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. E.g. for `-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s` and an mp4 video with title `yt-dlp test video` and id `BaW_jenozKc`, this will result in a `yt-dlp test video-BaW_jenozKc.mp4` file created in the current directory.
1375 **Note**: Some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present, since they depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with `--output-na-placeholder` (`NA` by default).
1377 **Tip**: Look at the `-j` output to identify which fields are available for the particular URL
1379 For numeric sequences you can use [numeric related formatting](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#printf-style-string-formatting); e.g. `%(view_count)05d` will result in a string with view count padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in `00042`.
1381 Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path, e.g. `-o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s"` which will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created for you.
1383 To use percent literals in an output template use `%%`. To output to stdout use `-o -`.
1385 The current default template is `%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`.
1387 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.
1389 #### Output template examples
1391 ```bash
1392 $ yt-dlp --print filename -o "test video.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1393 test video.webm # Literal name with correct extension
1395 $ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
1396 youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.webm # All kinds of weird characters
1398 $ yt-dlp --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
1399 youtube-dl_test_video_.webm # Restricted file name
1401 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
1402 $ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1404 # Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directories according to their uploaded year
1405 $ yt-dlp -o "%(upload_date>%Y)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"
1407 # Prefix playlist index with " - " separator, but only if it is available
1408 $ yt-dlp -o "%(playlist_index&{} - |)s%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1410 # Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
1411 $ yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists"
1413 # Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
1414 $ yt-dlp -u user -p password -P "~/MyVideos" -o "%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial"
1416 # Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
1417 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" "https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617"
1419 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext", subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\subs\uploader\title.ext"
1420 # and put all temporary files in "C:\MyVideos\tmp"
1421 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -P "temp:tmp" -P "subtitle:subs" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenoz --write-subs
1423 # Download video as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\title.ext" and subtitles as "C:\MyVideos\uploader\subs\title.ext"
1424 $ yt-dlp -P "C:/MyVideos" -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" -o "subtitle:%(uploader)s/subs/%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --write-subs
1426 # Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
1427 $ yt-dlp -o - BaW_jenozKc
1428 ```
1430 # FORMAT SELECTION
1432 By default, yt-dlp tries to download the best available quality if you **don't** pass any options.
1433 This is generally equivalent to using `-f bestvideo*+bestaudio/best`. However, if multiple audiostreams is enabled (`--audio-multistreams`), the default format changes to `-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best`. Similarly, if ffmpeg is unavailable, or if you use yt-dlp to stream to `stdout` (`-o -`), the default becomes `-f best/bestvideo+bestaudio`.
1435 **Deprecation warning**: Latest versions of yt-dlp can stream multiple formats to the stdout simultaneously using ffmpeg. So, in future versions, the default for this will be set to `-f bv*+ba/b` similar to normal downloads. If you want to preserve the `-f b/bv+ba` setting, it is recommended to explicitly specify it in the configuration options.
1437 The general syntax for format selection is `-f FORMAT` (or `--format FORMAT`) where `FORMAT` is a *selector expression*, i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to download.
1439 <!-- MANPAGE: BEGIN EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1440 **tl;dr:** [navigate me to examples](#format-selection-examples).
1441 <!-- MANPAGE: END EXCLUDED SECTION -->
1443 The simplest case is requesting a specific format; e.g. 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.
1445 You can also use a file extension (currently `3gp`, `aac`, `flv`, `m4a`, `mp3`, `mp4`, `ogg`, `wav`, `webm` are supported) to download the best quality format of a particular file extension served as a single file, e.g. `-f webm` will download the best quality format with the `webm` extension served as a single file.
1447 You can use `-f -` to interactively provide the format selector *for each video*
1449 You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:
1451 - `all`: Select **all formats** separately
1452 - `mergeall`: Select and **merge all formats** (Must be used with `--audio-multistreams`, `--video-multistreams` or both)
1453 - `b*`, `best*`: Select the best quality format that **contains either** a video or an audio or both (i.e.; `vcodec!=none or acodec!=none`)
1454 - `b`, `best`: Select the best quality format that **contains both** video and audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1455 - `bv`, `bestvideo`: Select the best quality **video-only** format. Equivalent to `best*[acodec=none]`
1456 - `bv*`, `bestvideo*`: Select the best quality format that **contains video**. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec!=none]`
1457 - `ba`, `bestaudio`: Select the best quality **audio-only** format. Equivalent to `best*[vcodec=none]`
1458 - `ba*`, `bestaudio*`: Select the best quality format that **contains audio**. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `best*[acodec!=none]` ([Do not use!](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/979#issuecomment-919629354))
1459 - `w*`, `worst*`: Select the worst quality format that contains either a video or an audio
1460 - `w`, `worst`: Select the worst quality format that contains both video and audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none][acodec!=none]`
1461 - `wv`, `worstvideo`: Select the worst quality video-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec=none]`
1462 - `wv*`, `worstvideo*`: Select the worst quality format that contains video. It may also contain audio. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec!=none]`
1463 - `wa`, `worstaudio`: Select the worst quality audio-only format. Equivalent to `worst*[vcodec=none]`
1464 - `wa*`, `worstaudio*`: Select the worst quality format that contains audio. It may also contain video. Equivalent to `worst*[acodec!=none]`
1466 For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use `-f worstvideo`. It is, however, recommended not to use `worst` and related options. When your format selector is `worst`, the format which is worst in all respects is selected. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use `-S +size` or more rigorously, `-S +size,+br,+res,+fps` instead of `-f worst`. See [Sorting Formats](#sorting-formats) for more details.
1468 You can select the n'th best format of a type by using `best<type>.<n>`. For example, `best.2` will select the 2nd best combined format. Similarly, `bv*.3` will select the 3rd best format that contains a video stream.
1470 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 formats on the left hand side are preferred; e.g. `-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.
1472 If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as a separator, e.g. `-f 22,17,18` will download all these three formats, of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example combined with the precedence feature: `-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio`.
1474 You can merge the video and audio of multiple formats into a single file using `-f <format1>+<format2>+...` (requires ffmpeg installed); e.g. `-f bestvideo+bestaudio` will download the best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together with ffmpeg.
1476 **Deprecation warning**: Since the *below* described behavior is complex and counter-intuitive, this will be removed and multistreams will be enabled by default in the future. A new operator will be instead added to limit formats to single audio/video
1478 Unless `--video-multistreams` is used, all formats with a video stream except the first one are ignored. Similarly, unless `--audio-multistreams` is used, all formats with an audio stream except the first one are ignored. E.g. `-f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --video-multistreams --audio-multistreams` will download and merge all 3 given formats. The resulting file will have 2 video streams and 2 audio streams. But `-f bestvideo+best+bestaudio --no-video-multistreams` will download and merge only `bestvideo` and `bestaudio`. `best` is ignored since another format containing a video stream (`bestvideo`) has already been selected. The order of the formats is therefore important. `-f best+bestaudio --no-audio-multistreams` will download only `best` while `-f bestaudio+best --no-audio-multistreams` will ignore `best` and download only `bestaudio`.
1480 ## Filtering Formats
1482 You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in brackets, as in `-f "best[height=720]"` (or `-f "[filesize>10M]"` since filters without a selector are interpreted as `best`).
