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youtube-dl icon

youtube-dl

A platform-independent command-line program for downloading videos from YouTube and 1000+ sites. Supports playlists, subtitles, and multiple formats.

youtube-dl screenshot 1

Cost / License

Application type

Alerts

  • Discontinued

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • BSD
  • Python
  • TrueOS
youtube-dl alternatives  
Discontinued

Last version was in December 2021. An active fork is yt-dlp icon yt-dlp.

475likes
275alternatives
3articles

Features

Properties

  1.  Customizable

Features

  1.  YouTube Downloader
  2.  Download YouTube Playlist
  3.  Command line interface
  4.  Video Download
  5.  Convert YouTube videos to Mp3
  6.  Youtube support
  7.  SoundCloud Downloader
  8.  Automatic conversion to multiple formats
  9.  Ad-free
  10.  Automatic downloading
  11.  Automatic subtitles download
  12.  Uninstall without uninstaller
  13.  Selecting songs
  14.  Rewind button
  15.  No Tracking
  16.  Support for 4K
  17.  No registration required

 Tags

youtube-dl News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

Recent activities

Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: youtube-dl is praised for its versatility and effectiveness, allowing downloads from multiple media sites, including video and audio extraction, with extensive customization options. Users appreciate its simplicity and open-source nature. While command-line interface poses a challenge for some non-technical users, others value its lightweight operation. The program also supports subtitles and handles formats well. Occasional update issues due to changes in video platforms were noted, and a GUI like YouTube-DLG can enhance its accessibility.
Top Positive Comment
hathas
6

simple but efficient commandline tool. I used it to download complete playlists of videos from Youtube with there original subtitles.

Top Negative Comment
ab1
2

youtube-dl can be slow with some versions!

I confirm 50 KiB/s speeds with version 2021.12.17 (latest release on GitHub) right now with googlevideo.com. Read these topics for more examples:

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/pull/30184 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/30102

Duncan Briggs
1

youtube-dl is a command-line program –– can anyone recommend a graphical program for downloading videos?

https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/

Hasan Yildiz
0

The fact that it's free and open source is reason enough to use it.

Thomas Bodine
2

I liked youtube-dl. I used it in 2013-2015, it seemed to stop working. Today (2022) I downloaded it, and it seems to work again,yeah! I use it to cache movies that are slow to download so I can watch them later with out waiting for buffering.

Guest
-2

Because it is simple

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Guest
0

there are lots of features

7 of 23 comments

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Official Links

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What is youtube-dl?

youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from YouTube icon YouTube and more than 1000 sites. It requires the Python interpreter and is therefore platform-independent.

It augmentable with front-ends such as Youtube-DLG icon Youtube-DLG. It can be integrated in other programs and so be used to watch online videos in local applications such as MPV icon MPV.

The GitHub repository was shut down in October 2020. It was restored the following November. Meanwhile, youtube-dl was forked to youtube-dlc (a.k.a yt-dlc) during this time. The development of youtube-dlc was soon discontinued. But further youtube-dlc forked to yt-dlp icon yt-dlp.

The development of youtube-dl began in 2006 by rg3. rg3 withdrew in 2011 and the lead developer has changed.

youtube-dl information

AlternativeTo Categories

Audio & Music, Video & Movies, OS & Utilities, File Sharing, Web Browsers

GitHub repository

  •  141,279 Stars
  •  10,656 Forks
  •  4126 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
View on GitHub

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Top youtube-dl apps (extensions / mods etc)

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Our users have written 23 comments and reviews about youtube-dl, and it has gotten 475 likes

youtube-dl was added to AlternativeTo by 6432575487 on and this page was last updated .