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NAME
====

youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms

SYNOPSIS
========

**youtube-dl** [OPTIONS] URL [URL…]

DESCRIPTION
===========

**youtube-dl** is a command-line program to download videos from
YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter,
version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should
work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS. It is released to the
public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it
however you like.

OPTIONS
=======

-h, –help
   Print this help text and exit
–version
   Print program version and exit
-U, –update
   Update this program to latest version. Make sure that you have
   sufficient permissions (run with sudo if needed)
-i, –ignore-errors
   Continue on download errors, for example to skip unavailable videos
   in a playlist
–abort-on-error
   Abort downloading of further videos (in the playlist or the command
   line) if an error occurs
–dump-user-agent
   Display the current browser identification
–list-extractors
   List all supported extractors
–extractor-descriptions
   Output descriptions of all supported extractors
–force-generic-extractor
   Force extraction to use the generic extractor
–default-search *PREFIX*
   Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For example “gvsearch2:”
   downloads two videos from google videos for youtube- dl “large
   apple”. Use the value “auto” to let youtube-dl guess (“auto_warning”
   to emit a warning when guessing). “error” just throws an error. The
   default value “fixup_error” repairs broken URLs, but emits an error
   if this is not possible instead of searching.
–ignore-config
   Do not read configuration files. When given in the global
   configuration file /etc/youtube-dl.conf: Do not read the user
   configuration in ~/.config /youtube-dl/config (%APPDATA%/youtube-
   dl/config.txt on Windows)
–config-location *PATH*
   Location of the configuration file; either the path to the config or
   its containing directory.
–flat-playlist
   Do not extract the videos of a playlist, only list them.
–mark-watched
   Mark videos watched (YouTube only)
–no-mark-watched
   Do not mark videos watched (YouTube only)
–no-color
   Do not emit color codes in output

Network Options:
----------------

–proxy *URL*
   Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy. To enable SOCKS proxy,
   specify a proper scheme. For example socks5://127.0.0.1:1080/. Pass
   in an empty string (–proxy ““) for direct connection
–socket-timeout *SECONDS*
   Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
–source-address *IP*
   Client-side IP address to bind to
-4, –force-ipv4
   Make all connections via IPv4
-6, –force-ipv6
   Make all connections via IPv6

Geo Restriction:
----------------

–geo-verification-proxy *URL*
   Use this proxy to verify the IP address for some geo-restricted
   sites. The default proxy specified by –proxy (or none, if the option
   is not present) is used for the actual downloading.
–geo-bypass
   Bypass geographic restriction via faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP header
–no-geo-bypass
   Do not bypass geographic restriction via faking X-Forwarded-For HTTP
   header
–geo-bypass-country *CODE*
   Force bypass geographic restriction with explicitly provided
   two-letter ISO 3166-2 country code
–geo-bypass-ip-block *IP_BLOCK*
   Force bypass geographic restriction with explicitly provided IP block
   in CIDR notation

Video Selection:
----------------

–playlist-start *NUMBER*
   Playlist video to start at (default is 1)
–playlist-end *NUMBER*
   Playlist video to end at (default is last)
–playlist-items *ITEM_SPEC*
   Playlist video items to download. Specify indices of the videos in
   the playlist separated by commas like: “–playlist-items 1,2,5,8” if
   you want to download videos indexed 1, 2, 5, 8 in the playlist. You
   can specify range: “–playlist-items 1-3,7,10-13”, it will download
   the videos at index 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
–match-title *REGEX*
   Download only matching titles (regex or caseless sub-string)
–reject-title *REGEX*
   Skip download for matching titles (regex or caseless sub-string)
–max-downloads *NUMBER*
   Abort after downloading NUMBER files
–min-filesize *SIZE*
   Do not download any videos smaller than SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
–max-filesize *SIZE*
   Do not download any videos larger than SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
–date *DATE*
   Download only videos uploaded in this date
–datebefore *DATE*
   Download only videos uploaded on or before this date (i.e. inclusive)
–dateafter *DATE*
   Download only videos uploaded on or after this date (i.e. inclusive)
–min-views *COUNT*
   Do not download any videos with less than COUNT views
–max-views *COUNT*
   Do not download any videos with more than COUNT views
–match-filter *FILTER*
   Generic video filter. Specify any key (see the “OUTPUT TEMPLATE” for
   a list of available keys) to match if the key is present, !key to
   check if the key is not present, key > NUMBER (like “comment_count >
   12”, also works with >=, <, <=, !=, =) to compare against a number,
   key = ‘LITERAL’ (like “uploader = ‘Mike Smith’”, also works with !=)
   to match against a string literal and & to require multiple matches.
   Values which are not known are excluded unless you put a question
   mark (?) after the operator. For example, to only match videos that
   have been liked more than 100 times and disliked less than 50 times
   (or the dislike functionality is not available at the given service),
   but who also have a description, use –match-filter “like_count > 100
   & dislike_count <? 50 & description” .
–no-playlist
   Download only the video, if the URL refers to a video and a playlist.
–yes-playlist
   Download the playlist, if the URL refers to a video and a playlist.
–age-limit *YEARS*
   Download only videos suitable for the given age
–download-archive *FILE*
   Download only videos not listed in the archive file. Record the IDs
   of all downloaded videos in it.
–include-ads
   Download advertisements as well (experimental)

Download Options:
-----------------

-r, –limit-rate *RATE*
   Maximum download rate in bytes per second (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
-R, –retries *RETRIES*
   Number of retries (default is 10), or “infinite”.
–fragment-retries *RETRIES*
   Number of retries for a fragment (default is 10), or “infinite”
   (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
–skip-unavailable-fragments
   Skip unavailable fragments (DASH, hlsnative and ISM)
–abort-on-unavailable-fragment
   Abort downloading when some fragment is not available
–keep-fragments
   Keep downloaded fragments on disk after downloading is finished;
   fragments are erased by default
–buffer-size *SIZE*
   Size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K) (default is 1024)
–no-resize-buffer
   Do not automatically adjust the buffer size. By default, the buffer
   size is automatically resized from an initial value of SIZE.
–http-chunk-size *SIZE*
   Size of a chunk for chunk-based HTTP downloading (e.g. 10485760 or
   10M) (default is disabled). May be useful for bypassing bandwidth
   throttling imposed by a webserver (experimental)
–playlist-reverse
   Download playlist videos in reverse order
–playlist-random
   Download playlist videos in random order
–xattr-set-filesize
   Set file xattribute ytdl.filesize with expected file size
–hls-prefer-native
   Use the native HLS downloader instead of ffmpeg
–hls-prefer-ffmpeg
   Use ffmpeg instead of the native HLS downloader
–hls-use-mpegts
   Use the mpegts container for HLS videos, allowing to play the video
   while downloading (some players may not be able to play it)
–external-downloader *COMMAND*
   Use the specified external downloader. Currently supports
   aria2c,avconv,axel,c url,ffmpeg,httpie,wget
–external-downloader-args *ARGS*
   Give these arguments to the external downloader

Filesystem Options:
-------------------

-a, –batch-file *FILE*
   File containing URLs to download (‘-’ for stdin), one URL per line.
   Lines starting with ‘#’, ‘;’ or ‘]’ are considered as comments and
   ignored.
–id
   Use only video ID in file name
-o, –output *TEMPLATE*
   Output filename template, see the “OUTPUT TEMPLATE” for all the info
–output-na-placeholder *PLACEHOLDER*
   Placeholder value for unavailable meta fields in output filename
   template (default is “NA”)
–autonumber-start *NUMBER*
   Specify the start value for %(autonumber)s (default is 1)
–restrict-filenames
   Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters, and avoid “&” and spaces
   in filenames
-w, –no-overwrites
   Do not overwrite files
-c, –continue
   Force resume of partially downloaded files. By default, youtube-dl
   will resume downloads if possible.
–no-continue
   Do not resume partially downloaded files (restart from beginning)
–no-part
   Do not use .part files - write directly into output file
–no-mtime
   Do not use the Last-modified header to set the file modification time
–write-description
   Write video description to a .description file
–write-info-json
   Write video metadata to a .info.json file
–write-annotations
   Write video annotations to a .annotations.xml file
–load-info-json *FILE*
   JSON file containing the video information (created with the “–write-
   info-json” option)
–cookies *FILE*
   File to read cookies from and dump cookie jar in
–cache-dir *DIR*
   Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl can store some downloaded
   information permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME/youtube-dl or
   ~/.cache /youtube-dl . At the moment, only YouTube player files (for
   videos with obfuscated signatures) are cached, but that may change.
–no-cache-dir
   Disable filesystem caching
–rm-cache-dir
   Delete all filesystem cache files