1484 The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons `<`, `<=`, `>`, `>=`, `=` (equals), `!=` (not equals):
1486 - `filesize`: The number of bytes, if known in advance
1487 - `filesize_approx`: An estimate for the number of bytes
1488 - `width`: Width of the video, if known
1489 - `height`: Height of the video, if known
1490 - `aspect_ratio`: Aspect ratio of the video, if known
1491 - `tbr`: Average bitrate of audio and video in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1492 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1493 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1494 - `asr`: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
1495 - `fps`: Frame rate
1496 - `audio_channels`: The number of audio channels
1497 - `stretched_ratio`: `width:height` of the video's pixels, if not square
1499 Also filtering work for comparisons `=` (equals), `^=` (starts with), `$=` (ends with), `*=` (contains), `~=` (matches regex) and following string meta fields:
1501 - `url`: Video URL
1502 - `ext`: File extension
1503 - `acodec`: Name of the audio codec in use
1504 - `vcodec`: Name of the video codec in use
1505 - `container`: Name of the container format
1506 - `protocol`: The protocol that will be used for the actual download, lower-case (`http`, `https`, `rtsp`, `rtmp`, `rtmpe`, `mms`, `f4m`, `ism`, `http_dash_segments`, `m3u8`, or `m3u8_native`)
1507 - `language`: Language code
1508 - `dynamic_range`: The dynamic range of the video
1509 - `format_id`: A short description of the format
1510 - `format`: A human-readable description of the format
1511 - `format_note`: Additional info about the format
1512 - `resolution`: Textual description of width and height
1514 Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation `!` in order to produce an opposite comparison, e.g. `!*=` (does not contain). The comparand of a string comparison needs to be quoted with either double or single quotes if it contains spaces or special characters other than `._-`.
1516 **Note**: None of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by the particular extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the website. Any other field made available by the extractor can also be used for filtering.
1518 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 "bv[height<=?720][tbr>500]"` selects up to 720p videos (or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500 kbps. You can also use the filters with `all` to download all formats that satisfy the filter, e.g. `-f "all[vcodec=none]"` selects all audio-only formats.
1520 Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses; e.g. `-f "(mp4,webm)[height<480]"` will download the best pre-merged mp4 and webm formats with a height lower than 480.
1522 ## Sorting Formats
1524 You can change the criteria for being considered the `best` by using `-S` (`--format-sort`). The general format for this is `--format-sort field1,field2...`.
1526 The available fields are:
1528 - `hasvid`: Gives priority to formats that have a video stream
1529 - `hasaud`: Gives priority to formats that have an audio stream
1530 - `ie_pref`: The format preference
1531 - `lang`: The language preference
1532 - `quality`: The quality of the format
1533 - `source`: The preference of the source
1534 - `proto`: Protocol used for download (`https`/`ftps` > `http`/`ftp` > `m3u8_native`/`m3u8` > `http_dash_segments`> `websocket_frag` > `mms`/`rtsp` > `f4f`/`f4m`)
1535 - `vcodec`: Video Codec (`av01` > `vp9.2` > `vp9` > `h265` > `h264` > `vp8` > `h263` > `theora` > other)
1536 - `acodec`: Audio Codec (`flac`/`alac` > `wav`/`aiff` > `opus` > `vorbis` > `aac` > `mp4a` > `mp3` > `ac4` > `eac3` > `ac3` > `dts` > other)
1537 - `codec`: Equivalent to `vcodec,acodec`
1538 - `vext`: Video Extension (`mp4` > `mov` > `webm` > `flv` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, `webm` is preferred.
1539 - `aext`: Audio Extension (`m4a` > `aac` > `mp3` > `ogg` > `opus` > `webm` > other). If `--prefer-free-formats` is used, the order changes to `ogg` > `opus` > `webm` > `mp3` > `m4a` > `aac`
1540 - `ext`: Equivalent to `vext,aext`
1541 - `filesize`: Exact filesize, if known in advance
1542 - `fs_approx`: Approximate filesize
1543 - `size`: Exact filesize if available, otherwise approximate filesize
1544 - `height`: Height of video
1545 - `width`: Width of video
1546 - `res`: Video resolution, calculated as the smallest dimension.
1547 - `fps`: Framerate of video
1548 - `hdr`: The dynamic range of the video (`DV` > `HDR12` > `HDR10+` > `HDR10` > `HLG` > `SDR`)
1549 - `channels`: The number of audio channels
1550 - `tbr`: Total average bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1551 - `vbr`: Average video bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1552 - `abr`: Average audio bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec")
1553 - `br`: Average bitrate in [kbps](## "1000 bits/sec"), `tbr`/`vbr`/`abr`
1554 - `asr`: Audio sample rate in Hz
1556 **Deprecation warning**: Many of these fields have (currently undocumented) aliases, that may be removed in a future version. It is recommended to use only the documented field names.
1558 All fields, unless specified otherwise, are sorted in descending order. To reverse this, prefix the field with a `+`. E.g. `+res` prefers format with the smallest resolution. Additionally, you can suffix a preferred value for the fields, separated by a `:`. E.g. `res:720` prefers larger videos, but no larger than 720p and the smallest video if there are no videos less than 720p. For `codec` and `ext`, you can provide two preferred values, the first for video and the second for audio. E.g. `+codec:avc:m4a` (equivalent to `+vcodec:avc,+acodec:m4a`) sets the video codec preference to `h264` > `h265` > `vp9` > `vp9.2` > `av01` > `vp8` > `h263` > `theora` and audio codec preference to `mp4a` > `aac` > `vorbis` > `opus` > `mp3` > `ac3` > `dts`. You can also make the sorting prefer the nearest values to the provided by using `~` as the delimiter. E.g. `filesize~1G` prefers the format with filesize closest to 1 GiB.
1560 The fields `hasvid` and `ie_pref` are always given highest priority in sorting, irrespective of the user-defined order. This behavior can be changed by using `--format-sort-force`. Apart from these, the default order used is: `lang,quality,res,fps,hdr:12,vcodec:vp9.2,channels,acodec,size,br,asr,proto,ext,hasaud,source,id`. The extractors may override this default order, but they cannot override the user-provided order.
1562 Note that the default has `vcodec:vp9.2`; i.e. `av1` is not preferred. Similarly, the default for hdr is `hdr:12`; i.e. Dolby Vision is not preferred. These choices are made since DV and AV1 formats are not yet fully compatible with most devices. This may be changed in the future as more devices become capable of smoothly playing back these formats.
1564 If your format selector is `worst`, the last item is selected after sorting. This means it will select the format that is worst in all respects. Most of the time, what you actually want is the video with the smallest filesize instead. So it is generally better to use `-f best -S +size,+br,+res,+fps`.
1566 **Tip**: You can use the `-v -F` to see how the formats have been sorted (worst to best).
1568 ## Format Selection examples
1570 ```bash
1571 # Download and merge the best video-only format and the best audio-only format,
1572 # or download the best combined format if video-only format is not available
1573 $ yt-dlp -f "bv+ba/b"
1575 # Download best format that contains video,
1576 # and if it doesn't already have an audio stream, merge it with best audio-only format
1577 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba/b"
1579 # Same as above
1580 $ yt-dlp
1582 # Download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format without merging them
1583 # For this case, an output template should be used since
1584 # by default, bestvideo and bestaudio will have the same file name.
1585 $ yt-dlp -f "bv,ba" -o "%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s"
1587 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1588 # and all audio-only formats into one file
1589 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+mergeall[vcodec=none]" --audio-multistreams
1591 # Download and merge the best format that has a video stream,
1592 # and the best 2 audio-only formats into one file
1593 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*+ba+ba.2" --audio-multistreams
1596 # The following examples show the old method (without -S) of format selection
1597 # and how to use -S to achieve a similar but (generally) better result
1599 # Download the worst video available (old method)
1600 $ yt-dlp -f "wv*+wa/w"
1602 # Download the best video available but with the smallest resolution
1603 $ yt-dlp -S "+res"
1605 # Download the smallest video available
1606 $ yt-dlp -S "+size,+br"
1610 # Download the best mp4 video available, or the best video if no mp4 available
1611 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4] / bv*+ba/b"
1613 # Download the best video with the best extension
1614 # (For video, mp4 > mov > webm > flv. For audio, m4a > aac > mp3 ...)
