NAME
youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com
SYNOPSIS
youtube-dl [options] url ...
DESCRIPTION
youtube-dl is a script to download videos from youtube.com.
Once it is installed in your system, you should be able to call it from
the command line. Usage instructions are easy. Use youtube-dl followed
by a video URL or identifier. As an example, consider:
youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar"
The video will be saved to the file "foobar.flv" in that example. Many
YouTube.com videos are in Flash Video format and their extension would
be "flv". Other videos are encoded in H.264 and these usually have the
extension "mp4". In Linux and other unices, video players using a
recent version of ffmpeg can play them. That includes MPlayer, VLC,
xine, among others.
OPTIONS
youtube-dl accepts options in the following categories
-h, --help
Print help text and exit.
-v, --version
Print program version and exit.
-U, --update
Update this program to the latest stable version.
-i, --ignore-errors
Ignore errors during download and continue processing.
-r L, --rate-limit=L
Limit the download speed to the specified maximum L (e.g., 50k or
44.6m).
-R R, --retries=R
Number R of retries for a given download (default is 10).
-u UN, --username=UN
Specify the youtube account username UN. Some videos require an
account to be downloaded, mostly because they're flagged as mature
content.
-p PW, --password=PW
Like the username, specifies the account password to be PW.
-n, --netrc
Get authentication data from the standard unix .netrc file on the
user's home directory. The machine name is youtube regarding this
usage.
-f FMT, --format=FMT
Specify the video format (quality) in which to download the video.
Note that not all videos are available in all formats.
-b, --best-quality
This option is deprecated, does nothing currently, and is expected
to be removed in a next release, as it is the current behavior of
youtube-dl.
-m, --mobile-version
Synonymous to the option "-f 17", to download videos playable on
some mobile phones.
--all-formats
Downloads all formats for which a video may be available.
--max-quality=FMT
Limit the maximum quality of the videos to downloads to FMT.
-q, --quiet
Activates quiet mode, avoiding many messages being written to the
terminal.
-s, --simulate
Simulate the operation, but do not download the video. Useful for
testing.
-g, --get-url
Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the URL that
would be used to download the video. Can be used with other
download tools like wget or aria2c.
-e, --get-title
Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but show the title of the
video that would be downloaded.
--get-thumbnail
Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but print the URL of of
the video's thumbnail.
--get-description
Simulate the operation, like quiet mode, but print the description
of the video.
--no-progress
Do not print the progress bar during downloads.
-t, --title
Use the title of the video in the file name used to download the
video.
-l, --literal
Use the literal title of the video in file name used to download
the video. Can contain "weird" characters that are not filtered
like with the -t option.
-o TPL, --output=TPL
Specify a template TPL for the names of the files to be created
when they are downloaded. The default filename is video_id.flv. But
you can also use the video title in the filename with the "-t" or
"--title" option, or preserve the literal title in the filename
with the "-l" or "--literal" option.
-a F, --batch-file=F
Specify the name of a file containing URLs of videos to download
from youtube in batch mode. The file must contain one URL per line.
-w, --no-overwrites
Do no overwrite already existing files.
-c, --continue
Resume partially downloaded files.
OUTPUT TEMPLATE
The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file
names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when
downloading a single file, like in youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv
"http://some/video". However, it may contain special sequences that
will be replaced when downloading each video.
The special sequences have the format "%(NAME)s". To clarify, that's a
percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a
lowercase S. Allowed names are:
id The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
url The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
uploader
The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the person who
uploaded the video.
title
The sequence will be replaced by the literal video title.
stitle
The sequence will be replaced by a simplified video title,
restricted to alphanumeric characters and dashes.
ext The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension (like
"flv" or "mp4").
epoch
The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating the
file.
As you may have guessed, the default template is "%(id)s.%(ext)s". When
some command line options are used, it's replaced by other templates
like "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s". You can specify your own.
AUTHOR
youtube-dl was written by Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez and many contributors
from all around the internet. This manpage was written by Rogerio
Brito <rbrito@users.sf.net>.