Thumbnail Options:
------------------

–write-thumbnail
   Write thumbnail image to disk
–write-all-thumbnails
   Write all thumbnail image formats to disk
–list-thumbnails
   Simulate and list all available thumbnail formats

Verbosity / Simulation Options:
-------------------------------

-q, –quiet
   Activate quiet mode
–no-warnings
   Ignore warnings
-s, –simulate
   Do not download the video and do not write anything to disk
–skip-download
   Do not download the video
-g, –get-url
   Simulate, quiet but print URL
-e, –get-title
   Simulate, quiet but print title
–get-id
   Simulate, quiet but print id
–get-thumbnail
   Simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
–get-description
   Simulate, quiet but print video description
–get-duration
   Simulate, quiet but print video length
–get-filename
   Simulate, quiet but print output filename
–get-format
   Simulate, quiet but print output format
-j, –dump-json
   Simulate, quiet but print JSON information. See the “OUTPUT TEMPLATE”
   for a description of available keys.
-J, –dump-single-json
   Simulate, quiet but print JSON information for each command-line
   argument. If the URL refers to a playlist, dump the whole playlist
   information in a single line.
–print-json
   Be quiet and print the video information as JSON (video is still
   being downloaded).
–newline
   Output progress bar as new lines
–no-progress
   Do not print progress bar
–console-title
   Display progress in console titlebar
-v, –verbose
   Print various debugging information
–dump-pages
   Print downloaded pages encoded using base64 to debug problems (very
   verbose)
–write-pages
   Write downloaded intermediary pages to files in the current directory
   to debug problems
–print-traffic
   Display sent and read HTTP traffic
-C, –call-home
   Contact the youtube-dl server for debugging
–no-call-home
   Do NOT contact the youtube-dl server for debugging

Workarounds:
------------

–encoding *ENCODING*
   Force the specified encoding (experimental)
–no-check-certificate
   Suppress HTTPS certificate validation
–prefer-insecure
   Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve information about the
   video. (Currently supported only for YouTube)
–user-agent *UA*
   Specify a custom user agent
–referer *URL*
   Specify a custom referer, use if the video access is restricted to
   one domain
–add-header *FIELD:VALUE*
   Specify a custom HTTP header and its value, separated by a colon ‘:’.
   You can use this option multiple times
–bidi-workaround
   Work around terminals that lack bidirectional text support. Requires
   bidiv or fribidi executable in PATH
–sleep-interval *SECONDS*
   Number of seconds to sleep before each download when used alone or a
   lower bound of a range for randomized sleep before each download
   (minimum possible number of seconds to sleep) when used along with
   –max-sleep-interval.
–max-sleep-interval *SECONDS*
   Upper bound of a range for randomized sleep before each download
   (maximum possible number of seconds to sleep). Must only be used
   along with –min- sleep-interval.

Video Format Options:
---------------------

-f, –format *FORMAT*
   Video format code, see the “FORMAT SELECTION” for all the info
–all-formats
   Download all available video formats
–prefer-free-formats
   Prefer free video formats unless a specific one is requested
-F, –list-formats
   List all available formats of requested videos
–youtube-skip-dash-manifest
   Do not download the DASH manifests and related data on YouTube videos
–merge-output-format *FORMAT*
   If a merge is required (e.g. bestvideo+bestaudio), output to given
   container format. One of mkv, mp4, ogg, webm, flv. Ignored if no
   merge is required

Subtitle Options:
-----------------

–write-sub
   Write subtitle file
–write-auto-sub
   Write automatically generated subtitle file (YouTube only)
–all-subs
   Download all the available subtitles of the video
–list-subs
   List all available subtitles for the video
–sub-format *FORMAT*
   Subtitle format, accepts formats preference, for example: “srt” or
   “ass/srt/best”
–sub-lang *LANGS*
   Languages of the subtitles to download (optional) separated by
   commas, use –list-subs for available language tags

Authentication Options:
-----------------------

-u, –username *USERNAME*
   Login with this account ID
-p, –password *PASSWORD*
   Account password. If this option is left out, youtube-dl will ask
   interactively.
-2, –twofactor *TWOFACTOR*
   Two-factor authentication code
-n, –netrc
   Use .netrc authentication data
–video-password *PASSWORD*
   Video password (vimeo, youku)

Adobe Pass Options:
-------------------

–ap-mso *MSO*
   Adobe Pass multiple-system operator (TV provider) identifier, use
   –ap-list-mso for a list of available MSOs
–ap-username *USERNAME*
   Multiple-system operator account login
–ap-password *PASSWORD*
   Multiple-system operator account password. If this option is left
   out, youtube-dl will ask interactively.
–ap-list-mso
   List all supported multiple-system operators

Post-processing Options:
------------------------

-x, –extract-audio
   Convert video files to audio-only files (requires ffmpeg/avconv and
   ffprobe/avprobe)
–audio-format *FORMAT*
   Specify audio format: “best”, “aac”, “flac”, “mp3”, “m4a”, “opus”,
   “vorbis”, or “wav”; “best” by default; No effect without -x
–audio-quality *QUALITY*
   Specify ffmpeg/avconv audio quality, insert a value between 0
   (better) and 9 (worse) for VBR or a specific bitrate like 128K
   (default 5)
–recode-video *FORMAT*
   Encode the video to another format if necessary (currently supported:
   mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv|avi)
–postprocessor-args *ARGS*
   Give these arguments to the postprocessor
-k, –keep-video
   Keep the video file on disk after the post-processing; the video is
   erased by default
–no-post-overwrites
   Do not overwrite post-processed files; the post-processed files are
   overwritten by default
–embed-subs
   Embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4, webm and mkv videos)
–embed-thumbnail
   Embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
–add-metadata
   Write metadata to the video file
–metadata-from-title *FORMAT*
   Parse additional metadata like song title / artist from the video
   title. The format syntax is the same as –output. Regular expression
   with named capture groups may also be used. The parsed parameters
   replace existing values. Example: –metadata-from-title “%(artist)s -
   %(title)s” matches a title like “Coldplay - Paradise”. Example
   (regex): –metadata-from-title “(?P.+?) - (?P

.. raw:: html

<title>

.+)”
–xattrs
   Write metadata to the video file’s xattrs (using dublin core and xdg
   standards)
–fixup *POLICY*
   Automatically correct known faults of the file. One of never (do
   nothing), warn (only emit a warning), detect_or_warn (the default;
   fix file if we can, warn otherwise)
–prefer-avconv
   Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the postprocessors
–prefer-ffmpeg
   Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the postprocessors (default)
–ffmpeg-location *PATH*
   Location of the ffmpeg/avconv binary; either the path to the binary
   or its containing directory.
–exec *CMD*
   Execute a command on the file after downloading and post-processing,
   similar to find’s -exec syntax. Example: –exec ‘adb push {}
   /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}’
–convert-subs *FORMAT*
   Convert the subtitles to other format (currently supported:
   srt|ass|vtt|lrc)

CONFIGURATION
=============

You can configure youtube-dl by placing any supported command line
option to a configuration file. On Linux and macOS, the system wide
configuration file is located at ``/etc/youtube-dl.conf`` and the user
wide configuration file at ``~/.config/youtube-dl/config``. On Windows,
the user wide configuration file locations are
``%APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt`` or
``C:\Users\<user name>\youtube-dl.conf``. Note that by default
configuration file may not exist so you may need to create it yourself.

For example, with the following configuration file youtube-dl will
always extract the audio, not copy the mtime, use a proxy and save all
videos under ``Movies`` directory in your home directory:

# Lines starting with # are comments

# Always extract audio
   -x

# Do not copy the mtime
   --no-mtime

# Use this proxy
   --proxy 127.0.0.1:3128

# Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
   -o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s

Note that options in configuration file are just the same options aka
switches used in regular command line calls thus there **must be no
whitespace** after ``-`` or ``--``, e.g. ``-o`` or ``--proxy`` but not
``- o`` or ``-- proxy``.