1615 $ yt-dlp -S "ext"
1619 # Download the best video available but no better than 480p,
1620 # or the worst video if there is no video under 480p
1621 $ yt-dlp -f "bv*[height<=480]+ba/b[height<=480] / wv*+ba/w"
1623 # Download the best video available with the largest height but no better than 480p,
1624 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1625 $ yt-dlp -S "height:480"
1627 # Download the best video available with the largest resolution but no better than 480p,
1628 # or the best video with the smallest resolution if there is no video under 480p
1629 # Resolution is determined by using the smallest dimension.
1630 # So this works correctly for vertical videos as well
1631 $ yt-dlp -S "res:480"
1635 # Download the best video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1636 # or the worst video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1637 $ yt-dlp -f "b[filesize<50M] / w"
1639 # Download largest video (that also has audio) but no bigger than 50 MB,
1640 # or the smallest video (that also has audio) if there is no video under 50 MB
1641 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize:50M"
1643 # Download best video (that also has audio) that is closest in size to 50 MB
1644 $ yt-dlp -f "b" -S "filesize~50M"
1648 # Download best video available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol,
1649 # or the best video available via any protocol if there is no such video
1650 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*+ba/b)[protocol^=http][protocol!*=dash] / (bv*+ba/b)"
1652 # Download best video available via the best protocol
1653 # (https/ftps > http/ftp > m3u8_native > m3u8 > http_dash_segments ...)
1654 $ yt-dlp -S "proto"
1658 # Download the best video with either h264 or h265 codec,
1659 # or the best video if there is no such video
1660 $ yt-dlp -f "(bv*[vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba) / (bv*+ba/b)"
1662 # Download the best video with best codec no better than h264,
1663 # or the best video with worst codec if there is no such video
1664 $ yt-dlp -S "codec:h264"
1666 # Download the best video with worst codec no worse than h264,
1667 # or the best video with best codec if there is no such video
1668 $ yt-dlp -S "+codec:h264"
1672 # More complex examples
1674 # Download the best video no better than 720p preferring framerate greater than 30,
1675 # or the worst video (still preferring framerate greater than 30) if there is no such video
1676 $ yt-dlp -f "((bv*[fps>30]/bv*)[height<=720]/(wv*[fps>30]/wv*)) + ba / (b[fps>30]/b)[height<=720]/(w[fps>30]/w)"
1678 # Download the video with the largest resolution no better than 720p,
1679 # or the video with the smallest resolution available if there is no such video,
1680 # preferring larger framerate for formats with the same resolution
1681 $ yt-dlp -S "res:720,fps"
1685 # Download the video with smallest resolution no worse than 480p,
1686 # or the video with the largest resolution available if there is no such video,
1687 # preferring better codec and then larger total bitrate for the same resolution
1688 $ yt-dlp -S "+res:480,codec,br"
1689 ```
1691 # MODIFYING METADATA
1693 The metadata obtained by the extractors can be modified by using `--parse-metadata` and `--replace-in-metadata`
1695 `--replace-in-metadata FIELDS REGEX REPLACE` is used to replace text in any metadata field using [Python regular expression](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax). [Backreferences](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html?highlight=backreferences#re.sub) can be used in the replace string for advanced use.
1697 The general syntax of `--parse-metadata FROM:TO` is to give the name of a field or an [output template](#output-template) to extract data from, and the format to interpret it as, separated by a colon `:`. Either a [Python regular expression](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax) with named capture groups, a single field name, or a similar syntax to the [output template](#output-template) (only `%(field)s` formatting is supported) can be used for `TO`. The option can be used multiple times to parse and modify various fields.
1699 Note that these options preserve their relative order, allowing replacements to be made in parsed fields and viceversa. Also, any field thus created can be used in the [output template](#output-template) and will also affect the media file's metadata added when using `--embed-metadata`.
1701 This option also has a few special uses:
1703 * You can download an additional URL based on the metadata of the currently downloaded video. To do this, set the field `additional_urls` to the URL that you want to download. E.g. `--parse-metadata "description:(?P<additional_urls>https?://www\.vimeo\.com/\d+)"` will download the first vimeo video found in the description
1705 * You can use this to change the metadata that is embedded in the media file. To do this, set the value of the corresponding field with a `meta_` prefix. For example, any value you set to `meta_description` field will be added to the `description` field in the file - you can use this to set a different "description" and "synopsis". To modify the metadata of individual streams, use the `meta<n>_` prefix (e.g. `meta1_language`). Any value set to the `meta_` field will overwrite all default values.
1707 **Note**: Metadata modification happens before format selection, post-extraction and other post-processing operations. Some fields may be added or changed during these steps, overriding your changes.
1709 For reference, these are the fields yt-dlp adds by default to the file metadata:
1711 Metadata fields | From
1712 :--------------------------|:------------------------------------------------
1713 `title` | `track` or `title`
1714 `date` | `upload_date`
1715 `description`, `synopsis` | `description`
1716 `purl`, `comment` | `webpage_url`
1717 `track` | `track_number`
1718 `artist` | `artist`, `artists`, `creator`, `creators`, `uploader` or `uploader_id`
1719 `composer` | `composer` or `composers`
1720 `genre` | `genre` or `genres`
1721 `album` | `album`
1722 `album_artist` | `album_artist` or `album_artists`
1723 `disc` | `disc_number`
1724 `show` | `series`
1725 `season_number` | `season_number`
1726 `episode_id` | `episode` or `episode_id`
1727 `episode_sort` | `episode_number`
1728 `language` of each stream | the format's `language`
1730 **Note**: The file format may not support some of these fields
1733 ## Modifying metadata examples
1735 ```bash
1736 # Interpret the title as "Artist - Title"
1737 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "title:%(artist)s - %(title)s"
1739 # Regex example
1740 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:Artist - (?P<artist>.+)"
1742 # Set title as "Series name S01E05"
1743 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(series)s S%(season_number)02dE%(episode_number)02d:%(title)s"
1745 # Prioritize uploader as the "artist" field in video metadata
1746 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "%(uploader|)s:%(meta_artist)s" --embed-metadata
1748 # Set "comment" field in video metadata using description instead of webpage_url,
1749 # handling multiple lines correctly
1750 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "description:(?s)(?P<meta_comment>.+)" --embed-metadata
1752 # Do not set any "synopsis" in the video metadata
1753 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata ":(?P<meta_synopsis>)"
1755 # Remove "formats" field from the infojson by setting it to an empty string
1756 $ yt-dlp --parse-metadata "video::(?P<formats>)" --write-info-json
1758 # Replace all spaces and "_" in title and uploader with a `-`
1759 $ yt-dlp --replace-in-metadata "title,uploader" "[ _]" "-"
1761 ```
1763 # EXTRACTOR ARGUMENTS
1765 Some extractors accept additional arguments which can be passed using `--extractor-args KEY:ARGS`. `ARGS` is a `;` (semicolon) separated string of `ARG=VAL1,VAL2`. E.g. `--extractor-args "youtube:player-client=mediaconnect,web;formats=incomplete" --extractor-args "funimation:version=uncut"`
1767 Note: In CLI, `ARG` can use `-` instead of `_`; e.g. `youtube:player-client"` becomes `youtube:player_client"`
1769 The following extractors use this feature:
1771 #### youtube
1772 * `lang`: Prefer translated metadata (`title`, `description` etc) of this language code (case-sensitive). By default, the video primary language metadata is preferred, with a fallback to `en` translated. See [youtube.py](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/c26f9b991a0681fd3ea548d535919cec1fbbd430/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L381-L390) for list of supported content language codes
1773 * `skip`: One or more of `hls`, `dash` or `translated_subs` to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and [auto-translated subtitles](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/4090#issuecomment-1158102032) respectively
1774 * `player_client`: Clients to extract video data from. The main clients are `web`, `ios` and `android`, with variants `_music` and `_creator` (e.g. `ios_creator`); and `mediaconnect`, `mweb`, `android_producer`, `android_testsuite`, `android_vr`, `web_safari`, `web_embedded`, `tv` and `tv_embedded` with no variants. By default, `ios,mweb` is used, and `tv_embedded`, `web_creator` and `mediaconnect` are added as required for age-gated videos. Similarly, the music variants are added for `music.youtube.com` urls. Most `android` clients will be given lowest priority since their formats are broken. You can use `all` to use all the clients, and `default` for the default clients. You can prefix a client with `-` to exclude it, e.g. `youtube:player_client=all,-web`
1775 * `player_skip`: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more of `configs` (skip client configs), `webpage` (skip initial webpage), `js` (skip js player). While these options can help reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting, they could cause some issues. See [#860](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) for more details
1776 * `player_params`: YouTube player parameters to use for player requests. Will overwrite any default ones set by yt-dlp.
