youtube-dl icon
youtube-dl icon

youtube-dl

 455 likes

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

youtube-dl screenshot 1

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Country of Origin

  • ES flagSpain
  • European Union flagEU

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • BSD
  • Python
  • TrueOS
Discontinued

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

4.7 / 5 Avg rating (33)
455likes
23comments

Features

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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 subtitles download
  11.  Automatic downloading
  12.  Support for 4K
  13.  Uninstall without uninstaller
  14.  Selecting songs
  15.  Rewind button
  16.  No registration required

 Tags

  • videos
  • Google Chrome Extension
  • online-video-downloader
  • youtube-video-downloader
  • youtube-converter
  • youtube-videos
  • downloaders
  • media-downloaders

youtube-dl News & Activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
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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
Jul 17, 2018
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
Jun 16, 2022
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
Jan 15, 2024
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
Aug 7, 2022
0

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

Thomas Bodine
Jul 24, 2022
1

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
Dec 18, 2021
-1

Because it is simple

Guest
Oct 13, 2021
0

there are lots of features

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7 of 23 comments

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 & MusicVideo & MoviesOS & UtilitiesFile SharingWeb Browsers

GitHub repository

  •  136,043 Stars
  •  10,363 Forks
  •  4148 Open Issues
  •   Updated May 4, 2025 
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Our users have written 23 comments and reviews about youtube-dl, and it has gotten 455 likes

youtube-dl was added to AlternativeTo by 6432575487 on Oct 15, 2010 and this page was last updated Feb 13, 2025.