You can use ``--ignore-config`` if you want to disable the configuration
file for a particular youtube-dl run.

You can also use ``--config-location`` if you want to use custom
configuration file for a particular youtube-dl run.

Authentication with ``.netrc`` file
-----------------------------------

You may also want to configure automatic credentials storage for
extractors that support authentication (by providing login and password
with ``--username`` and ``--password``) in order not to pass credentials
as command line arguments on every youtube-dl execution and prevent
tracking plain text passwords in the shell command history. You can
achieve this using a ```.netrc``
file <https://stackoverflow.com/tags/.netrc/info>`__ on a per extractor
basis. For that you will need to create a ``.netrc`` file in your
``$HOME`` and restrict permissions to read/write by only you:

touch $HOME/.netrc
   chmod a-rwx,u+rw $HOME/.netrc

After that you can add credentials for an extractor in the following
format, where *extractor* is the name of the extractor in lowercase:

machine <extractor> login <login> password <password>

For example:

machine youtube login myaccount@gmail.com password my_youtube_password
   machine twitch login my_twitch_account_name password my_twitch_password

To activate authentication with the ``.netrc`` file you should pass
``--netrc`` to youtube-dl or place it in the `configuration
file <#configuration>`__.

On Windows you may also need to setup the ``%HOME%`` environment
variable manually. For example:

set HOME=%USERPROFILE%

OUTPUT TEMPLATE
===============

The ``-o`` option allows users to indicate a template for the output
file names.

**tl;dr:** `navigate me to examples <#output-template-examples>`__.

The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when downloading a
single file, like in
``youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "https://some/video"``. However, it may
contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each
video. The special sequences may be formatted according to `python
string formatting
operations <https://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting>`__.
For example, ``%(NAME)s`` or ``%(NAME)05d``. To clarify, that is a
percent symbol followed by a name in parentheses, followed by formatting
operations. Allowed names along with sequence type are:

-  ``id`` (string): Video identifier
-  ``title`` (string): Video title
-  ``url`` (string): Video URL
-  ``ext`` (string): Video filename extension
-  ``alt_title`` (string): A secondary title of the video
-  ``display_id`` (string): An alternative identifier for the video
-  ``uploader`` (string): Full name of the video uploader
-  ``license`` (string): License name the video is licensed under
-  ``creator`` (string): The creator of the video
-  ``release_date`` (string): The date (YYYYMMDD) when the video was
   released
-  ``timestamp`` (numeric): UNIX timestamp of the moment the video
   became available
-  ``upload_date`` (string): Video upload date (YYYYMMDD)
-  ``uploader_id`` (string): Nickname or id of the video uploader
-  ``channel`` (string): Full name of the channel the video is uploaded
   on
-  ``channel_id`` (string): Id of the channel
-  ``location`` (string): Physical location where the video was filmed
-  ``duration`` (numeric): Length of the video in seconds
-  ``view_count`` (numeric): How many users have watched the video on
   the platform
-  ``like_count`` (numeric): Number of positive ratings of the video
-  ``dislike_count`` (numeric): Number of negative ratings of the video
-  ``repost_count`` (numeric): Number of reposts of the video
-  ``average_rating`` (numeric): Average rating give by users, the scale
   used depends on the webpage
-  ``comment_count`` (numeric): Number of comments on the video
-  ``age_limit`` (numeric): Age restriction for the video (years)
-  ``is_live`` (boolean): Whether this video is a live stream or a
   fixed-length video
-  ``start_time`` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction
   should start, as specified in the URL
-  ``end_time`` (numeric): Time in seconds where the reproduction should
   end, as specified in the URL
-  ``format`` (string): A human-readable description of the format
-  ``format_id`` (string): Format code specified by ``--format``
-  ``format_note`` (string): Additional info about the format
-  ``width`` (numeric): Width of the video
-  ``height`` (numeric): Height of the video
-  ``resolution`` (string): Textual description of width and height
-  ``tbr`` (numeric): Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
-  ``abr`` (numeric): Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
-  ``acodec`` (string): Name of the audio codec in use
-  ``asr`` (numeric): Audio sampling rate in Hertz
-  ``vbr`` (numeric): Average video bitrate in KBit/s
-  ``fps`` (numeric): Frame rate
-  ``vcodec`` (string): Name of the video codec in use
-  ``container`` (string): Name of the container format
-  ``filesize`` (numeric): The number of bytes, if known in advance
-  ``filesize_approx`` (numeric): An estimate for the number of bytes
-  ``protocol`` (string): The protocol that will be used for the actual
   download
-  ``extractor`` (string): Name of the extractor
-  ``extractor_key`` (string): Key name of the extractor
-  ``epoch`` (numeric): Unix epoch when creating the file
-  ``autonumber`` (numeric): Number that will be increased with each
   download, starting at ``--autonumber-start``
-  ``playlist`` (string): Name or id of the playlist that contains the
   video
-  ``playlist_index`` (numeric): Index of the video in the playlist
   padded with leading zeros according to the total length of the
   playlist
-  ``playlist_id`` (string): Playlist identifier
-  ``playlist_title`` (string): Playlist title
-  ``playlist_uploader`` (string): Full name of the playlist uploader
-  ``playlist_uploader_id`` (string): Nickname or id of the playlist
   uploader

Available for the video that belongs to some logical chapter or section:

-  ``chapter`` (string): Name or title of the chapter the video belongs
   to
-  ``chapter_number`` (numeric): Number of the chapter the video belongs
   to
-  ``chapter_id`` (string): Id of the chapter the video belongs to

Available for the video that is an episode of some series or programme:

-  ``series`` (string): Title of the series or programme the video
   episode belongs to
-  ``season`` (string): Title of the season the video episode belongs to
-  ``season_number`` (numeric): Number of the season the video episode
   belongs to
-  ``season_id`` (string): Id of the season the video episode belongs to
-  ``episode`` (string): Title of the video episode
-  ``episode_number`` (numeric): Number of the video episode within a
   season
-  ``episode_id`` (string): Id of the video episode

Available for the media that is a track or a part of a music album:

-  ``track`` (string): Title of the track
-  ``track_number`` (numeric): Number of the track within an album or a
   disc
-  ``track_id`` (string): Id of the track
-  ``artist`` (string): Artist(s) of the track
-  ``genre`` (string): Genre(s) of the track
-  ``album`` (string): Title of the album the track belongs to
-  ``album_type`` (string): Type of the album
-  ``album_artist`` (string): List of all artists appeared on the album
-  ``disc_number`` (numeric): Number of the disc or other physical
   medium the track belongs to
-  ``release_year`` (numeric): Year (YYYY) when the album was released

Each aforementioned sequence when referenced in an output template will
be replaced by the actual value corresponding to the sequence name. Note
that some of the sequences are not guaranteed to be present since they
depend on the metadata obtained by a particular extractor. Such
sequences will be replaced with placeholder value provided with
``--output-na-placeholder`` (``NA`` by default).

For example for ``-o %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s`` and an mp4 video with
title ``youtube-dl test video`` and id ``BaW_jenozKcj``, this will
result in a ``youtube-dl test video-BaW_jenozKcj.mp4`` file created in
the current directory.

For numeric sequences you can use numeric related formatting, for
example, ``%(view_count)05d`` will result in a string with view count
padded with zeros up to 5 characters, like in ``00042``.

Output templates can also contain arbitrary hierarchical path,
e.g. ``-o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s'`` which
will result in downloading each video in a directory corresponding to
this path template. Any missing directory will be automatically created
for you.

To use percent literals in an output template use ``%%``. To output to
stdout use ``-o -``.

The current default template is ``%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s``.

In some cases, you don’t want special characters such as 中, spaces, or
&, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system
or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the
``--restrict-filenames`` flag to get a shorter title:

Output template and Windows batch files
---------------------------------------

If you are using an output template inside a Windows batch file then you
must escape plain percent characters (``%``) by doubling, so that
``-o "%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"`` should become
``-o "%%(title)s-%%(id)s.%%(ext)s"``. However you should not touch
``%``\ ’s that are not plain characters, e.g. environment variables for
expansion should stay intact:
``-o "C:\%HOMEPATH%\Desktop\%%(title)s.%%(ext)s"``.