1777 * `comment_sort`: `top` or `new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
1778 * `max_comments`: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing `max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread`. Default is `all,all,all,all`
1779 * E.g. `all,all,1000,10` will get a maximum of 1000 replies total, with up to 10 replies per thread. `1000,all,100` will get a maximum of 1000 comments, with a maximum of 100 replies total
1780 * `formats`: Change the types of formats to return. `dashy` (convert HTTP to DASH), `duplicate` (identical content but different URLs or protocol; includes `dashy`), `incomplete` (cannot be downloaded completely - live dash and post-live m3u8)
1781 * `innertube_host`: Innertube API host to use for all API requests; e.g. `studio.youtube.com`, `youtubei.googleapis.com`. Note that cookies exported from one subdomain will not work on others
1782 * `innertube_key`: Innertube API key to use for all API requests. By default, no API key is used
1783 * `raise_incomplete_data`: `Incomplete Data Received` raises an error instead of reporting a warning
1784 * `data_sync_id`: Overrides the account Data Sync ID used in Innertube API requests. This may be needed if you are using an account with `youtube:player_skip=webpage,configs` or `youtubetab:skip=webpage`
1785 * `visitor_data`: Overrides the Visitor Data used in Innertube API requests. This should be used with `player_skip=webpage,configs` and without cookies. Note: this may have adverse effects if used improperly. If a session from a browser is wanted, you should pass cookies instead (which contain the Visitor ID)
1786 * `po_token`: Proof of Origin (PO) Token(s) to use for requesting video playback. Comma seperated list of PO Tokens in the format `CLIENT+PO_TOKEN`, e.g. `youtube:po_token=web+XXX,android+YYY`
1788 #### youtubetab (YouTube playlists, channels, feeds, etc.)
1789 * `skip`: One or more of `webpage` (skip initial webpage download), `authcheck` (allow the download of playlists requiring authentication when no initial webpage is downloaded. This may cause unwanted behavior, see [#1122](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/1122) for more details)
1790 * `approximate_date`: Extract approximate `upload_date` and `timestamp` in flat-playlist. This may cause date-based filters to be slightly off
1792 #### generic
1793 * `fragment_query`: Passthrough any query in mpd/m3u8 manifest URLs to their fragments if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given as `fragment_query=VALUE`. Note that if the stream has an HLS AES-128 key, then the query parameters will be passed to the key URI as well, unless the `key_query` extractor-arg is passed, or unless an external key URI is provided via the `hls_key` extractor-arg. Does not apply to ffmpeg
1794 * `variant_query`: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its variant playlist URLs if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given as `variant_query=VALUE`
1795 * `key_query`: Passthrough the master m3u8 URL query to its HLS AES-128 decryption key URI if no value is provided, or else apply the query string given as `key_query=VALUE`. Note that this will have no effect if the key URI is provided via the `hls_key` extractor-arg. Does not apply to ffmpeg
1796 * `hls_key`: An HLS AES-128 key URI *or* key (as hex), and optionally the IV (as hex), in the form of `(URI|KEY)[,IV]`; e.g. `generic:hls_key=ABCDEF1234567980,0xFEDCBA0987654321`. Passing any of these values will force usage of the native HLS downloader and override the corresponding values found in the m3u8 playlist
1797 * `is_live`: Bypass live HLS detection and manually set `live_status` - a value of `false` will set `not_live`, any other value (or no value) will set `is_live`
1799 #### funimation
1800 * `language`: Audio languages to extract, e.g. `funimation:language=english,japanese`
1801 * `version`: The video version to extract - `uncut` or `simulcast`
1803 #### crunchyrollbeta (Crunchyroll)
1804 * `hardsub`: One or more hardsub versions to extract (in order of preference), or `all` (default: `None` = no hardsubs will be extracted), e.g. `crunchyrollbeta:hardsub=en-US,de-DE`
1806 #### vikichannel
1807 * `video_types`: Types of videos to download - one or more of `episodes`, `movies`, `clips`, `trailers`
1809 #### niconico
1810 * `segment_duration`: Segment duration in milliseconds for HLS-DMC formats. Use it at your own risk since this feature **may result in your account termination.**
1812 #### youtubewebarchive
1813 * `check_all`: Try to check more at the cost of more requests. One or more of `thumbnails`, `captures`
1815 #### gamejolt
1816 * `comment_sort`: `hot` (default), `you` (cookies needed), `top`, `new` - choose comment sorting mode (on GameJolt's side)
1818 #### hotstar
1819 * `res`: resolution to ignore - one or more of `sd`, `hd`, `fhd`
1820 * `vcodec`: vcodec to ignore - one or more of `h264`, `h265`, `dvh265`
1821 * `dr`: dynamic range to ignore - one or more of `sdr`, `hdr10`, `dv`
1823 #### niconicochannelplus
1824 * `max_comments`: Maximum number of comments to extract - default is `120`
1826 #### tiktok
1827 * `api_hostname`: Hostname to use for mobile API calls, e.g. `api22-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.com`
1828 * `app_name`: Default app name to use with mobile API calls, e.g. `trill`
1829 * `app_version`: Default app version to use with mobile API calls - should be set along with `manifest_app_version`, e.g. `34.1.2`
1830 * `manifest_app_version`: Default numeric app version to use with mobile API calls, e.g. `2023401020`
1831 * `aid`: Default app ID to use with mobile API calls, e.g. `1180`
1832 * `app_info`: Enable mobile API extraction with one or more app info strings in the format of `<iid>/[app_name]/[app_version]/[manifest_app_version]/[aid]`, where `iid` is the unique app install ID. `iid` is the only required value; all other values and their `/` separators can be omitted, e.g. `tiktok:app_info=1234567890123456789` or `tiktok:app_info=123,456/trill///1180,789//34.0.1/340001`
1833 * `device_id`: Enable mobile API extraction with a genuine device ID to be used with mobile API calls. Default is a random 19-digit string
1835 #### rokfinchannel
1836 * `tab`: Which tab to download - one of `new`, `top`, `videos`, `podcasts`, `streams`, `stacks`
1838 #### twitter
1839 * `api`: Select one of `graphql` (default), `legacy` or `syndication` as the API for tweet extraction. Has no effect if logged in
1841 #### stacommu, wrestleuniverse
1842 * `device_id`: UUID value assigned by the website and used to enforce device limits for paid livestream content. Can be found in browser local storage
1844 #### twitch
1845 * `client_id`: Client ID value to be sent with GraphQL requests, e.g. `twitch:client_id=kimne78kx3ncx6brgo4mv6wki5h1ko`
1847 #### nhkradirulive (NHK らじる★らじる LIVE)
1848 * `area`: Which regional variation to extract. Valid areas are: `sapporo`, `sendai`, `tokyo`, `nagoya`, `osaka`, `hiroshima`, `matsuyama`, `fukuoka`. Defaults to `tokyo`
1850 #### nflplusreplay
1851 * `type`: Type(s) of game replays to extract. Valid types are: `full_game`, `full_game_spanish`, `condensed_game` and `all_22`. You can use `all` to extract all available replay types, which is the default
1853 #### jiocinema
1854 * `refresh_token`: The `refreshToken` UUID from browser local storage can be passed to extend the life of your login session when logging in with `token` as username and the `accessToken` from browser local storage as password
