Simple yt-dlp CLI Utility

A command-line utility to simplify and enhance video, audio, playlist and subtitle downloads using yt-dlp. This tool provides an interactive interface with multiple download modes, including support for cookies, trimming, playlists, and specific format selection. It will help you use yt-dlp without needing to remember all the command-line options for different download scenarios.

Learn more about yt-dlp at yt-dlp GitHub.

Features

• ✅ Video Download
  Download a video from a site supported by yt-dlp, in best available format (only YT) or in a specified format.
• ✅ Cookie Integration
  Use cookies from your Firefox browser for accessing private or age-restricted video.
• ✅ Trim Specific Sections
  Download only a portion of a video using time ranges (e.g., 00:30:00-00:45:00).
• ✅ Audio-Only (MP3)
  Extract audio as MP3 with embedded thumbnail.
• ✅ Playlist Support
  Download entire playlists with optional numbering (e.g., 1-title.mp3, 2-title.mp3).
• ✅ Subtitles Download
  Fetch all available subtitles (non-auto-generated) in SRT format.

Example of usage

• Download the first 10 seconds of a video using cookies and selecting a specific format.

• Download only the audio of a video in MP3 format and with a thumbnail.

Requirements

• yt-dlp (Remember to always use the latest version)
• FFmpeg
• make for building the executable (Windows version).
• Python if you want to run the script directly without compiling.

Compiling

In the main repo directory run the following command to build the executable:

make 

This will create an executable named ytdlp_utility in the build directory.

Or you can run the script in the src folder directly with Python:

pip install yt-dlp
python ytdlp_utility.py

The usage is the same as the compiled version.

Usage

Once you have the executable or the python script, you can run it with some option. The downloaded file or folder will be in the same directory of the executable. Remember to provide an url supported by yt-dlp (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).

Video and audio download

• Video and audio download with custom format selection:

.\ytdlp_utility

Later you can decide to use cookies for authentication or trim the video. Only firefox cookies are supported at the moment. This will download the file in the specific format you choose.

• Video and audio download with best mp4+m4a only supported by YT, may not work on all sites:

.\ytdlp_utility --best

Later you can decide to use cookies for authentication or trim the video. This will download the file in the best available mp4+m4a format.

Audio-only download (MP3):

.\ytdlp_utility -a

This will download the audio in MP3 format with an embedded thumbnail.

Playlist download

.\ytdlp_utility -p

Than choose between these 4 option:

1. Audio mode (mp3) with enumeration (1-NameVideo1.mp3 2-NameVideo2.mp3...)
2. Audio mode (mp3) without enumeration
3. Video+Audio mode (best mp4+m4a) with enumeration (1-NameVideo1.mp4 2-NameVideo2.mp4...)
4. Video+Audio mode (best mp4+m4a) without enumeration

Where enumeration means that the files will be named with a number prefix (e.g., 1-Title.mp3) representing their order in the playlist, and best mp4+m4a means that it will work on YouTube and may not work on other sites.

Disclaimer: I'have not tested the playlist download on all sites, it will work with YT but it may not work with other sites.

Subtitles download

.\ytdlp_utility -s

This will download all available subtitles in SRT format, excluding auto-generated ones.