Output template examples
------------------------

Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of
single.

.. code:: bash

$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc
   youtube-dl test video ''_ä↭𝕐.mp4    # All kinds of weird characters

$ youtube-dl --get-filename -o '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
   youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4          # A simple file name

# Download YouTube playlist videos in separate directory indexed by video order in a playlist
   $ youtube-dl -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re

# Download all playlists of YouTube channel/user keeping each playlist in separate directory:
   $ youtube-dl -o '%(uploader)s/%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLinuxFoundation/playlists

# Download Udemy course keeping each chapter in separate directory under MyVideos directory in your home
   $ youtube-dl -u user -p password -o '~/MyVideos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/

# Download entire series season keeping each series and each season in separate directory under C:/MyVideos
   $ youtube-dl -o "C:/MyVideos/%(series)s/%(season_number)s - %(season)s/%(episode_number)s - %(episode)s.%(ext)s" https://videomore.ru/kino_v_detalayah/5_sezon/367617

# Stream the video being downloaded to stdout
   $ youtube-dl -o - BaW_jenozKc

FORMAT SELECTION
================

By default youtube-dl tries to download the best available quality,
i.e. if you want the best quality you **don’t need** to pass any special
options, youtube-dl will guess it for you by **default**.

But sometimes you may want to download in a different format, for
example when you are on a slow or intermittent connection. The key
mechanism for achieving this is so-called *format selection* based on
which you can explicitly specify desired format, select formats based on
some criterion or criteria, setup precedence and much more.

The general syntax for format selection is ``--format FORMAT`` or
shorter ``-f FORMAT`` where ``FORMAT`` is a *selector expression*,
i.e. an expression that describes format or formats you would like to
download.

**tl;dr:** `navigate me to examples <#format-selection-examples>`__.

The simplest case is requesting a specific format, for example with
``-f 22`` you can download the format with format code equal to 22. You
can get the list of available format codes for particular video using
``--list-formats`` or ``-F``. Note that these format codes are extractor
specific.

You can also use a file extension (currently ``3gp``, ``aac``, ``flv``,
``m4a``, ``mp3``, ``mp4``, ``ogg``, ``wav``, ``webm`` are supported) to
download the best quality format of a particular file extension served
as a single file, e.g. ``-f webm`` will download the best quality format
with the ``webm`` extension served as a single file.

You can also use special names to select particular edge case formats:

-  ``best``: Select the best quality format represented by a single file
   with video and audio.
-  ``worst``: Select the worst quality format represented by a single
   file with video and audio.
-  ``bestvideo``: Select the best quality video-only format (e.g. DASH
   video). May not be available.
-  ``worstvideo``: Select the worst quality video-only format. May not
   be available.
-  ``bestaudio``: Select the best quality audio only-format. May not be
   available.
-  ``worstaudio``: Select the worst quality audio only-format. May not
   be available.

For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can use
``-f worstvideo``.

If you want to download multiple videos and they don’t have the same
formats available, you can specify the order of preference using
slashes. Note that slash is left-associative, i.e. formats on the left
hand side are preferred, for example ``-f 22/17/18`` will download
format 22 if it’s available, otherwise it will download format 17 if
it’s available, otherwise it will download format 18 if it’s available,
otherwise it will complain that no suitable formats are available for
download.

If you want to download several formats of the same video use a comma as
a separator, e.g. ``-f 22,17,18`` will download all these three formats,
of course if they are available. Or a more sophisticated example
combined with the precedence feature:
``-f 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio``.

You can also filter the video formats by putting a condition in
brackets, as in ``-f "best[height=720]"`` (or ``-f "[filesize>10M]"``).

The following numeric meta fields can be used with comparisons ``<``,
``<=``, ``>``, ``>=``, ``=`` (equals), ``!=`` (not equals):

-  ``filesize``: The number of bytes, if known in advance
-  ``width``: Width of the video, if known
-  ``height``: Height of the video, if known
-  ``tbr``: Average bitrate of audio and video in KBit/s
-  ``abr``: Average audio bitrate in KBit/s
-  ``vbr``: Average video bitrate in KBit/s
-  ``asr``: Audio sampling rate in Hertz
-  ``fps``: Frame rate

Also filtering work for comparisons ``=`` (equals), ``^=`` (starts
with), ``$=`` (ends with), ``*=`` (contains) and following string meta
fields:

-  ``ext``: File extension
-  ``acodec``: Name of the audio codec in use
-  ``vcodec``: Name of the video codec in use
-  ``container``: Name of the container format
-  ``protocol``: The protocol that will be used for the actual download,
   lower-case (``http``, ``https``, ``rtsp``, ``rtmp``, ``rtmpe``,
   ``mms``, ``f4m``, ``ism``, ``http_dash_segments``, ``m3u8``, or
   ``m3u8_native``)
-  ``format_id``: A short description of the format
-  ``language``: Language code

Any string comparison may be prefixed with negation ``!`` in order to
produce an opposite comparison, e.g. ``!*=`` (does not contain).

Note that none of the aforementioned meta fields are guaranteed to be
present since this solely depends on the metadata obtained by particular
extractor, i.e. the metadata offered by the video hoster.

Formats for which the value is not known are excluded unless you put a
question mark (``?``) after the operator. You can combine format
filters, so ``-f "[height <=? 720][tbr>500]"`` selects up to 720p videos
(or videos where the height is not known) with a bitrate of at least 500
KBit/s.

You can merge the video and audio of two formats into a single file
using ``-f <video-format>+<audio-format>`` (requires ffmpeg or avconv
installed), for example ``-f bestvideo+bestaudio`` will download the
best video-only format, the best audio-only format and mux them together
with ffmpeg/avconv.

Format selectors can also be grouped using parentheses, for example if
you want to download the best mp4 and webm formats with a height lower
than 480 you can use ``-f '(mp4,webm)[height<480]'``.

Since the end of April 2015 and version 2015.04.26, youtube-dl uses
``-f bestvideo+bestaudio/best`` as the default format selection (see
`#5447 <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/5447>`__,
`#5456 <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/5456>`__). If
ffmpeg or avconv are installed this results in downloading ``bestvideo``
and ``bestaudio`` separately and muxing them together into a single file
giving the best overall quality available. Otherwise it falls back to
``best`` and results in downloading the best available quality served as
a single file. ``best`` is also needed for videos that don’t come from
YouTube because they don’t provide the audio and video in two different
files. If you want to only download some DASH formats (for example if
you are not interested in getting videos with a resolution higher than
1080p), you can add ``-f bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best`` to
your configuration file. Note that if you use youtube-dl to stream to
``stdout`` (and most likely to pipe it to your media player then),
i.e. you explicitly specify output template as ``-o -``, youtube-dl
still uses ``-f best`` format selection in order to start content
delivery immediately to your player and not to wait until ``bestvideo``
and ``bestaudio`` are downloaded and muxed.

If you want to preserve the old format selection behavior (prior to
youtube-dl 2015.04.26), i.e. you want to download the best available
quality media served as a single file, you should explicitly specify
your choice with ``-f best``. You may want to add it to the
`configuration file <#configuration>`__ in order not to type it every
time you run youtube-dl.

Format selection examples
-------------------------

Note that on Windows you may need to use double quotes instead of
single.

.. code:: bash

# Download best mp4 format available or any other best if no mp4 available
   $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'

# Download best format available but no better than 480p
   $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio/best[height<=480]'

# Download best video only format but no bigger than 50 MB
   $ youtube-dl -f 'best[filesize<50M]'

# Download best format available via direct link over HTTP/HTTPS protocol
   $ youtube-dl -f '(bestvideo+bestaudio/best)[protocol^=http]'

# Download the best video format and the best audio format without merging them
   $ youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo,bestaudio' -o '%(title)s.f%(format_id)s.%(ext)s'

Note that in the last example, an output template is recommended as
bestvideo and bestaudio may have the same file name.

