How to Use Youtube-Dl from a Python Program

How to use youtube-dl from a python program?

It's not difficult and actually documented:

import youtube_dl

ydl = youtube_dl.YoutubeDL({'outtmpl': '%(id)s.%(ext)s'})

with ydl:
    result = ydl.extract_info(
        'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc',
        download=False # We just want to extract the info
    )

if 'entries' in result:
    # Can be a playlist or a list of videos
    video = result['entries'][0]
else:
    # Just a video
    video = result

print(video)
video_url = video['url']
print(video_url)

Python 3.6 - How to use the external downloader in Youtube-dl

opts = {
'format': "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best",
'external_downloader' : 'aria2c',
'external_downloader_args' :['--max-connection-per-server=16','--dir=/home/downloads'],
}

convert youtube-dl cmd command to python script

you can easily embed youtube-dl as:

import youtube_dl

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

check here for more option.

youtube-dl python library documentation

If you download a version from github you can generate sphinx-docs which is useful for developement. Then using pythons help function usually gives some idea what the purpose of a function is

>>> import youtube_dl as yt
>>> help(yt)

Furthermore I find ipython a useful tool to explore code using the %edit magic.

%edit yt.main 

would bring you directly to the source of the main function.

How to Embed Youtube-dl in a Python Script

You need to install the module first.

You can do this by using the command pip install youtube_dl in your terminal.

If pip in not installed, follow these guidelines: https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

Get video from Youtube-DL is not working properly

from youtube_dl import YoutubeDL

link = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9wBC3H4iH4"

with YoutubeDL({}) as ydl:
    info = ydl.extract_info(link, download=False)
    for i, format in enumerate(info['formats']):
        print(f"[{i}] {format['format']}")

output:

[youtube] Y9wBC3H4iH4: Downloading webpage
[0] 249 - audio only (tiny)
[1] 250 - audio only (tiny)
[2] 251 - audio only (tiny)
[3] 140 - audio only (tiny)
[4] 160 - 256x144 (144p)
[5] 278 - 256x144 (144p)
[6] 242 - 426x240 (240p)
[7] 133 - 426x240 (240p)
[8] 243 - 640x360 (360p)
[9] 134 - 640x360 (360p)
[10] 244 - 854x480 (480p)
[11] 135 - 854x480 (480p)
[12] 247 - 1280x720 (720p)
[13] 136 - 1280x720 (720p)
[14] 248 - 1920x1080 (1080p)
[15] 137 - 1920x1080 (1080p)
[16] 18 - 640x360 (360p)
[17] 22 - 1280x720 (720p)

It literally says audio only for some of the formats! Select one of the non-audio-only formats, and you won't get audio only. Note that which formats are available very much depends on which video you're trying to download.

Download only audio from youtube video using youtube-dl in python script

Read on in the developer instructions for an amended example:

from __future__ import unicode_literals
import youtube_dl

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

This will download an audio file if possible/supported. If the file is not mp3 already, the downloaded file be converted to mp3 using ffmpeg or avconv. For more information, refer to the format and postprocessors documentation entries in a current version of youtube-dl.

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