yt-dlp

yt-dlp is a fork of the youtube-dl application that brings to the table additional features to handle network-related issues, geographical restrictions, video filtering, subtitles, post-processing, as well as other options.

There is no standard interface of yt-dlp. Instead, you get to work with the command console, which might be a minus to some. Nevertheless, the syntax is fairly simple and all the parameters are explained in detail if you just access the “--help” option.

yt-dlp can download playlists and individual videos, providing support for various video sharing websites, including the ever-popular YouTube. It features proxy support, ensuring compatibility with HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS protocols. Moving one step further, it offers options to bypass the geographical-based restrictions some websites impose.

There are various filters you can apply. One plus is that yt-dlp is compatible with regular expressions, which allows you to accept or reject videos based on their title. Moreover, you can choose filters related to the number of downloaded files, the size of a file or its timestamp. The number of views, the age limit or the presence of a file in a playlist can also be used as criteria, which is quite interesting.

There is a plethora of additional options available in yt-dlp. You can choose the fragments to keep or remove, limit the download rate, adjust the buffer size or download the contents of a playlist in reverse order.

yt-dlp also provides options to handle duplicates, edit video descriptions and annotations, manage cookies, cache, thumbnails and subtitles, or extract information about a file before actually downloading it. You can even change the encoding mode or the user agent, or modify the output format. In other words, yt-dlp can also act as a video converter.

Post-processing options are also available. There are options to extract audio files from a video, alter the audio and the video quality, remuxing and recoding tools. As a plus, you also get SponSkrub, which is a tool that allows you to mark and remove sponsor segments from a video downloaded from YouTube.

yt-dlp offers a variety of options, which is perfect for advanced users, who usually like being in control of all the parameters and configurations. On the other hand, all the customization tools might just be too much for a beginner who is looking for a quick and straightforward method to download an online video.