.. _video-selection-1:

VIDEO SELECTION
===============

Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options
``--date``, ``--datebefore`` or ``--dateafter``. They accept dates in
two formats:

-  Absolute dates: Dates in the format ``YYYYMMDD``.
-  Relative dates: Dates in the format
   ``(now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?``

Examples:

.. code:: bash

# Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
   $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months

# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
   $ youtube-dl --date 19700101

$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
   $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231

FAQ
===

How do I update youtube-dl?
---------------------------

If you’ve followed `our manual installation
instructions <https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html>`__,
you can simply run ``youtube-dl -U`` (or, on Linux,
``sudo youtube-dl -U``).

If you have used pip, a simple ``sudo pip install -U youtube-dl`` is
sufficient to update.

If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like *apt-get*
or *yum*, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that
distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl
releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply
go to https://yt-dl.org to find out the current version. Unfortunately,
there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distribution
serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your
distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.

As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your
package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For
that, remove the distribution’s package, with a line like

sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl

Afterwards, simply follow `our manual installation
instructions <https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html>`__:

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
   hash -r

Again, from then on you’ll be able to update with
``sudo youtube-dl -U``.

youtube-dl is extremely slow to start on Windows
------------------------------------------------

Add a file exclusion for ``youtube-dl.exe`` in Windows Defender
settings.

I’m getting an error ``Unable to extract OpenGraph title`` on YouTube playlists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YouTube changed their playlist format in March 2014 and later on, so
you’ll need at least youtube-dl 2014.07.25 to download all YouTube
videos.

If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py
or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do
not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with
Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to `report
bugs <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/youtube-dl/+filebug>`__
to the `Ubuntu packaging
people <mailto:ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com?subject=outdated%20version%20of%20youtube-dl>`__
- all they have to do is update the package to a somewhat recent
version. See above for a way to update.

I’m getting an error when trying to use output template: ``error: using output template conflicts with using title, video ID or auto number``
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Make sure you are not using ``-o`` with any of these options ``-t``,
``--title``, ``--id``, ``-A`` or ``--auto-number`` set in command line
or in a configuration file. Remove the latter if any.

Do I always have to pass ``-citw``?
-----------------------------------

By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally,
if you have a convincing case that these should be different, `please
file an issue where you explain that <https://yt-dl.org/bug>`__).
Therefore, it is unnecessary and sometimes harmful to copy long option
strings from webpages. In particular, the only option out of ``-citw``
that is regularly useful is ``-i``.

Can you please put the ``-b`` option back?
------------------------------------------

Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now
defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by
YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer
need the ``-b`` option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not
report them to be available in a specific high quality format you’re
interested in. In that case, simply request it with the ``-f`` option
and youtube-dl will try to download it.

I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What’s this?
------------------------------------------------------------------

Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download
too much. We’re `considering to provide a way to let you solve the
CAPTCHA <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/154>`__, but at
the moment, your best course of action is pointing a web browser to the
youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart youtube-dl.

Do I need any other programs?
-----------------------------

youtube-dl works fine on its own on most sites. However, if you want to
convert video/audio, you’ll need `avconv <https://libav.org/>`__ or
`ffmpeg <https://www.ffmpeg.org/>`__. On some sites - most notably
YouTube - videos can be retrieved in a higher quality format without
sound. youtube-dl will detect whether avconv/ffmpeg is present and
automatically pick the best option.

Videos or video formats streamed via RTMP protocol can only be
downloaded when `rtmpdump <https://rtmpdump.mplayerhq.hu/>`__ is
installed. Downloading MMS and RTSP videos requires either
`mplayer <https://mplayerhq.hu/>`__ or `mpv <https://mpv.io/>`__ to be
installed.

I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
------------------------------------------------

Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as
`mpv <https://mpv.io/>`__, `vlc <https://www.videolan.org/>`__ or
`mplayer <https://www.mplayerhq.hu/>`__.

I extracted a video URL with ``-g``, but it does not play on another machine / in my web browser.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It depends a lot on the service. In many cases, requests for the video
(to download/play it) must come from the same IP address and with the
same cookies and/or HTTP headers. Use the ``--cookies`` option to write
the required cookies into a file, and advise your downloader to read
cookies from that file. Some sites also require a common user agent to
be used, use ``--dump-user-agent`` to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
You can also get necessary cookies and HTTP headers from JSON output
obtained with ``--dump-json``.

It may be beneficial to use IPv6; in some cases, the restrictions are
only applied to IPv4. Some services (sometimes only for a subset of
videos) do not restrict the video URL by IP address, cookie, or
user-agent, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

Please bear in mind that some URL protocols are **not** supported by
browsers out of the box, including RTMP. If you are using ``-g``, your
own downloader must support these as well.

If you want to play the video on a machine that is not running
youtube-dl, you can relay the video content from the machine that runs
youtube-dl. You can use ``-o -`` to let youtube-dl stream a video to
stdout, or simply allow the player to download the files written by
youtube-dl in turn.

ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
-------------------------------------------------------------

YouTube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is
not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See
`above <#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl>`__ for how to update youtube-dl.

ERROR: unable to download video
-------------------------------

YouTube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is
not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. See
`above <#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl>`__ for how to update youtube-dl.

Video URL contains an ampersand and I’m getting some strange output ``[1] 2839`` or ``'v' is not recognized as an internal or external command``
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That’s actually the output from your shell. Since ampersand is one of
the special shell characters it’s interpreted by the shell preventing
you from passing the whole URL to youtube-dl. To disable your shell from
interpreting the ampersands (or any other special characters) you have
to either put the whole URL in quotes or escape them with a backslash
(which approach will work depends on your shell).

For example if your URL is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc you should end up with
following command:

``youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc'``

``youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4\&v=BaW_jenozKc``

For Windows you have to use the double quotes:

``youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=4&v=BaW_jenozKc"``

ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u’OF’
------------------------------------------------

In February 2015, the new YouTube player contained a character sequence
in a string that was misinterpreted by old versions of youtube-dl. See
`above <#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl>`__ for how to update youtube-dl.

HTTP Error 429: Too Many Requests or 402: Payment Required
----------------------------------------------------------

These two error codes indicate that the service is blocking your IP
address because of overuse. Usually this is a soft block meaning that
you can gain access again after solving CAPTCHA. Just open a browser and
solve a CAPTCHA the service suggests you and after that `pass
cookies <#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-youtube-dl>`__ to youtube-dl. Note
that if your machine has multiple external IPs then you should also pass
exactly the same IP you’ve used for solving CAPTCHA with
```--source-address`` <#network-options>`__. Also you may need to pass a
``User-Agent`` HTTP header of your browser with
```--user-agent`` <#workarounds>`__.

If this is not the case (no CAPTCHA suggested to solve by the service)
then you can contact the service and ask them to unblock your IP
address, or - if you have acquired a whitelisted IP address already -
use the ```--proxy`` or ``--source-address``
options <#network-options>`__ to select another IP address.

SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
--------------------------------

The error

File "youtube-dl", line 2
   SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...

means you’re using an outdated version of Python. Please update to
Python 2.6 or 2.7.

What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
--------------------------------------------------

Since June 2012
(`#342 <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/342>`__)
youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile, simply unzip it (might
need renaming to ``youtube-dl.zip`` first on some systems) or clone the
git repository, as laid out above. If you modify the code, you can run
it by executing the ``__main__.py`` file. To recompile the executable,
run ``make youtube-dl``.

The exe throws an error due to missing ``MSVCR100.dll``
-------------------------------------------------------

To run the exe you need to install first the `Microsoft Visual C++ 2010
Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package
(x86) <https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/5/165255E7-1014-4D0A-B094-B6A430A6BFFC/vcredist_x86.exe>`__.

On Windows, how should I set up ffmpeg and youtube-dl? Where should I put the exe files?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you put youtube-dl and ffmpeg in the same directory that you’re
running the command from, it will work, but that’s rather cumbersome.

To make a different directory work - either for ffmpeg, or for
youtube-dl, or for both - simply create the directory (say, ``C:\bin``,
or ``C:\Users\<User name>\bin``), put all the executables directly in
there, and then `set your PATH environment
variable <https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml>`__ to include
that directory.

