youtube-dl is a Python based small command-line tool that allows to download videos from YouTube.com, Dailymotion, Google Video, Photobucket, Facebook, Yahoo, Metacafe, Depositfiles and few more similar sites. It written in pygtk and requires Python interpreter to run this program, it’s not platform restricted. It should run on any Unix, Windows or in Mac OS X based systems.
Recently, youtube-dl added video download support for 17 new websites: brightcove.com, auengine.com, RingTV, instagram.com, Jukebox, 3sat, CSpan, Statigr.am, traileraddict.com, hotnewhiphop.com, wat.tv, tu.tv, gamespot.com, tudou.com, Wimp.com, archive.org and break.com
youtube-dl also allows to choose specific avialable video quality format to download or let the program itself automatically download higher quality video from the site. It also has supports for user specific playlist downloads, options to add custom or original title to the downloaded video file. proxy support and many more.
Install YouTube-DL in RHEL/CentOS and Fedora
The youtube-dl program can be installed by enabling epel repository under your systems. Once enabled, you can install using ‘yum‘ package manager tool as shown.
# yum install youtube-dl
Update: If you don’t wish to add any third party repository, you can still install it right away using curl or wget command as shown.
# curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl OR # wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Note: Your system must have curl or wget packages installed to fetch the recent version youtube-dl file. If you don’t have them, you may yum to get it.
After fetching the file, you need to set a executable permission on the script to execute properly.
chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Install YouTube-DL in Ubuntu/Linux Mint and Debian
Ubuntu users can download and install latest youtube-dl version from the webupd8 PPA as shown.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
Update: Similarly, instead using any third party PPA, you can use curl or wget command to install latest version of youtube-dl script as shown.
$ sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl OR sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
After downloading the script, set the executable permission.
$ sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
Update YouTube-DL
Youtube-dl itself can be updated to the latest version using the following command.
# youtube-dl -U
Sample Output
Updating to version 2015.09.03 ... Updated youtube-dl. Restart youtube-dl to use the new version.
How to Use YouTube-DL to Download Videos
To download a video file, simply run the following command. Where “VIDEO_URL” is the url of the video that you want to download.
# youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYvuS9OxdA
Sample Output
[youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading webpage [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Extracting video information [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading js player new-en_US-vflCeB3p5 [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading DASH manifest [download] Destination: Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life-iRYvuS9OxdA.mp4 [download] 100% of 10.33MiB in 00:01
To list all available formats of video, use option “–list-formats” with the youtube-dl command.
# youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYvuS9OxdA
Sample Output
[youtube] vKtwZmhX0lw: Downloading webpage [youtube] vKtwZmhX0lw: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] vKtwZmhX0lw: Extracting video information [youtube] vKtwZmhX0lw: Downloading DASH manifest [youtube] vKtwZmhX0lw: Downloading DASH manifest [info] Available formats for vKtwZmhX0lw: format code extension resolution note 171 webm audio only DASH audio 113k , [email protected] (44100Hz), 1.86MiB 140 m4a audio only DASH audio 128k , m4a_dash container, aac @128k (44100Hz), 2.14MiB 141 m4a audio only DASH audio 255k , m4a_dash container, aac @256k (44100Hz), 4.30MiB 278 webm 180x144 DASH video 63k , webm container, vp9, 1fps, video only, 946.76KiB 160 mp4 180x144 DASH video 112k , avc1.4d400c, 15fps, video only, 1.86MiB 242 webm 300x240 DASH video 170k , vp9, 1fps, video only, 2.50MiB 133 mp4 300x240 DASH video 247k , avc1.4d400d, 25fps, video only, 4.11MiB 243 webm 400x320 DASH video 288k , vp9, 1fps, video only, 4.07MiB 13 3gp unknown small 17 3gp 176x144 small , mp4a.40.2, mp4v.20.3 36 3gp 320x240 small , mp4a.40.2, mp4v.20.3 5 flv 400x240 small 43 webm 640x360 medium , vorbis, vp8.0 18 mp4 640x360 medium , mp4a.40.2, avc1.42001E (best)
To download a preferred file format, use the option ‘-f’ (video format code). For example, I would like to download mp4 format, So I use format code as ‘18‘ as shown below.
# youtube-dl -f 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYvuS9OxdA
Sample Output
[youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading webpage [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Extracting video information [youtube] iRYvuS9OxdA: Downloading DASH manifest [download] Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life-iRYvuS9OxdA.mp4 has already been downloaded [download] 100% of 10.33MiB
To download a list of video files, create a file and place all the YouTube links that you wish to download.
# youtube-dl -a youtube_links.txt
Type the following command in a terminal to list all the avialable options.
# youtube-dl --help
For other distributions, youtube-dl can be downloaded from the youtube-dl download page.
very nice program it works very well on fedora 27 good job thank u very much
Is there a way to get the current image from a live stream using youtube-dl? If not can you direct me to a command line application that can do this in Linux.
I am trying to capture an image from a live feed every 60 seconds so I can create a timelapse of the day.
Thanks
I often use allavsoft to download all YouTube 1080p videos to 1080p, 720p, 480p, MP4, FLV, AVI, WMV, MKV, MOV, etc.
youtube-dl is pretty slow to start downloading or getting video title only (about 10s) on seagate dockstar, even after decompress.
What should I do to speed it up?
@Skyrail,
I use Youtube-DL everyday to download some videos or extract mp3 songs, but I never seen any slowness, it always fast…
how to play a downloaded video?
@Peter,
Install VLC Player in Linux to play all kind of video formats..
after download that music i suffer from how to execute/open/play that audio so what can i do?
Hi, I’m using Linux Mint for an operating System ! recently I have not been able to download Youtube Video ?? I have tries everything My small brain could come up with & no results ?? Anyone out there have any ideas ? Thanks in advance, Mike
@Mike,
Do you get any errors while running Youtube-DL? could you share with us? so that I can find out the solution for you.
You may try use Allavsoft to download 3sat TV programs, movies and other video clips in batch to your computer, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Zune, X360, Smart TV, etc.
Do we have a limit call when using youtube-dl to request to Youtube. I’m afraid that Google might block me since I request many times.
@Trung,
No any limits applied by YouTube or Google, you can download as many as videos, like I do regularly download videos or mp3 tracks from Youtube without any trouble or issues..
Hi, thank you about this tip. I have a question: How to proceed if there are more than one video on the same url? I’d like to download all the videos, but youtube-dl see only one from the url, for instance this url about Docker self-paced-training course:
https://training.docker.com/self-paced-training
@Gilvan,
Yes, you can download list of videos from specific playlist, just check out the man pages of Youtube-DL here: