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Questions tagged [youtube-dl]

youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from youtube.com and and about 150 other websites.

youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from youtube.com and and about 150 other websites. youtube-dl can be installed with sudo apt install youtube-dl . The latest version of youtube-dl can be installed in Ubuntu with sudo snap install youtube-dl and launched with snap run youtube-dl.

youtube-dl runs from the command-line only. Some useful commands are:

  • youtube-dl --help : Print help text.
  • youtube-dl --update : Update youtube-dl to the latest YouTube update.
  • youtube-dl -F URL : List all available formats of requested videos.

Options can be given to youtube-dl from the command-line or by placing them in a configuration file at either /etc/youtube-dl.conf or at ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf.

See also:

218 questions
508
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10 answers

How to select video quality from youtube-dl?

I have installed youtube-dl in my 14.04. I can download video by following command, $ youtube-dl [youtube-link] But I want to know how to select available pixel quality of youtube video(i.e 1080p, 720p, 480p, etc). In software description they…
A J
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3 answers

Can I directly download audio using youtube-dl?

Can I directly download audio from a YouTube video instead of first downloading audio+video and then extracting the audio?
DK Bose
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7 answers

How to download playlist to mp3 format with youtube-dl?

I'm trying to download some videos in mp3 format. It's a playlist. How do I download the whole playlist using one command?
user267628
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102
votes
5 answers

How to download a youtube playlist with numbered prefix via youtube-dl?

I have a Youtube playlist, I want to download it but I want youtube-dl to name the files like 1-{name}, 2-{name}, ... n-{name} in order to be able to watch them in the same sequence as original Youtube playlist. In other words I need my downloaded…
Iman Mohamadi
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4 answers

How to download youtube videos as a best quality audio mp3 using youtube-dl

I want to download YouTube videos as mp3 files in its best quality. The below code helps to download youtube videos as m4a but not us mp3 youtube-dl -f bestaudio --audio-quality 0 --audio-format mp3…
Eka
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71
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5 answers

using youtube-dl to download entire youtube channel

So I'm trying to download an entire youtube channel using youtube-dl. I know that if you use the -F command, it gives you a list of the quality type of the videos. My question is this: how to download the best quality of all the videos so the…
Sam Vega
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59
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3 answers

Downloading youtube playlist with youtube-dl, skipping existing files

I was wondering if it was possible to download a youtube playlist as mp3 using youtube-dl, skipping already existing files. I am using this command: youtube-dl --continue --ignore-errors --no-overwrites --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --output…
Warrior
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52
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4 answers

How to specify a filename while extracting audio using youtube-dl?

I can create an mp3 of a YouTube video with the following command: youtube-dl --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtOvBOTyX00 It creates an mp3 with the following filename: Christina Perri - A Thousand Years [Official…
Joseph John
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5 answers

How to download the best video along with the best compatible audio with youtube-dl?

I want to use a format selector that is something like -f bestvideo+best audio whose extension is compatible with the video extension so that they don't need to be muxed into an mkv (WARNING: Requested formats are incompatible for merge and will be…
Shravan
  • 625
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6 answers

youtube-dl failed to extract signature

It is considered very useful to utilize youtube-dl software for downloading youtubes. A message is seen and it stopped working, which is following. ERROR: Signature extraction failed: Traceback (most recent call last): File…
HYU
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Youtube-dl: Python not found (18.04)

I have done a clean install of 18.04 LTS. I then installed youtube-dl using sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl When I try to use youtube-dl, I get the…
jacobacci
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1 answer

Requested formats are incompatible for merge

I have the following error message with youtube-dl: WARNING: Requested formats are incompatible for merge and will be merged into mkv.
AHMED adel
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28
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6 answers

Where does youtube-dl download the videos to?

I have downloaded youtube-dl and the video download is complete, but when I search for the video, I can't seem to find it. Can anyone help?
a2warik
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1 answer

youtube-dl Troubleshooting: ERROR: This video is unavailable

Ubuntu 16.04: Verify latest youtube-dl version: $ sudo apt-get install youtube-dl youtube-dl is already the newest version (2016.02.22-1). 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 137 not upgraded. Why does video's URL fail? $ youtube-dl -F …
gatorback
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5 answers

How to download a portion of a video with youtube-dl OR something else?

I'd like to be able to download a portion of a video only. For example, being able to specify a start and/or end time for downloading. So, when a user inputs a start and end time of a video, it should only download the portion of the clip within the…
I'm Here
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