Youtube DL Usage - Parth Kabra

Download audio and video

This guide aims to document the usage of youtube-dl in a simplified manner. Every section explains a flag for the CLI and provides examples.

Video

Running youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ will download the video, but we want to specify the output file name and location. We can specify the output using the --output (-o) flag:

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s'

This will

Download the video to my Downloads/ directory and
Set the file name to be the <video title>.mp3.

Video format

Pass in the --format (-f) flag to choose choose the format:

Pass in either 3gp, aac, flv, m4a, mp3, mp4, ogg, wav, or webm
Pass best to select the best quality format represented by a single file with video and audio
Pass bestvideo to select the best quality video-only format

See "Format Selection" in the docs for more information.

Examples

Download a high quality video in the Downloads/ directory

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -f best

Download a video in the mp4 format

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -f mp4

Audio

Add the flag --extract-audio (-x).

Audio format

We can also specify a format with the flag --audio-format.

Pass in aac, flac, mp3, m4a, opus, vorbis, or wav
Or pass bestaudio to select the best audio-only format

Examples

Download a song in mp3

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -x --audio-format mp3

Note that --format (-f) is used for video formats while --audio-format is used for audio formats.

Merging the best audio and video and more examples

Use -f bestvideo+bestaudio to download the best video-only format and the best audio-only format and merge them with ffmpeg or avonv.

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -f bestvideo+bestaudio

Note that the default format for downloading videos is -f bestvideo+bestaudio/best. If ffmpeg/avonv are available, it will download then merge the bestvideo and bestaudio. If not, it will download best.

See more examples in the official documentation.

Examples

Download the bestvideo and bestaudio but do not merge them

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' -f 'bestaudio,bestvideo'

Output file name

Variables from "Output Template" can be passed in the --output to customize the output file name/location.

To use them, wrap the variable name in %( and )s, for instance -o ~/%(creator)s/%(license)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s.

Examples

I want to save the video with the name, upload date, and view count in the output file name, and keep it under a directory which is named the channel's name (/Downloads/channel-name/video-name.mkv)

youtube-dl dQw4w9WgXcQ -o '~/Downloads/%(creator)s/%(title)s-%(view_count)s.%(ext)s'

The video Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Video)-956123176.mkv will be saved under the Rick Astley/ directory.

Metadata

ERROR: AtomicParsley was not found. Please install.

Some commands from this section require AtomicParsley. To install it, go to wez/AtomicParsley and follow the instructions, or use

brew install atomicparsley

Pass the --write-thumbnail flag to download the YouTube thumbnail, and --embed-thumbnail to embed the thumbnail image.

Use --add-metadata to write metadata to the output video or audio.

For audio, pass --add-metadata and --embed-thumbdail to embed the thumbnail.

Examples

Download a video with an embedded thumbnail

youtube-dl L_jWHffIx5E -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' --write-thumbnail --embed-thumbnail

Download a song with metadata and an embedded thumbnail

youtube-dl L_jWHffIx5E -o '~/Downloads/THUMMBANIL%(title)s.%(ext)s' --add-metadata --embed-thumbnail -x

Note that the only additional flags are --add-metadata and --embed-thumbnail.

Subtitles

Pass --write-sub to download the subtitles as an additional file.

Additionally, pass in --embed-subs to embed the subtitles into the video file. Note that this is only supported for mp4, webm and mkv videos.

Use --sub-format with --write-sub to specify the subtitle format: ass, srt, vtt, or best.

Examples

Download a video and subtitles (if available)

youtube-dl L_jWHffIx5E -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' --write-sub

This will output two files: the video and the subtitles.

Download a video and subtitles in the srt format (of available)

youtube-dl L_jWHffIx5E -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' --write-sub --sub-format srt

If srt is not available, it will fallback to best and download another format.

Download a video with embedded subtitles (if available)

youtube-dl L_jWHffIx5E -o '~/Downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s' --write-sub --embed-subs

This will output one file: the video with embedded subtitles.