How to download YouTube videos easily

A open-source tool that is written in Python to download videos from YouTube and other media(check other websites list). There are many applications available on the internet that provide youtube videos download but are not as powerful as this one is. Sorry to say that this is not a GUI based tool but is a command-line based tool.
I will show you how to easily download videos using simple commands.

Installing Youtube dl

Linux

Prerequisties: Python
Getting the repository and downloading the latest version

sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

Updating Youtube-dl

sudo youtube-dl -U

Windows

Prerequisties: Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86)
Download: Windows executable

Youtube-dl Tutorial With Examples

Normal Downloads

(For Windows Users, run the commands in the same directory in which you have downloaded the youtube-dl executable and change the command starting to “youtube-dl.exe”)

Download videos

• To Download Best (Mostly 720p)

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU



• To see other formats

youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU



• Select format code corresponding to video quality:

youtube-dl -f 24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU



Download Audio

• Normal Download

youtube-dl -x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

Default audio output is ogg(opus)

• Download mp3 audio format

youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

• check different audio options:

youtube-dl -f https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

Download multiple videos

• Download two videos

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuV

• Download many many videos using text file

youtube-dl -a urls.txt

• download playlist

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApXoWvfEYVU&list=RDRE87rQkXdNw

Download subtitles

• download video with subtitles

youtube-dl --embed-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

• download video and subtitle file seperate

youtube-dl --get-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

• Download video and subtitle generated by youtube(used if no subtitles available)

youtube-dl --get-auto-subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj18EikZMuU

Miscellaneous options

Download video with specific keyword

youtube-dl --match-title "Goku" 

Download file with a custom name

youtube-dl -f mp4 -o 'custom title.%(ext)s' 

video title along with playlist index number

youtube-dl -f mp4 -o '%(title)s%(playlist_index)s.%(ext)s' 

Set video file size limit

• Minimum size

youtube-dl --min-filesize 100M 

• Maximum size

youtube-dl --max-filesize 100M 

• Combine it with other options

youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<100M]' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E-cwdnsiow

Download videos by date

• Particular Date Video

youtube-dl --date 20181001 

• Video before a date

youtube-dl --datebefore 20180101 

• Video after a date

youtube-dl --dateafter 20180101 

• Videos in custom range of days

youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months 

youtube-dl --dateafter 20180101 --datebefore 20190101 

Download specific videos from the playlist

• download 5th video from the playlist

• youtube-dl --playlist-items 5 

• download 1, 7, 9 number video from the playlist

youtube-dl --playlist-items 1,7,9 

• set download starting number from the playlist

youtube-dl --playlist-start 6 

• set a range to download from the playlist

youtube-dl --playlist-start 6 --playlist-end 10 

Summary

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Software Name

Youtube dl

Operating System

Windows, Linux

Software Category

Multimedia Downloader

Price

Free

Landing Page

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