• webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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    20 days ago

    Its an open source tool to download youtube videos

    About every mainstream youtube download program you or your parents have ever used are actually just a wrapper for this.

    Bonus: If you want to learn more about coding its not that hard to make a script that automatically downloads the last video from a list of channels that runs on a schedule. Even ai can do it.

      • moody@lemmings.world
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        20 days ago

        It’s a command line tool. You type in “yt-dlp” followed by the url of a video, and it does the rest.

        It has many other options, but the defaults are good enough for most cases.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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          20 days ago

          There is no single stop for a tutorial for stuff like this because you could use any scripting language and which ones you have available may depend on your os.

          But honestly any half decent llm can generate something that works for your specific case.

          If you really want to avoid using those,

          Here is a simple example for windows powershell.

          
          # yt-dlp Channel Downloader
          # --------------------------
          # Downloads the latest video from each channel in channels.txt
          #
          # Setup:
          #   1. Install yt-dlp:  winget install yt-dlp
          #   2. Install ffmpeg:  winget install ffmpeg
          #   3. Create channels.txt next to this script, one URL per line:
          #        https://www.youtube.com/@SomeChannel
          #        https://www.youtube.com/@AnotherChannel
          #   4. Right-click this file → Run with PowerShell
          
          # Read each line, skip blanks and comments (#)
          foreach ($url in Get-Content ".\channels.txt") {
              $url = $url.Trim()
              if ($url -eq "" -or $url.StartsWith("#")) { continue }
          
              Write-Host "`nDownloading latest from: $url"
          
              yt-dlp --playlist-items 1 --merge-output-format mp4 --no-overwrites `
                  -o "downloads\%(channel)s\%(title)s.%(ext)s" $url
          }
          
          Write-Host "`nDone."
          

          And here is my own bash script (linux) which has only gotten bigger with more customization over the years.

          #!/bin/bash
          # ============================================================================
          #  yt-dlp Channel Downloader (Bash)
          # ============================================================================
          #
          #  Automatically downloads new videos from a list of YouTube channels.
          #
          #  Features:
          #    - Checks RSS feeds first to avoid unnecessary yt-dlp calls
          #    - Skips livestreams, premieres, shorts, and members-only content
          #    - Two-pass download: tries best quality first, falls back to 720p
          #      if the file exceeds the size limit
          #    - Maintains per-channel archive and skip files so nothing is
          #      re-downloaded or re-checked
          #    - Embeds thumbnails and metadata into the final .mp4
          #    - Logs errors with timestamps
          #
          #  Requirements:
          #    - yt-dlp       (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp)
          #    - ffmpeg        (for merging video+audio and thumbnail embedding)
          #    - curl          (for RSS feed fetching)
          #    - A SOCKS5 proxy on 127.0.0.1:40000 (remove --proxy flags if not needed)
          #
          #  Channel list format (Channels.txt):
          #    The file uses a simple key=value block per channel, separated by blank
          #    lines. Each block has four fields:
          #
          #      Cat=Gaming
          #      Name=SomeChannel
          #      VidLimit=5
          #      URL=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
          #
          #    Cat       Category label (currently unused in paths, available for sorting)
          #    Name      Short name used for filenames and archive tracking
          #    VidLimit  How many recent videos to consider per run ("ALL" for no limit)
          #    URL       Full YouTube channel URL (must contain the UC... channel ID)
          #
          # ============================================================================
          
          export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
          
          # --- Configuration ----------------------------------------------------------
          # Change these to match your environment.
          
          SCRIPT_DIR="/path/to/script"           # Folder containing this script and Channels.txt
          ERROR_LOG="$SCRIPT_DIR/download_errors.log"
          DOWNLOAD_DIR="/path/to/downloads"      # Where videos are saved
          MAX_FILESIZE="5G"                      # Max file size before falling back to lower quality
          PROXY="socks5://127.0.0.1:40000"       # SOCKS5 proxy (remove --proxy flags if unused)
          
          # --- End of configuration ---------------------------------------------------
          
          cd "$SCRIPT_DIR"
          
          # ============================================================================
          #  log_error - Append or update an error entry in the error log
          # ============================================================================
          #  If an entry with the same message (ignoring timestamp) already exists,
          #  it replaces it so the log doesn't fill up with duplicates.
          #
          #  Usage: log_error "[2025-01-01 12:00:00] ChannelName - URL: ERROR message"
          
          log_error() {
              local entry="$1"
          
              # Strip the timestamp prefix to get a stable key for deduplication
              local key=$(echo "$entry" | sed 's/^\[[0-9-]* [0-9:]*\] //')
          
              local tmp_log=$(mktemp)
              if [[ -f "$ERROR_LOG" ]]; then
                  grep -vF "$key" "$ERROR_LOG" > "$tmp_log"
              fi
              echo "$entry" >> "$tmp_log"
              mv "$tmp_log" "$ERROR_LOG"
          }
          
          # ============================================================================
          #  Parse Channels.txt
          # ============================================================================
          #  awk reads the key=value blocks and outputs one line per channel:
          #    Category  Name  VidLimit  URL
          #  The while loop then processes each channel.
          