1856 #### jiosaavn
1857 * `bitrate`: Audio bitrates to request. One or more of `16`, `32`, `64`, `128`, `320`. Default is `128,320`
1859 #### afreecatvlive
1860 * `cdn`: One or more CDN IDs to use with the API call for stream URLs, e.g. `gcp_cdn`, `gs_cdn_pc_app`, `gs_cdn_mobile_web`, `gs_cdn_pc_web`
1862 #### soundcloud
1863 * `formats`: Formats to request from the API. Requested values should be in the format of `{protocol}_{extension}` (omitting the bitrate), e.g. `hls_opus,http_aac`. The `*` character functions as a wildcard, e.g. `*_mp3`, and can be passed by itself to request all formats. Known protocols include `http`, `hls` and `hls-aes`; known extensions include `aac`, `opus` and `mp3`. Original `download` formats are always extracted. Default is `http_aac,hls_aac,http_opus,hls_opus,http_mp3,hls_mp3`
1865 #### orfon (orf:on)
1866 * `prefer_segments_playlist`: Prefer a playlist of program segments instead of a single complete video when available. If individual segments are desired, use `--concat-playlist never --extractor-args "orfon:prefer_segments_playlist"`
1868 #### bilibili
1869 * `prefer_multi_flv`: Prefer extracting flv formats over mp4 for older videos that still provide legacy formats
1871 #### digitalconcerthall
1872 * `prefer_combined_hls`: Prefer extracting combined/pre-merged video and audio HLS formats. This will exclude 4K/HEVC video and lossless/FLAC audio formats, which are only available as split video/audio HLS formats
1874 **Note**: These options may be changed/removed in the future without concern for backward compatibility
1876 <!-- MANPAGE: MOVE "INSTALLATION" SECTION HERE -->
1879 # PLUGINS
1881 Note that **all** plugins are imported even if not invoked, and that **there are no checks** performed on plugin code. **Use plugins at your own risk and only if you trust the code!**
1883 Plugins can be of `<type>`s `extractor` or `postprocessor`.
1884 - Extractor plugins do not need to be enabled from the CLI and are automatically invoked when the input URL is suitable for it.
1885 - Extractor plugins take priority over built-in extractors.
1886 - Postprocessor plugins can be invoked using `--use-postprocessor NAME`.
1889 Plugins are loaded from the namespace packages `yt_dlp_plugins.extractor` and `yt_dlp_plugins.postprocessor`.
1891 In other words, the file structure on the disk looks something like:
1893 yt_dlp_plugins/
1894 extractor/
1895 myplugin.py
1896 postprocessor/
1897 myplugin.py
1899 yt-dlp looks for these `yt_dlp_plugins` namespace folders in many locations (see below) and loads in plugins from **all** of them.
1901 See the [wiki for some known plugins](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Plugins)
1903 ## Installing Plugins
1905 Plugins can be installed using various methods and locations.
1907 1. **Configuration directories**:
1908 Plugin packages (containing a `yt_dlp_plugins` namespace folder) can be dropped into the following standard [configuration locations](#configuration):
1909 * **User Plugins**
1910 * `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/` (recommended on Linux/macOS)
1911 * `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1912 * `${APPDATA}/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/` (recommended on Windows)
1913 * `${APPDATA}/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1914 * `~/.yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1915 * `~/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1916 * **System Plugins**
1917 * `/etc/yt-dlp/plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1918 * `/etc/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1919 2. **Executable location**: Plugin packages can similarly be installed in a `yt-dlp-plugins` directory under the executable location (recommended for portable installations):
1920 * Binary: where `<root-dir>/yt-dlp.exe`, `<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1921 * Source: where `<root-dir>/yt_dlp/__main__.py`, `<root-dir>/yt-dlp-plugins/<package name>/yt_dlp_plugins/`
1923 3. **pip and other locations in `PYTHONPATH`**
1924 * Plugin packages can be installed and managed using `pip`. See [yt-dlp-sample-plugins](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-plugins) for an example.
1925 * Note: plugin files between plugin packages installed with pip must have unique filenames.
1926 * Any path in `PYTHONPATH` is searched in for the `yt_dlp_plugins` namespace folder.
1927 * Note: This does not apply for Pyinstaller/py2exe builds.
1930 `.zip`, `.egg` and `.whl` archives containing a `yt_dlp_plugins` namespace folder in their root are also supported as plugin packages.
1932 * e.g. `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/yt-dlp/plugins/mypluginpkg.zip` where `mypluginpkg.zip` contains `yt_dlp_plugins/<type>/myplugin.py`
1934 Run yt-dlp with `--verbose` to check if the plugin has been loaded.
1936 ## Developing Plugins
1938 See the [yt-dlp-sample-plugins](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-sample-plugins) repo for a template plugin package and the [Plugin Development](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Plugin-Development) section of the wiki for a plugin development guide.
1940 All public classes with a name ending in `IE`/`PP` are imported from each file for extractors and postprocessors respectively. This respects underscore prefix (e.g. `_MyBasePluginIE` is private) and `__all__`. Modules can similarly be excluded by prefixing the module name with an underscore (e.g. `_myplugin.py`).
1942 To replace an existing extractor with a subclass of one, set the `plugin_name` class keyword argument (e.g. `class MyPluginIE(ABuiltInIE, plugin_name='myplugin')` will replace `ABuiltInIE` with `MyPluginIE`). Since the extractor replaces the parent, you should exclude the subclass extractor from being imported separately by making it private using one of the methods described above.
1944 If you are a plugin author, add [yt-dlp-plugins](https://github.com/topics/yt-dlp-plugins) as a topic to your repository for discoverability.
1946 See the [Developer Instructions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions) on how to write and test an extractor.
1948 # EMBEDDING YT-DLP
1950 yt-dlp makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and thus should be callable from any programming language.
1952 Your program should avoid parsing the normal stdout since they may change in future versions. Instead, they should use options such as `-J`, `--print`, `--progress-template`, `--exec` etc to create console output that you can reliably reproduce and parse.
1954 From a Python program, you can embed yt-dlp in a more powerful fashion, like this:
1956 ```python
1957 from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
1959 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
1960 with YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1961 ydl.download(URLS)
1962 ```
1964 Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of options available, have a look at [`yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py`](yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py#L183) or `help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)` in a Python shell. If you are already familiar with the CLI, you can use [`devscripts/cli_to_api.py`](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/devscripts/cli_to_api.py) to translate any CLI switches to `YoutubeDL` params.