From then on, after restarting your shell, you will be able to access
both youtube-dl and ffmpeg (and youtube-dl will be able to find ffmpeg)
by simply typing ``youtube-dl`` or ``ffmpeg``, no matter what directory
you’re in.

How do I put downloads into a specific folder?
----------------------------------------------

Use the ``-o`` to specify an `output template <#output-template>`__, for
example ``-o "/home/user/videos/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s"``. If you want
this for all of your downloads, put the option into your `configuration
file <#configuration>`__.

How do I download a video starting with a ``-``?
------------------------------------------------

Either prepend ``https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=`` or separate the ID
from the options with ``--``:

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

How do I pass cookies to youtube-dl?
------------------------------------

Use the ``--cookies`` option, for example
``--cookies /path/to/cookies/file.txt``.

In order to extract cookies from browser use any conforming browser
extension for exporting cookies. For example, `Get
cookies.txt <https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/get-cookiestxt/bgaddhkoddajcdgocldbbfleckgcbcid/>`__
(for Chrome) or
`cookies.txt <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookies-txt/>`__
(for Firefox).

Note that the cookies file must be in Mozilla/Netscape format and the
first line of the cookies file must be either ``# HTTP Cookie File`` or
``# Netscape HTTP Cookie File``. Make sure you have correct `newline
format <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline>`__ in the cookies file
and convert newlines if necessary to correspond with your OS, namely
``CRLF`` (``\r\n``) for Windows and ``LF`` (``\n``) for Unix and
Unix-like systems (Linux, macOS, etc.). ``HTTP Error 400: Bad Request``
when using ``--cookies`` is a good sign of invalid newline format.

Passing cookies to youtube-dl is a good way to workaround login when a
particular extractor does not implement it explicitly. Another use case
is working around `CAPTCHA <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA>`__
some websites require you to solve in particular cases in order to get
access (e.g. YouTube, CloudFlare).

How do I stream directly to media player?
-----------------------------------------

You will first need to tell youtube-dl to stream media to stdout with
``-o -``, and also tell your media player to read from stdin (it must be
capable of this for streaming) and then pipe former to latter. For
example, streaming to `vlc <https://www.videolan.org/>`__ can be
achieved with:

youtube-dl -o - "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj" | vlc -

How do I download only new videos from a playlist?
--------------------------------------------------

Use download-archive feature. With this feature you should initially
download the complete playlist with
``--download-archive /path/to/download/archive/file.txt`` that will
record identifiers of all the videos in a special file. Each subsequent
run with the same ``--download-archive`` will download only new videos
and skip all videos that have been downloaded before. Note that only
successful downloads are recorded in the file.

For example, at first,

youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"

will download the complete ``PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re``
playlist and create a file ``archive.txt``. Each subsequent run will
only download new videos if any:

youtube-dl --download-archive archive.txt "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwiyx1dc3P2JR9N8gQaQN_BCvlSlap7re"

Should I add ``--hls-prefer-native`` into my config?
----------------------------------------------------

When youtube-dl detects an HLS video, it can download it either with the
built-in downloader or ffmpeg. Since many HLS streams are slightly
invalid and ffmpeg/youtube-dl each handle some invalid cases better than
the other, there is an option to switch the downloader if needed.

When youtube-dl knows that one particular downloader works better for a
given website, that downloader will be picked. Otherwise, youtube-dl
will pick the best downloader for general compatibility, which at the
moment happens to be ffmpeg. This choice may change in future versions
of youtube-dl, with improvements of the built-in downloader and/or
ffmpeg.

In particular, the generic extractor (used when your website is not in
the `list of supported sites by
youtube-dl <https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html>`__
cannot mandate one specific downloader.

If you put either ``--hls-prefer-native`` or ``--hls-prefer-ffmpeg``
into your configuration, a different subset of videos will fail to
download correctly. Instead, it is much better to `file an
issue <https://yt-dl.org/bug>`__ or a pull request which details why the
native or the ffmpeg HLS downloader is a better choice for your use
case.

Can you add support for this anime video site, or site which shows current movies for free?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a matter of policy (as well as legality), youtube-dl does not include
support for services that specialize in infringing copyright. As a rule
of thumb, if you cannot easily find a video that the service is quite
obviously allowed to distribute (i.e. that has been uploaded by the
creator, the creator’s distributor, or is published under a free
license), the service is probably unfit for inclusion to youtube-dl.

A note on the service that they don’t host the infringing content, but
just link to those who do, is evidence that the service should **not**
be included into youtube-dl. The same goes for any DMCA note when the
whole front page of the service is filled with videos they are not
allowed to distribute. A “fair use” note is equally unconvincing if the
service shows copyright-protected videos in full without authorization.

Support requests for services that **do** purchase the rights to
distribute their content are perfectly fine though. If in doubt, you can
simply include a source that mentions the legitimate purchase of
content.

How can I speed up work on my issue?
------------------------------------

(Also known as: Help, my important issue not being solved!) The
youtube-dl core developer team is quite small. While we do our best to
solve as many issues as possible, sometimes that can take quite a while.
To speed up your issue, here’s what you can do:

First of all, please do report the issue `at our issue
tracker <https://yt-dl.org/bugs>`__. That allows us to coordinate all
efforts by users and developers, and serves as a unified point.
Unfortunately, the youtube-dl project has grown too large to use
personal email as an effective communication channel.

Please read the `bug reporting instructions <#bugs>`__ below. A lot of
bugs lack all the necessary information. If you can, offer proxy, VPN,
or shell access to the youtube-dl developers. If you are able to, test
the issue from multiple computers in multiple countries to exclude local
censorship or misconfiguration issues.

If nobody is interested in solving your issue, you are welcome to take
matters into your own hands and submit a pull request (or coerce/pay
somebody else to do so).

Feel free to bump the issue from time to time by writing a small comment
(“Issue is still present in youtube-dl version …from France, but fixed
from Belgium”), but please not more than once a month. Please do not
declare your issue as ``important`` or ``urgent``.

How can I detect whether a given URL is supported by youtube-dl?
----------------------------------------------------------------

For one, have a look at the `list of supported
sites <docs/supportedsites.md>`__. Note that it can sometimes happen
that the site changes its URL scheme (say, from
https://example.com/video/1234567 to https://example.com/v/1234567 ) and
youtube-dl reports an URL of a service in that list as unsupported. In
that case, simply report a bug.

It is *not* possible to detect whether a URL is supported or not. That’s
because youtube-dl contains a generic extractor which matches **all**
URLs. You may be tempted to disable, exclude, or remove the generic
extractor, but the generic extractor not only allows users to extract
videos from lots of websites that embed a video from another service,
but may also be used to extract video from a service that it’s hosting
itself. Therefore, we neither recommend nor support disabling,
excluding, or removing the generic extractor.

If you want to find out whether a given URL is supported, simply call
youtube-dl with it. If you get no videos back, chances are the URL is
either not referring to a video or unsupported. You can find out which
by examining the output (if you run youtube-dl on the console) or
catching an ``UnsupportedError`` exception if you run it from a Python
program.

Why do I need to go through that much red tape when filing bugs?
================================================================

Before we had the issue template, despite our extensive `bug reporting
instructions <#bugs>`__, about 80% of the issue reports we got were
useless, for instance because people used ancient versions hundreds of
releases old, because of simple syntactic errors (not in youtube-dl but
in general shell usage), because the problem was already reported
multiple times before, because people did not actually read an error
message, even if it said “please install ffmpeg”, because people did not
mention the URL they were trying to download and many more simple,
easy-to-avoid problems, many of whom were totally unrelated to
youtube-dl.

youtube-dl is an open-source project manned by too few volunteers, so
we’d rather spend time fixing bugs where we are certain none of those
simple problems apply, and where we can be reasonably confident to be
able to reproduce the issue without asking the reporter repeatedly. As
such, the output of ``youtube-dl -v YOUR_URL_HERE`` is really all that’s
required to file an issue. The issue template also guides you through
some basic steps you can do, such as checking that your version of
youtube-dl is current.

DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
======================

Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can `download the
builds <https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html>`__ or get
them from their distribution.

