YT-DLP Commands Reference

Print this help text and exit

Print program version and exit

Update this program to the latest stable version

Do not check for updates (default)

Upgrade/downgrade to a specific version. CHANNEL can be a repository as well. CHANNEL and TAG default to "stable" and "latest" respectively if omitted. Supported channels: stable, nightly, master. See "UPDATE" for details.

Ignore download and postprocessing errors. The download will be considered successful even if the postprocessing fails.

Continue with next video on download errors; e.g. to skip unavailable videos in a playlist (default)

Abort downloading of further videos if an error occurs

Display the current user-agent and exit

List all supported extractors and exit

Output descriptions of all supported extractors and exit

Extractor names to use separated by commas. You can also use regexes, "all", "default" and "end" (end URL matching); e.g. --ies "holodex.*,end,youtube". Prefix the name with a "-" to exclude it. Use --list-extractors for a list of extractor names.

Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. E.g. "gvsearch2:python" downloads two videos from google videos for the search term "python". Use "auto", "auto_warning", "error", or "fixup_error" (default).

Don't load any more configuration files except those given to --config-locations. For backward compatibility, if this option is found inside the system configuration file, the user configuration is not loaded.

Do not load any custom configuration files (default). When given inside a configuration file, ignore all previous --config-locations defined in the current file.

Location of the main configuration file; either the path to the config or its containing directory ("-" for stdin). Can be used multiple times and inside other configuration files.

Path to an additional directory to search for plugins. This option can be used multiple times to add multiple directories. Use "default" to search the default plugin directories (default).

Clear plugin directories to search, including defaults and those provided by previous --plugin-dirs.

Do not extract a playlist's URL result entries; some entry metadata may be missing and downloading may be bypassed.

Fully extract the videos of a playlist (default).

Download livestreams from the start. Currently experimental and only supported for YouTube and Twitch.

Download livestreams from the current time (default).

Wait for scheduled streams to become available. Pass the minimum number of seconds (or range) to wait between retries.

Do not wait for scheduled streams (default).

Mark videos watched (even with --simulate).

Do not mark videos watched (default).

Do not emit color codes in output. Better to use --color never.

Whether to emit color codes in output, optionally prefixed by the STREAM (stdout or stderr). Can be "always", "auto" (default), "never", or "no_color". Use "auto-tty" or "no_color-tty" for TTY-only decision. Can be used multiple times.

Options that can help keep compatibility with youtube-dl or youtube-dlc configurations by reverting some of the changes made in yt-dlp. See "Differences in default behavior" for details.

Create aliases for an option string. Arguments are parsed according to Python string formatting. E.g. --alias get-audio,-X "-S aext:{0},abr -x --audio-format {0}". This option can be used multiple times.

Applies a predefined set of options. E.g. --preset-alias mp3. Available presets: mp3, aac, mp4, mkv, sleep. This option can be used multiple times.

Force extraction to use the generic extractor