1966 **Tip**: If you are porting your code from youtube-dl to yt-dlp, one important point to look out for is that we do not guarantee the return value of `YoutubeDL.extract_info` to be json serializable, or even be a dictionary. It will be dictionary-like, but if you want to ensure it is a serializable dictionary, pass it through `YoutubeDL.sanitize_info` as shown in the [example below](#extracting-information)
1968 ## Embedding examples
1970 #### Extracting information
1972 ```python
1973 import json
1974 import yt_dlp
1976 URL = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'
1978 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL) for a list of available options and public functions
1979 ydl_opts = {}
1980 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
1981 info = ydl.extract_info(URL, download=False)
1983 # ℹ️ ydl.sanitize_info makes the info json-serializable
1984 print(json.dumps(ydl.sanitize_info(info)))
1985 ```
1986 #### Download using an info-json
1988 ```python
1989 import yt_dlp
1991 INFO_FILE = 'path/to/video.info.json'
1993 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
1994 error_code = ydl.download_with_info_file(INFO_FILE)
1996 print('Some videos failed to download' if error_code
1997 else 'All videos successfully downloaded')
1998 ```
2000 #### Extract audio
2002 ```python
2003 import yt_dlp
2005 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
2007 ydl_opts = {
2008 'format': 'm4a/bestaudio/best',
2009 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor) for a list of available Postprocessors and their arguments
2010 'postprocessors': [{ # Extract audio using ffmpeg
2011 'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
2012 'preferredcodec': 'm4a',
2013 }]
2014 }
2016 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
2017 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
2018 ```
2020 #### Filter videos
2022 ```python
2023 import yt_dlp
2025 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
2027 def longer_than_a_minute(info, *, incomplete):
2028 """Download only videos longer than a minute (or with unknown duration)"""
2029 duration = info.get('duration')
2030 if duration and duration < 60:
2031 return 'The video is too short'
2033 ydl_opts = {
2034 'match_filter': longer_than_a_minute,
2035 }
2037 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
2038 error_code = ydl.download(URLS)
2039 ```
2041 #### Adding logger and progress hook
2043 ```python
2044 import yt_dlp
2046 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
2048 class MyLogger:
2049 def debug(self, msg):
2050 # For compatibility with youtube-dl, both debug and info are passed into debug
2051 # You can distinguish them by the prefix '[debug] '
2052 if msg.startswith('[debug] '):
2053 pass
2054 else:
2055 self.info(msg)
2057 def info(self, msg):
2058 pass
2060 def warning(self, msg):
2061 pass
2063 def error(self, msg):
2064 print(msg)
2067 # ℹ️ See "progress_hooks" in help(yt_dlp.YoutubeDL)
2068 def my_hook(d):
2069 if d['status'] == 'finished':
2070 print('Done downloading, now post-processing ...')
2073 ydl_opts = {
2074 'logger': MyLogger(),
2075 'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
2076 }
2078 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
2079 ydl.download(URLS)
2080 ```
2082 #### Add a custom PostProcessor
2084 ```python
2085 import yt_dlp
2087 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
2089 # ℹ️ See help(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor)
2090 class MyCustomPP(yt_dlp.postprocessor.PostProcessor):
2091 def run(self, info):
2092 self.to_screen('Doing stuff')
2093 return [], info
2096 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL() as ydl:
2097 # ℹ️ "when" can take any value in yt_dlp.utils.POSTPROCESS_WHEN
2098 ydl.add_post_processor(MyCustomPP(), when='pre_process')
2099 ydl.download(URLS)
2100 ```
2103 #### Use a custom format selector
2105 ```python
2106 import yt_dlp
2108 URLS = ['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc']
2110 def format_selector(ctx):
2111 """ Select the best video and the best audio that won't result in an mkv.
2112 NOTE: This is just an example and does not handle all cases """
2114 # formats are already sorted worst to best
2115 formats = ctx.get('formats')[::-1]
2117 # acodec='none' means there is no audio
2118 best_video = next(f for f in formats
2119 if f['vcodec'] != 'none' and f['acodec'] == 'none')
2121 # find compatible audio extension
2122 audio_ext = {'mp4': 'm4a', 'webm': 'webm'}[best_video['ext']]
2123 # vcodec='none' means there is no video
2124 best_audio = next(f for f in formats if (
2125 f['acodec'] != 'none' and f['vcodec'] == 'none' and f['ext'] == audio_ext))
2127 # These are the minimum required fields for a merged format
2128 yield {
2129 'format_id': f'{best_video["format_id"]}+{best_audio["format_id"]}',
2130 'ext': best_video['ext'],
2131 'requested_formats': [best_video, best_audio],
2132 # Must be + separated list of protocols
2133 'protocol': f'{best_video["protocol"]}+{best_audio["protocol"]}'
2134 }
2137 ydl_opts = {
2138 'format': format_selector,
2139 }
2141 with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
2142 ydl.download(URLS)
2143 ```
2146 # CHANGES FROM YOUTUBE-DL
2148 ### New features
2150 * Forked from [**yt-dlc@f9401f2**](https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc/commit/f9401f2a91987068139c5f757b12fc711d4c0cee) and merged with [**youtube-dl@a08f2b7**](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/a08f2b7e4567cdc50c0614ee0a4ffdff49b8b6e6) ([exceptions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/21))
2152 * **[SponsorBlock Integration](#sponsorblock-options)**: You can mark/remove sponsor sections in YouTube videos by utilizing the [SponsorBlock](https://sponsor.ajay.app) API
2154 * **[Format Sorting](#sorting-formats)**: The default format sorting options have been changed so that higher resolution and better codecs will be now preferred instead of simply using larger bitrate. Furthermore, you can now specify the sort order using `-S`. This allows for much easier format selection than what is possible by simply using `--format` ([examples](#format-selection-examples))
2156 * **Merged with animelover1984/youtube-dl**: You get most of the features and improvements from [animelover1984/youtube-dl](https://github.com/animelover1984/youtube-dl) including `--write-comments`, `BiliBiliSearch`, `BilibiliChannel`, Embedding thumbnail in mp4/ogg/opus, playlist infojson etc. Note that NicoNico livestreams are not available. See [#31](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/31) for details.
2158 * **YouTube improvements**:
2159 * Supports Clips, Stories (`ytstories:<channel UCID>`), Search (including filters)**\***, YouTube Music Search, Channel-specific search, Search prefixes (`ytsearch:`, `ytsearchdate:`)**\***, Mixes, and Feeds (`:ytfav`, `:ytwatchlater`, `:ytsubs`, `:ythistory`, `:ytrec`, `:ytnotif`)
2160 * Fix for [n-sig based throttling](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/29326) **\***
2161 * Supports some (but not all) age-gated content without cookies
2162 * Download livestreams from the start using `--live-from-start` (*experimental*)
2163 * Channel URLs download all uploads of the channel, including shorts and live
2165 * **Cookies from browser**: Cookies can be automatically extracted from all major web browsers using `--cookies-from-browser BROWSER[+KEYRING][:PROFILE][::CONTAINER]`
2167 * **Download time range**: Videos can be downloaded partially based on either timestamps or chapters using `--download-sections`
2169 * **Split video by chapters**: Videos can be split into multiple files based on chapters using `--split-chapters`
2171 * **Multi-threaded fragment downloads**: Download multiple fragments of m3u8/mpd videos in parallel. Use `--concurrent-fragments` (`-N`) option to set the number of threads used
2173 * **Aria2c with HLS/DASH**: You can use `aria2c` as the external downloader for DASH(mpd) and HLS(m3u8) formats
2175 * **New and fixed extractors**: Many new extractors have been added and a lot of existing ones have been fixed. See the [changelog](Changelog.md) or the [list of supported sites](supportedsites.md)
2177 * **New MSOs**: Philo, Spectrum, SlingTV, Cablevision, RCN etc.