To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don’t need to build anything
either. Simply execute

python -m youtube_dl

To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a
test file directly; any of the following work:

python -m unittest discover
   python test/test_download.py
   nosetests

See item 6 of `new extractor
tutorial <#adding-support-for-a-new-site>`__ for how to run extractor
specific test cases.

If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you’ll need

-  python
-  make (only GNU make is supported)
-  pandoc
-  zip
-  nosetests

Adding support for a new site
-----------------------------

If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure**
this site is **not dedicated to**\ `copyright
infringement <README.md#can-you-add-support-for-this-anime-video-site-or-site-which-shows-current-movies-for-free>`__.
youtube-dl does **not support** such sites thus pull requests adding
support for them **will be rejected**.

After you have ensured this site is distributing its content legally,
you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called
``yourextractor``):

1.  `Fork this
    repository <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/fork>`__

2.  Check out the source code with:

git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git

3.  Start a new git branch with

cd youtube-dl
        git checkout -b yourextractor

4.  Start with this simple template and save it to
    ``youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py``:

.. code:: python

# coding: utf-8
       from __future__ import unicode_literals

from .common import InfoExtractor

class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
           _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
           _TEST = {
               'url': 'https://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
               'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
               'info_dict': {
                   'id': '42',
                   'ext': 'mp4',
                   'title': 'Video title goes here',
                   'thumbnail': r're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
                   # TODO more properties, either as:
                   # * A value
                   # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
                   # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
                   # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
               }
           }

def _real_extract(self, url):
               video_id = self._match_id(url)
               webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)

# TODO more code goes here, for example ...
               title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')

return {
                   'id': video_id,
                   'title': title,
                   'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
                   'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
                   # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
               }

5.  Add an import in
    ```youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py`` <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py>`__.

6.  Run
    ``python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor``.
    This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until
    you’re done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename
    ``_TEST`` to ``_TESTS`` and make it into a list of dictionaries. The
    tests will then be named ``TestDownload.test_YourExtractor``,
    ``TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1``,
    ``TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2``, etc. Note that tests with
    ``only_matching`` key in test’s dict are not counted in.

7.  Have a look at
    ```youtube_dl/extractor/common.py`` <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py>`__
    for possible helper methods and a `detailed description of what your
    extractor should and may
    return <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/7f41a598b3fba1bcab2817de64a08941200aa3c8/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L94-L303>`__.
    Add tests and code for as many as you want.

8.  Make sure your code follows `youtube-dl coding
    conventions <#youtube-dl-coding-conventions>`__ and check the code
    with
    `flake8 <https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/index.html#quickstart>`__:

$ flake8 youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py

9.  Make sure your code works under all
    `Python <https://www.python.org/>`__ versions claimed supported by
    youtube-dl, namely 2.6, 2.7, and 3.2+.

10. When the tests pass, `add <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add>`__ the
    new files and `commit <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit>`__ them
    and `push <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push>`__ the result, like
    this:

$ git add youtube_dl/extractor/extractors.py
       $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
       $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
       $ git push origin yourextractor

11. Finally, `create a pull
    request <https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request>`__.
    We’ll then review and merge it.

In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!

youtube-dl coding conventions
-----------------------------

This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and
future-proof extractor code.

Extractors are very fragile by nature since they depend on the layout of
the source data provided by 3rd party media hosters out of your control
and this layout tends to change. As an extractor implementer your task
is not only to write code that will extract media links and metadata
correctly but also to minimize dependency on the source’s layout and
even to make the code foresee potential future changes and be ready for
that. This is important because it will allow the extractor not to break
on minor layout changes thus keeping old youtube-dl versions working.
Even though this breakage issue is easily fixed by emitting a new
version of youtube-dl with a fix incorporated, all the previous versions
become broken in all repositories and distros’ packages that may not be
so prompt in fetching the update from us. Needless to say, some non
rolling release distros may never receive an update at all.

Mandatory and optional metafields
---------------------------------

For extraction to work youtube-dl relies on metadata your extractor
extracts and provides to youtube-dl expressed by an `information
dictionary <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/7f41a598b3fba1bcab2817de64a08941200aa3c8/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L94-L303>`__
or simply *info dict*. Only the following meta fields in the *info dict*
are considered mandatory for a successful extraction process by
youtube-dl:

-  ``id`` (media identifier)
-  ``title`` (media title)
-  ``url`` (media download URL) or ``formats``

In fact only the last option is technically mandatory (i.e. if you can’t
figure out the download location of the media the extraction does not
make any sense). But by convention youtube-dl also treats ``id`` and
``title`` as mandatory. Thus the aforementioned metafields are the
critical data that the extraction does not make any sense without and if
any of them fail to be extracted then the extractor is considered
completely broken.

`Any
field <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/7f41a598b3fba1bcab2817de64a08941200aa3c8/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L188-L303>`__
apart from the aforementioned ones are considered **optional**. That
means that extraction should be **tolerant** to situations when sources
for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if they are always
available at the moment) and **future-proof** in order not to break the
extraction of general purpose mandatory fields.

Example
^^^^^^^

Say you have some source dictionary ``meta`` that you’ve fetched as JSON
with HTTP request and it has a key ``summary``:

.. code:: python

meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)

Assume at this point ``meta``\ ’s layout is:

.. code:: python

{
       ...
       "summary": "some fancy summary text",
       ...
   }

Assume you want to extract ``summary`` and put it into the resulting
info dict as ``description``. Since ``description`` is an optional meta
field you should be ready that this key may be missing from the ``meta``
dict, so that you should extract it like:

.. code:: python

description = meta.get('summary')  # correct

and not like:

.. code:: python

description = meta['summary']  # incorrect

The latter will break extraction process with ``KeyError`` if
``summary`` disappears from ``meta`` at some later time but with the
former approach extraction will just go ahead with ``description`` set
to ``None`` which is perfectly fine (remember ``None`` is equivalent to
the absence of data).

Similarly, you should pass ``fatal=False`` when extracting optional data
from a webpage with ``_search_regex``, ``_html_search_regex`` or similar
methods, for instance:

.. code:: python

description = self._search_regex(
       r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
       webpage, 'description', fatal=False)

With ``fatal`` set to ``False`` if ``_search_regex`` fails to extract
``description`` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.

You can also pass ``default=<some fallback value>``, for example:

.. code:: python

description = self._search_regex(
       r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
       webpage, 'description', default=None)

On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with
``description`` set to ``None``. That is useful for metafields that may
or may not be present.

Provide fallbacks
-----------------

When extracting metadata try to do so from multiple sources. For example
if ``title`` is present in several places, try extracting from at least
some of them. This makes it more future-proof in case some of the
sources become unavailable.

.. _example-1:

Example
^^^^^^^

Say ``meta`` from the previous example has a ``title`` and you are about
to extract it. Since ``title`` is a mandatory meta field you should end
up with something like:

.. code:: python

title = meta['title']

If ``title`` disappears from ``meta`` in future due to some changes on
the hoster’s side the extraction would fail since ``title`` is
mandatory. That’s expected.

Assume that you have some another source you can extract ``title`` from,
for example ``og:title`` HTML meta of a ``webpage``. In this case you
can provide a fallback scenario:

.. code:: python

title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)

This code will try to extract from ``meta`` first and if it fails it
will try extracting ``og:title`` from a ``webpage``.

Regular expressions
-------------------

Don’t capture groups you don’t use
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Capturing group must be an indication that it’s used somewhere in the
code. Any group that is not used must be non capturing.

.. _example-2:

Example
'''''''

Don’t capture id attribute name here since you can’t use it for anything
anyway.

Correct:

.. code:: python

r'(?:id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'

Incorrect:

.. code:: python

r'(id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'

Make regular expressions relaxed and flexible
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy, relaxed and
flexible, skipping insignificant parts that are more likely to change,
allowing both single and double quotes for quoted values and so on.

.. _example-3:

Example
'''''''

Say you need to extract ``title`` from the following HTML code:

.. code:: html

<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>

The code for that task should look similar to:

.. code:: python

title = self._search_regex(
       r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')

Or even better:

.. code:: python

title = self._search_regex(
       r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
       webpage, 'title', group='title')

Note how you tolerate potential changes in the ``style`` attribute’s
value or switch from using double quotes to single for ``class``
attribute:

The code definitely should not look like:

.. code:: python

title = self._search_regex(
       r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
       webpage, 'title', group='title')

Long lines policy
-----------------

There is a soft limit to keep lines of code under 80 characters long.
This means it should be respected if possible and if it does not make
readability and code maintenance worse.