          awk -F'=' '
            /^Cat/ {Cat=$2}
            /^Name/ {Name=$2}
            /^VidLimit/ {VidLimit=$2}
            /^URL/ {URL=$2; print Cat, Name, VidLimit, URL}
          ' "$SCRIPT_DIR/Channels.txt" | while read -r Cat Name VidLimit URL; do
          
              archive_file="$SCRIPT_DIR/DLarchive$Name.txt"   # Tracks successfully downloaded video IDs
              skip_file="$SCRIPT_DIR/DLskip$Name.txt"          # Tracks IDs to permanently ignore
              mkdir -p "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"
          
              # ========================================================================
              #  Step 1: Check the RSS feed for new videos
              # ========================================================================
              #  YouTube provides an RSS feed per channel at a predictable URL.
              #  Checking this is much faster than calling yt-dlp, so we use it
              #  as a quick "anything new?" test.
          
              # Extract the channel ID (starts with UC) from the URL
              channel_id=$(echo "$URL" | grep -oP 'UC[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+')
              rss_url="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=%24channel_id"
          
              # Fetch the feed and pull out all video IDs
              new_videos=$(curl -s --proxy "$PROXY" "$rss_url" | \
                  grep -oP '(?<=<yt:videoId>)[^<]+')
          
              if [[ -z "$new_videos" ]]; then
                  echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] RSS fetch failed or empty, skipping"
                  continue
              fi
          
              # Compare RSS video IDs against archive and skip files.
              # If every ID is already known, there's nothing to do.
              has_new=false
              while IFS= read -r vid_id; do
                  in_archive=false
                  in_skip=false
          
                  [[ -f "$archive_file" ]] && grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$archive_file" && in_archive=true
                  [[ -f "$skip_file" ]]    && grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$skip_file"    && in_skip=true
          
                  if [[ "$in_archive" == false && "$in_skip" == false ]]; then
                      has_new=true
                      break
                  fi
              done <<< "$new_videos"
          
              if [[ "$has_new" == false ]]; then
                  echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] No new videos, skipping"
                  continue
              fi
          
              echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] New videos found, processing"
          
              # ========================================================================
              #  Step 2: Build shared option arrays
              # ========================================================================
          
              # Playlist limit: restrict how many recent videos yt-dlp considers
              playlist_limit=()
              if [[ $VidLimit != "ALL" ]]; then
                  playlist_limit=(--playlist-end "$VidLimit")
              fi
          
              # Options used during --simulate (dry-run) passes
              sim_base=(
                  --proxy "$PROXY"
                  --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=default,-tv_simply"
                  --simulate
                  "${playlist_limit[@]}"
              )
          
              # Options used during actual downloads
              common_opts=(
                  --proxy "$PROXY"
                  --download-archive "$archive_file"
                  --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=default,-tv_simply"
                  --write-thumbnail
                  --convert-thumbnails jpg
                  --add-metadata
                  --embed-thumbnail
                  --merge-output-format mp4
                  --output "$DOWNLOAD_DIR/${Name} - %(title)s.%(ext)s"
                  "${playlist_limit[@]}"
              )
          
              # ========================================================================
              #  Step 3: Pre-pass — identify and skip filtered content
              # ========================================================================
              #  Runs yt-dlp in simulate mode twice:
              #    1. Get ALL video IDs in the playlist window
              #    2. Get only IDs that pass the match-filter (no live, no shorts)
              #  Any ID in (1) but not in (2) gets added to the skip file so future
              #  runs don't waste time on them.
          
              echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Pre-pass: identifying filtered videos (live/shorts)"
          
              all_ids=$(yt-dlp "${sim_base[@]}" --print "%(id)s" "$URL" 2>/dev/null)
              passing_ids=$(yt-dlp "${sim_base[@]}" \
                  --match-filter "!is_live & !was_live & original_url!*=/shorts/" \
                  --print "%(id)s" "$URL" 2>/dev/null)
          
              while IFS= read -r vid_id; do
                  [[ -z "$vid_id" ]] && continue
                  grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$archive_file" 2>/dev/null && continue
                  grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$skip_file"    2>/dev/null && continue
                  if ! echo "$passing_ids" | grep -q "^${vid_id}$"; then
                      echo "youtube $vid_id" >> "$skip_file"
                      echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Added $vid_id to skip file (live/short/filtered)"
                  fi
              done <<< "$all_ids"
          
              # ========================================================================
              #  Step 4 (Pass 1): Download at best quality, with a size cap
              # ========================================================================
              #  Tries: best AVC1 video + best M4A audio → merged into .mp4
              #  If a video exceeds MAX_FILESIZE, its ID is saved for the fallback pass.
              #  Members-only and premiere errors cause the video to be permanently skipped.
          
              echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Pass 1: best quality under $MAX_FILESIZE"
          
              yt-dlp \
                  "${common_opts[@]}" \
                  --match-filter "!is_live & !was_live & original_url!*=/shorts/" \
                  --max-filesize "$MAX_FILESIZE" \
                  --format "bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" \
                  "$URL" 2>&1 |
          
          • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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            20 days ago

            part 2

            # ========================================================================
                #  Step 4 (Pass 1): Download at best quality, with a size cap
                # ========================================================================
                #  Tries: best AVC1 video + best M4A audio → merged into .mp4
                #  If a video exceeds MAX_FILESIZE, its ID is saved for the fallback pass.
                #  Members-only and premiere errors cause the video to be permanently skipped.
             
                echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Pass 1: best quality under $MAX_FILESIZE"
             
                yt-dlp \
                    "${common_opts[@]}" \
                    --match-filter "!is_live & !was_live & original_url!*=/shorts/" \
                    --max-filesize "$MAX_FILESIZE" \
                    --format "bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best" \
                    "$URL" 2>&1 | while IFS= read -r line; do
                        echo "$line"
                        if echo "$line" | grep -q "^ERROR:"; then
             
                            # Too large → save ID for pass 2
                            if echo "$line" | grep -qi "larger than max-filesize"; then
                                vid_id=$(echo "$line" | grep -oP '(?<=\[youtube\] )[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}')
                                [[ -n "$vid_id" ]] && echo "$vid_id" >> "$SCRIPT_DIR/.size_failed_$Name"
             
                            # Permanently unavailable → skip forever
                            elif echo "$line" | grep -qE "members only|Join this channel|This live event|premiere"; then
                                vid_id=$(echo "$line" | grep -oP '(?<=\[youtube\] )[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}')
                                if [[ -n "$vid_id" ]]; then
                                    if ! grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$skip_file" 2>/dev/null; then
                                        echo "youtube $vid_id" >> "$skip_file"
                                        echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Added $vid_id to skip file (permanent failure)"
                                    fi
                                fi
                            fi
             
                            log_error "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] ${Name} - ${URL}: $line"
                        fi
                    done
             
                # ========================================================================
                #  Step 5 (Pass 2): Retry oversized videos at lower quality
                # ========================================================================
                #  For any video that exceeded MAX_FILESIZE in pass 1, retry at 720p max.
                #  If it's STILL too large, log the actual size and skip permanently.
             
                if [[ -f "$SCRIPT_DIR/.size_failed_$Name" ]]; then
                    echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Pass 2: lower quality fallback for oversized videos"
             
                    while IFS= read -r vid_id; do
                        [[ -z "$vid_id" ]] && continue
                        echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Retrying $vid_id at 720p max"
             
                        yt-dlp \
                            --proxy "$PROXY" \
                            --download-archive "$archive_file" \
                            --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=default,-tv_simply" \
                            --write-thumbnail \
                            --convert-thumbnails jpg \
                            --add-metadata \
                            --embed-thumbnail \
                            --merge-output-format mp4 \
                            --max-filesize "$MAX_FILESIZE" \
                            --format "bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height<=720]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/bestvideo[height<=720]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[height<=720]/worst" \
                            --output "$DOWNLOAD_DIR/${Name} - %(title)s.%(ext)s" \
                            "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%24vid_id" 2>&1 | while IFS= read -r line; do
                                echo "$line"
                                if echo "$line" | grep -q "^ERROR:"; then
             
                                    # Still too large even at 720p — give up and log the size
                                    if echo "$line" | grep -qi "larger than max-filesize"; then
                                        filesize_info=$(yt-dlp \
                                            --proxy "$PROXY" \
                                            --extractor-args "youtube:player-client=default,-tv_simply" \
                                            --simulate \
                                            --print "%(filesize,filesize_approx)s" \
                                            "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%24vid_id" 2>/dev/null)
                                        if [[ "$filesize_info" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
                                            filesize_gb=$(echo "scale=1; $filesize_info / 1073741824" | bc)
                                            size_str="${filesize_gb}GB"
                                        else
                                            size_str="unknown size"
                                        fi
                                        if ! grep -q "youtube $vid_id" "$skip_file" 2>/dev/null; then
                                            echo "youtube $vid_id" >> "$skip_file"
                                            log_error "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Skipped $vid_id - still over $MAX_FILESIZE at 720p ($size_str)"
                                        fi
                                    fi
             
                                    log_error "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] ${Name} - ${URL}: $line"
                                fi
                            done
                    done < "$SCRIPT_DIR/.size_failed_$Name"
             
                    rm -f "$SCRIPT_DIR/.size_failed_$Name"
                else
                    echo "[$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] [$Name] Pass 2: no oversized videos to retry"
                fi
             
                # Clean up any stray .description files yt-dlp may have left behind
                find "$DOWNLOAD_DIR" -name "${Name} - *.description" -type f -delete
             
            done
            
    • Mothra@mander.xyz
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      20 days ago

      I see. I am not a programmer, not by a long shot. More on the grandma side of things instead. So please forgive if I’m saying something very stupid - I’m just ignorant.

      I’ve been happy with NewPipe so far, 95% of my video watching happens on my phone. The only thing Newpipe can’t do is access age restricted videos. If this tool can do that on my phone, then I’m definitely interested.