2179 * **Subtitle extraction from manifests**: Subtitles can be extracted from streaming media manifests. See [commit/be6202f](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/be6202f12b97858b9d716e608394b51065d0419f) for details
2181 * **Multiple paths and output templates**: You can give different [output templates](#output-template) and download paths for different types of files. You can also set a temporary path where intermediary files are downloaded to using `--paths` (`-P`)
2183 * **Portable Configuration**: Configuration files are automatically loaded from the home and root directories. See [CONFIGURATION](#configuration) for details
2185 * **Output template improvements**: Output templates can now have date-time formatting, numeric offsets, object traversal etc. See [output template](#output-template) for details. Even more advanced operations can also be done with the help of `--parse-metadata` and `--replace-in-metadata`
2187 * **Other new options**: Many new options have been added such as `--alias`, `--print`, `--concat-playlist`, `--wait-for-video`, `--retry-sleep`, `--sleep-requests`, `--convert-thumbnails`, `--force-download-archive`, `--force-overwrites`, `--break-match-filters` etc
2189 * **Improvements**: Regex and other operators in `--format`/`--match-filters`, multiple `--postprocessor-args` and `--downloader-args`, faster archive checking, more [format selection options](#format-selection), merge multi-video/audio, multiple `--config-locations`, `--exec` at different stages, etc
2191 * **Plugins**: Extractors and PostProcessors can be loaded from an external file. See [plugins](#plugins) for details
2193 * **Self updater**: The releases can be updated using `yt-dlp -U`, and downgraded using `--update-to` if required
2195 * **Automated builds**: [Nightly/master builds](#update-channels) can be used with `--update-to nightly` and `--update-to master`
2197 See [changelog](Changelog.md) or [commits](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commits) for the full list of changes
2199 Features marked with a **\*** have been back-ported to youtube-dl
2201 ### Differences in default behavior
2203 Some of yt-dlp's default options are different from that of youtube-dl and youtube-dlc:
2205 * yt-dlp supports only [Python 3.8+](## "Windows 7"), and *may* remove support for more versions as they [become EOL](https://devguide.python.org/versions/#python-release-cycle); while [youtube-dl still supports Python 2.6+ and 3.2+](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/30568#issue-1118238743)
2206 * The options `--auto-number` (`-A`), `--title` (`-t`) and `--literal` (`-l`), no longer work. See [removed options](#Removed) for details
2207 * `avconv` is not supported as an alternative to `ffmpeg`
2208 * yt-dlp stores config files in slightly different locations to youtube-dl. See [CONFIGURATION](#configuration) for a list of correct locations
2209 * The default [output template](#output-template) is `%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`. There is no real reason for this change. This was changed before yt-dlp was ever made public and now there are no plans to change it back to `%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`. Instead, you may use `--compat-options filename`
2210 * The default [format sorting](#sorting-formats) is different from youtube-dl and prefers higher resolution and better codecs rather than higher bitrates. You can use the `--format-sort` option to change this to any order you prefer, or use `--compat-options format-sort` to use youtube-dl's sorting order
2211 * The default format selector is `bv*+ba/b`. This means that if a combined video + audio format that is better than the best video-only format is found, the former will be preferred. Use `-f bv+ba/b` or `--compat-options format-spec` to revert this
2212 * Unlike youtube-dlc, yt-dlp does not allow merging multiple audio/video streams into one file by default (since this conflicts with the use of `-f bv*+ba`). If needed, this feature must be enabled using `--audio-multistreams` and `--video-multistreams`. You can also use `--compat-options multistreams` to enable both
2213 * `--no-abort-on-error` is enabled by default. Use `--abort-on-error` or `--compat-options abort-on-error` to abort on errors instead
2214 * When writing metadata files such as thumbnails, description or infojson, the same information (if available) is also written for playlists. Use `--no-write-playlist-metafiles` or `--compat-options no-playlist-metafiles` to not write these files
2215 * `--add-metadata` attaches the `infojson` to `mkv` files in addition to writing the metadata when used with `--write-info-json`. Use `--no-embed-info-json` or `--compat-options no-attach-info-json` to revert this
2216 * Some metadata are embedded into different fields when using `--add-metadata` as compared to youtube-dl. Most notably, `comment` field contains the `webpage_url` and `synopsis` contains the `description`. You can [use `--parse-metadata`](#modifying-metadata) to modify this to your liking or use `--compat-options embed-metadata` to revert this
2217 * `playlist_index` behaves differently when used with options like `--playlist-reverse` and `--playlist-items`. See [#302](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/302) for details. You can use `--compat-options playlist-index` if you want to keep the earlier behavior
2218 * The output of `-F` is listed in a new format. Use `--compat-options list-formats` to revert this
2219 * Live chats (if available) are considered as subtitles. Use `--sub-langs all,-live_chat` to download all subtitles except live chat. You can also use `--compat-options no-live-chat` to prevent any live chat/danmaku from downloading
2220 * YouTube channel URLs download all uploads of the channel. To download only the videos in a specific tab, pass the tab's URL. If the channel does not show the requested tab, an error will be raised. Also, `/live` URLs raise an error if there are no live videos instead of silently downloading the entire channel. You may use `--compat-options no-youtube-channel-redirect` to revert all these redirections
2221 * Unavailable videos are also listed for YouTube playlists. Use `--compat-options no-youtube-unavailable-videos` to remove this
2222 * The upload dates extracted from YouTube are in UTC [when available](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/89e4d86171c7b7c997c77d4714542e0383bf0db0/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L3898-L3900). Use `--compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date` to prefer the non-UTC upload date.
2223 * If `ffmpeg` is used as the downloader, the downloading and merging of formats happen in a single step when possible. Use `--compat-options no-direct-merge` to revert this
2224 * Thumbnail embedding in `mp4` is done with mutagen if possible. Use `--compat-options embed-thumbnail-atomicparsley` to force the use of AtomicParsley instead
2225 * Some internal metadata such as filenames are removed by default from the infojson. Use `--no-clean-infojson` or `--compat-options no-clean-infojson` to revert this
2226 * When `--embed-subs` and `--write-subs` are used together, the subtitles are written to disk and also embedded in the media file. You can use just `--embed-subs` to embed the subs and automatically delete the separate file. See [#630 (comment)](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/630#issuecomment-893659460) for more info. `--compat-options no-keep-subs` can be used to revert this
2227 * `certifi` will be used for SSL root certificates, if installed. If you want to use system certificates (e.g. self-signed), use `--compat-options no-certifi`
2228 * yt-dlp's sanitization of invalid characters in filenames is different/smarter than in youtube-dl. You can use `--compat-options filename-sanitization` to revert to youtube-dl's behavior
2229 * ~~yt-dlp tries to parse the external downloader outputs into the standard progress output if possible (Currently implemented: [aria2c](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/5931)). You can use `--compat-options no-external-downloader-progress` to get the downloader output as-is~~
2230 * yt-dlp versions between 2021.09.01 and 2023.01.02 applies `--match-filters` to nested playlists. This was an unintentional side-effect of [8f18ac](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/8f18aca8717bb0dd49054555af8d386e5eda3a88) and is fixed in [d7b460](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/d7b460d0e5fc710950582baed2e3fc616ed98a80). Use `--compat-options playlist-match-filter` to revert this
2231 * yt-dlp versions between 2021.11.10 and 2023.06.21 estimated `filesize_approx` values for fragmented/manifest formats. This was added for convenience in [f2fe69](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/f2fe69c7b0d208bdb1f6292b4ae92bc1e1a7444a), but was reverted in [0dff8e](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/0dff8e4d1e6e9fb938f4256ea9af7d81f42fd54f) due to the potentially extreme inaccuracy of the estimated values. Use `--compat-options manifest-filesize-approx` to keep extracting the estimated values
2232 * yt-dlp uses modern http client backends such as `requests`. Use `--compat-options prefer-legacy-http-handler` to prefer the legacy http handler (`urllib`) to be used for standard http requests.
