yt-dlp Command Examples

A youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes. Download videos from YouTube and other websites. See also: yt-dlp, ytfzf. More information: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp.

• Download a video or playlist (with the default options from command below):

yt-dlp "{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}"

• List the available downloadable formats for a video:

yt-dlp {{[-F|--list-formats]}} "{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}"

• Download a video or playlist using the best MP4 video available (default is "bv*+ba/b"):

yt-dlp {{[-f|--format]}} "{{bv*[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4]}}" "{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}"

• Extract audio from a video (requires ffmpeg or ffprobe):

yt-dlp {{[-x|--extract-audio]}} "{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}"

• Specify audio format and audio quality of extracted audio (between 0 (best) and 10 (worst), default = 5):

yt-dlp {{[-x|--extract-audio]}} --audio-format {{mp3}} --audio-quality {{0}} "{{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0}}"

• Download only the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and last items in a playlist (the first item is 1, not 0):

yt-dlp {{[-I|--playlist-items]}} 2,4:6,-1 "{{https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbzoR-pLrL6pTJfLQ3UwtB-3V4fimdqnA}}"

• Download all playlists of a YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in a separate directory:

yt-dlp {{[-o|--output]}} "{{%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s}}" "{{https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists}}"

• Download a Udemy course keeping each chapter in a separate directory:

yt-dlp {{[-u|--username]}} {{user}} {{[-p|--password]}} {{password}} {{[-P|--paths]}} "{{path/to/directory}}" {{[-o|--output]}} "{{%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s}}" "{{https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial}}"