For example, you should **never** split long string literals like URLs
or some other often copied entities over multiple lines to fit this
limit:

Correct:

.. code:: python

'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list=PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'

Incorrect:

.. code:: python

'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list='
   'PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'

Inline values
-------------

Extracting variables is acceptable for reducing code duplication and
improving readability of complex expressions. However, you should avoid
extracting variables used only once and moving them to opposite parts of
the extractor file, which makes reading the linear flow difficult.

.. _example-4:

Example
^^^^^^^

Correct:

.. code:: python

title = self._html_search_regex(r'<title>([^<]+)</title>', webpage, 'title')

Incorrect:

.. code:: python

TITLE_RE = r'<title>([^<]+)</title>'
   # ...some lines of code...
   title = self._html_search_regex(TITLE_RE, webpage, 'title')

Collapse fallbacks
------------------

Multiple fallback values can quickly become unwieldy. Collapse multiple
fallback values into a single expression via a list of patterns.

.. _example-5:

Example
^^^^^^^

Good:

.. code:: python

description = self._html_search_meta(
       ['og:description', 'description', 'twitter:description'],
       webpage, 'description', default=None)

Unwieldy:

.. code:: python

description = (
       self._og_search_description(webpage, default=None)
       or self._html_search_meta('description', webpage, default=None)
       or self._html_search_meta('twitter:description', webpage, default=None))

Methods supporting list of patterns are: ``_search_regex``,
``_html_search_regex``, ``_og_search_property``, ``_html_search_meta``.

Trailing parentheses
--------------------

Always move trailing parentheses after the last argument.

.. _example-6:

Example
^^^^^^^

Correct:

.. code:: python

lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
       list)

Incorrect:

.. code:: python

lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
       list,
   )

Use convenience conversion and parsing functions
------------------------------------------------

Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from
```youtube_dl/utils.py`` <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/utils.py>`__:
``int_or_none``, ``float_or_none``. Use them for string to number
conversions as well.

Use ``url_or_none`` for safe URL processing.

Use ``try_get`` for safe metadata extraction from parsed JSON.

Use ``unified_strdate`` for uniform ``upload_date`` or any ``YYYYMMDD``
meta field extraction, ``unified_timestamp`` for uniform ``timestamp``
extraction, ``parse_filesize`` for ``filesize`` extraction,
``parse_count`` for count meta fields extraction, ``parse_resolution``,
``parse_duration`` for ``duration`` extraction, ``parse_age_limit`` for
``age_limit`` extraction.

Explore
```youtube_dl/utils.py`` <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/utils.py>`__
for more useful convenience functions.

More examples
^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Safely extract optional description from parsed JSON
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

.. code:: python

description = try_get(response, lambda x: x['result']['video'][0]['summary'], compat_str)

Safely extract more optional metadata
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

.. code:: python

video = try_get(response, lambda x: x['result']['video'][0], dict) or {}
   description = video.get('summary')
   duration = float_or_none(video.get('durationMs'), scale=1000)
   view_count = int_or_none(video.get('views'))

EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
====================

youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and
thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter
any problems parsing its output, feel free to `create a
report <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/new>`__.

From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful
fashion, like this:

.. code:: python

from __future__ import unicode_literals
   import youtube_dl

ydl_opts = {}
   with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
       ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])

Most likely, you’ll want to use various options. For a list of options
available, have a look at
```youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py`` <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/3e4cedf9e8cd3157df2457df7274d0c842421945/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L137-L312>`__.
For a start, if you want to intercept youtube-dl’s output, set a
``logger`` object.

Here’s a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors
(and a short message after the download is finished), and
downloads/converts the video to an mp3 file:

.. code:: python

from __future__ import unicode_literals
   import youtube_dl

class MyLogger(object):
       def debug(self, msg):
           pass

def warning(self, msg):
           pass

def error(self, msg):
           print(msg)

def my_hook(d):
       if d['status'] == 'finished':
           print('Done downloading, now converting ...')

ydl_opts = {
       'format': 'bestaudio/best',
       'postprocessors': [{
           'key': 'FFmpegExtractAudio',
           'preferredcodec': 'mp3',
           'preferredquality': '192',
       }],
       'logger': MyLogger(),
       'progress_hooks': [my_hook],
   }
   with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
       ydl.download(['https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])

BUGS
====

Bugs and suggestions should be reported at:
https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues. Unless you were prompted
to or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the
bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email. For
discussions, join us in the IRC channel
`#youtube-dl <irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl>`__ on freenode
(`webchat <https://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl>`__).

**Please include the full output of youtube-dl when run with ``-v``**,
i.e. **add** ``-v`` flag to **your command line**, copy the **whole**
output and post it in the issue body wrapped in \``\` for better
formatting. It should look similar to this:

$ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
   [debug] System config: []
   [debug] User config: []
   [debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
   [debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
   [debug] youtube-dl version 2015.12.06
   [debug] Git HEAD: 135392e
   [debug] Python version 2.6.6 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
   [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
   [debug] Proxy map: {}
   ...

**Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is
acceptable.**

The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging
information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible
and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.

Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common
mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):

Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
--------------------------------------------------

We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most
cases we eventually get the required information after asking back
multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many
contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may
misread some parts.

So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you
want to be fixed. Make sure that it’s obvious

-  What the problem is
-  How it could be fixed
-  How your proposed solution would look like

If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing
some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We’re often
too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes
misinterpretation likely. As a committer myself, I often get frustrated
by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on
them is to ask for clarification over and over.

For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the
*complete* output of youtube-dl when called with the ``-v`` flag. The
error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not
believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.

If your server has multiple IPs or you suspect censorship, adding
``--call-home`` may be a good idea to get more diagnostics. If the error
is ``ERROR: Unable to extract ...`` and you cannot reproduce it from
multiple countries, add ``--dump-pages`` (warning: this will yield a
rather large output, redirect it to the file ``log.txt`` by adding
``>log.txt 2>&1`` to your command-line) or upload the ``.dump`` files
you get when you add ``--write-pages``
`somewhere <https://gist.github.com/>`__.

**Site support requests must contain an example URL**. An example URL is
a URL you might want to download, like
``https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc``. There should be an
obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main
page of a video service (e.g. ``https://www.youtube.com/``) is *not* an
example URL.

Are you using the latest version?
---------------------------------

Before reporting any issue, type ``youtube-dl -U``. This should report
that you’re up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already
fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature
requests as well.

Is the issue already documented?
--------------------------------

Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you’re trying to
open. Search at the top of the window or browse the `GitHub
Issues <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues>`__ of
this repository. If there is an issue, feel free to write something
along the lines of “This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01.
Here is some more information on the issue: …”. While some issues may be
old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.

Why are existing options not enough?
------------------------------------

Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at `the list
of supported
options <https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#options>`__.
Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already!
Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail
how the existing similar options do *not* solve your problem.

Is there enough context in your bug report?
-------------------------------------------

People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by
breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already
downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look
whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what
often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One
simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).

We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original
problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded
video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the
greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature
request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should
contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing
feature would be useful.

Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
---------------------------------------------------------

Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or
should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While
it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one
ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot
mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads
to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth,
until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.

In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to
services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using
the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user
videos, White house podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue.
Also, make sure that you don’t post bug reports alongside feature
requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs
of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand.
Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new
video service.

Is anyone going to need the feature?
------------------------------------

Only post features that you (or an incapacitated friend you can
personally talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like
a good idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by
someone who requires them.

Is your question about youtube-dl?
----------------------------------

It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely
unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different, or even the
reporter’s own, application. Please make sure that you are actually
using youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug
to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the
other hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is
related to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.

youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.

This README file was originally written by `Daniel
Bolton <https://github.com/dbbolton>`__ and is likewise released into
the public domain.

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File youtube-dl.1.temp.rst of Package python-youtube-dl (Revision f874a40529928f0f91876baf3c322470)

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