2233 * The sub-modules `swfinterp`, `casefold` are removed.
2234 * Passing `--simulate` (or calling `extract_info` with `download=False`) no longer alters the default format selection. See [#9843](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/9843) for details.
2236 For ease of use, a few more compat options are available:
2238 * `--compat-options all`: Use all compat options (**Do NOT use this!**)
2239 * `--compat-options youtube-dl`: Same as `--compat-options all,-multistreams,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx,-allow-unsafe-ext`
2240 * `--compat-options youtube-dlc`: Same as `--compat-options all,-no-live-chat,-no-youtube-channel-redirect,-playlist-match-filter,-manifest-filesize-approx,-allow-unsafe-ext`
2241 * `--compat-options 2021`: Same as `--compat-options 2022,no-certifi,filename-sanitization,no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date`
2242 * `--compat-options 2022`: Same as `--compat-options 2023,playlist-match-filter,no-external-downloader-progress,prefer-legacy-http-handler,manifest-filesize-approx`
2243 * `--compat-options 2023`: Currently does nothing. Use this to enable all future compat options
2245 The following compat options restore vulnerable behavior from before security patches:
2247 * `--compat-options allow-unsafe-ext`: Allow files with any extension (including unsafe ones) to be downloaded ([GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j](<https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j>))
2249 > :warning: Only use if a valid file download is rejected because its extension is detected as uncommon
2250 >
2251 > **This option can enable remote code execution! Consider [opening an issue](<https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/new/choose>) instead!**
2253 ### Deprecated options
2255 These are all the deprecated options and the current alternative to achieve the same effect
2257 #### Almost redundant options
2258 While these options are almost the same as their new counterparts, there are some differences that prevents them being redundant
2260 -j, --dump-json --print "%()j"
2261 -F, --list-formats --print formats_table
2262 --list-thumbnails --print thumbnails_table --print playlist:thumbnails_table
2263 --list-subs --print automatic_captions_table --print subtitles_table
2265 #### Redundant options
2266 While these options are redundant, they are still expected to be used due to their ease of use
2268 --get-description --print description
2269 --get-duration --print duration_string
2270 --get-filename --print filename
2271 --get-format --print format
2272 --get-id --print id
2273 --get-thumbnail --print thumbnail
2274 -e, --get-title --print title
2275 -g, --get-url --print urls
2276 --match-title REGEX --match-filters "title ~= (?i)REGEX"
2277 --reject-title REGEX --match-filters "title !~= (?i)REGEX"
2278 --min-views COUNT --match-filters "view_count >=? COUNT"
2279 --max-views COUNT --match-filters "view_count <=? COUNT"
2280 --break-on-reject Use --break-match-filters
2281 --user-agent UA --add-header "User-Agent:UA"
2282 --referer URL --add-header "Referer:URL"
2283 --playlist-start NUMBER -I NUMBER:
2284 --playlist-end NUMBER -I :NUMBER
2285 --playlist-reverse -I ::-1
2286 --no-playlist-reverse Default
2287 --no-colors --color no_color
2289 #### Not recommended
2290 While these options still work, their use is not recommended since there are other alternatives to achieve the same
2292 --force-generic-extractor --ies generic,default
2293 --exec-before-download CMD --exec "before_dl:CMD"
2294 --no-exec-before-download --no-exec
2295 --all-formats -f all
2296 --all-subs --sub-langs all --write-subs
2297 --print-json -j --no-simulate
2298 --autonumber-size NUMBER Use string formatting, e.g. %(autonumber)03d
2299 --autonumber-start NUMBER Use internal field formatting like %(autonumber+NUMBER)s
2300 --id -o "%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2301 --metadata-from-title FORMAT --parse-metadata "%(title)s:FORMAT"
2302 --hls-prefer-native --downloader "m3u8:native"
2303 --hls-prefer-ffmpeg --downloader "m3u8:ffmpeg"
2304 --list-formats-old --compat-options list-formats (Alias: --no-list-formats-as-table)
2305 --list-formats-as-table --compat-options -list-formats [Default] (Alias: --no-list-formats-old)
2306 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=dash" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-dash-manifest)
2307 --youtube-skip-hls-manifest --extractor-args "youtube:skip=hls" (Alias: --no-youtube-include-hls-manifest)
2308 --youtube-include-dash-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-dash-manifest)
2309 --youtube-include-hls-manifest Default (Alias: --no-youtube-skip-hls-manifest)
2310 --geo-bypass --xff "default"
2311 --no-geo-bypass --xff "never"
2312 --geo-bypass-country CODE --xff CODE
2313 --geo-bypass-ip-block IP_BLOCK --xff IP_BLOCK
2315 #### Developer options
2316 These options are not intended to be used by the end-user
2318 --test Download only part of video for testing extractors
2319 --load-pages Load pages dumped by --write-pages
2320 --youtube-print-sig-code For testing youtube signatures
2321 --allow-unplayable-formats List unplayable formats also
2322 --no-allow-unplayable-formats Default
2324 #### Old aliases
2325 These are aliases that are no longer documented for various reasons
2327 --avconv-location --ffmpeg-location
2328 --clean-infojson --clean-info-json
2329 --cn-verification-proxy URL --geo-verification-proxy URL
2330 --dump-headers --print-traffic
2331 --dump-intermediate-pages --dump-pages
2332 --force-write-download-archive --force-write-archive
2333 --load-info --load-info-json
2334 --no-clean-infojson --no-clean-info-json
2335 --no-split-tracks --no-split-chapters
2336 --no-write-srt --no-write-subs
2337 --prefer-unsecure --prefer-insecure
2338 --rate-limit RATE --limit-rate RATE
2339 --split-tracks --split-chapters
2340 --srt-lang LANGS --sub-langs LANGS
2341 --trim-file-names LENGTH --trim-filenames LENGTH
2342 --write-srt --write-subs
2343 --yes-overwrites --force-overwrites
2345 #### Sponskrub Options
2346 Support for [SponSkrub](https://github.com/faissaloo/SponSkrub) has been deprecated in favor of the `--sponsorblock` options
2348 --sponskrub --sponsorblock-mark all
2349 --no-sponskrub --no-sponsorblock
2350 --sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove all
2351 --no-sponskrub-cut --sponsorblock-remove -all
2352 --sponskrub-force Not applicable
2353 --no-sponskrub-force Not applicable
2354 --sponskrub-location Not applicable
2355 --sponskrub-args Not applicable
2357 #### No longer supported
2358 These options may no longer work as intended
2360 --prefer-avconv avconv is not officially supported by yt-dlp (Alias: --no-prefer-ffmpeg)
2361 --prefer-ffmpeg Default (Alias: --no-prefer-avconv)
2362 -C, --call-home Not implemented
2363 --no-call-home Default
2364 --include-ads No longer supported
2365 --no-include-ads Default
2366 --write-annotations No supported site has annotations now
2367 --no-write-annotations Default
2368 --compat-options seperate-video-versions No longer needed
2369 --compat-options no-youtube-prefer-utc-upload-date No longer supported
2371 #### Removed
2372 These options were deprecated since 2014 and have now been entirely removed
2374 -A, --auto-number -o "%(autonumber)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2375 -t, -l, --title, --literal -o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"
2378 # CONTRIBUTING
2379 See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md#contributing-to-yt-dlp) for instructions on [Opening an Issue](CONTRIBUTING.md#opening-an-issue) and [Contributing code to the project](CONTRIBUTING.md#developer-instructions)
2381 # WIKI
2382 See the [Wiki](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki) for more information