People have a high demand for downloading videos from the internet, especially the largest video website, YouTube. youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites. Works with Unix, Windows and Mac. youtube-dl is not only free, but also open source, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like. Although it has youtube in its name, it supports a lot more websites. We will link to the list of all the supported sites below.
How to install youtube-dl?
To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, macOS, etc.), type:
sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlIf you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dlWindows users can download an .exe file from http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html and place it in any location on their PATH except for %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 (e.g. do not put in C:\Windows\System32).
youtube-dl requires Python version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+ to work except for Windows exe. Windows exe requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) and does not require Python that is already embedded into the binary.
You can also use pip:
sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dlThis command will update youtube-dl if you have already installed it. See the pypi page for more information.
macOS users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew:
brew install youtube-dlOr with MacPorts:
sudo port install youtube-dlHow to use youtube-dl on Windows PC?
Download the youtube-dl.exe file on to your Windows computer. Then hold down the “shift” key and right-click in the blank area of the folder where youtube-dl.exe is saved, and select “Open Powershell Window Here” from the context menu. Type “cmd” in the Powershell window and press Enter. Now you can use below command to download videos from Youtube or other websites.
youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URLPress Enter, youtube-dl will automatically parse the video on the web page, and you can always see the download progress, download speed, and download time required.
The default download path is in the same directory as the youtube-dl.exe file. After youtube-dl prompts that the download is 100% complete, open the folder where youtube-dl is saved and you can find the downloaded video there.
Supported videos sites:
http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
Downoad youtube-dl
youtube-dl FAQs
https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#readme