youtube-dl Command Examples

Download videos from YouTube and other websites. See also: yt-dlp, ytfzf, you-get. More information: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/.

• Download a video or playlist:

youtube-dl '{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}'

• List all formats that a video or playlist is available in:

youtube-dl --list-formats '{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwa0_nE9H7A}}'

• Download a video or playlist at a specific quality:

youtube-dl --format "{{best[height<=480]}}" '{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}'

• Download the audio from a video and convert it to an MP3:

youtube-dl -x --audio-format {{mp3}} '{{url}}'

• Download the best quality audio and video and merge them:

youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio '{{url}}'

• Download video(s) as MP4 files with custom filenames:

youtube-dl --format {{mp4}} -o "{{%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s by %(uploader)s on %(upload_date)s in %(playlist)s.%(ext)s}}" '{{url}}'

• Download a particular language's subtitles along with the video:

youtube-dl --sub-lang {{en}} --write-sub '{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwa0_nE9H7A}}'

• Download a playlist and extract MP3s from it:

youtube-dl -f "bestaudio" --continue --no-overwrites --ignore-errors --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" '{{url_to_playlist}}'