YouTube Downloader

Your understanding is correct: after installing yt-dlp with pip, you can usually use it directly in the terminal.

1. Minimal Installation Steps

python -m pip install -U yt-dlp

Verify installation:

yt-dlp --version

If you get yt-dlp: command not found, you can run it via module mode first:

python -m yt_dlp --version

2. Direct Download (Out of the Box)

yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

Note: This command directly downloads the video; it does not list formats. Use -F to list formats.

3. Common Commands (Concise Version)

Command example (based on your -F result: 299 = 1080p60 video, 140 = m4a audio):

yt-dlp -f "299+140" --merge-output-format mp4 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc"

Local verification command (process validation only, no actual download):

yt-dlp -f "299+140" --merge-output-format mp4 -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc" --simulate --skip-download

List available formats:

yt-dlp -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

Download best MP4 video+audio and merge into MP4:

yt-dlp -f "bv[ext=mp4]+ba[ext=m4a]/b[ext=mp4]" --merge-output-format mp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

Extract audio and convert to MP3:

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

Keep only the title as filename (without ID):

yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

Download a playlist (must use a playlist URL):

yt-dlp "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=..."

4. Increase Download Speed (Optional)

Use the external downloader aria2c:

yt-dlp --downloader aria2c --downloader "dash,m3u8:native" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIviHI7fqyc

5. When ffmpeg Is Needed

  • Basic downloads: in many cases downloads can work directly, and ffmpeg is not always a hard dependency.
  • Audio/video merging (such as --merge-output-format) and post-processing (such as -x --audio-format mp3): require ffmpeg/ffprobe.

6. References