Youtube-dl is a Command Line Program to download video and audio from many, many sites. Once I found out about it, a few frustrating hours ensued trying to teach myself how to use it proficiently. This is because the majority of the guides and forums out there explaining how to use youtube-dl are all targeted at the software-savvy folks, it was like reading how to run when I didn’t even know how to crawl. Once I finally understood how to use it, I couldn’t help but feel like I should make a video guide explaining in LAYMAN terms, something I wish existed when I was trying to learn. Nonetheless, I hope this helps anyone out there!! I tried my best to make the video as concise as possible. Here are all the relevant links.
youtube-dl download link:
http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html
ffmpeg download link:
https://ffmpeg.org/download.html
(This is where you should end up now:
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/)
youtube-dl homepage:
https://youtube-dl.org/
youtube-dl READ ME:
https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md
youtube-dl supported sites:
http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
** IMPORTANT** On October 23, 2020, youtube-dl and most of its forks on Github received DMCA takedowns(
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Youtube-dl), so I uploaded all the relevant programs into one folder called youtube-dl on my cloud, here it is:
*As of December 3, 2020, youtube-dl is back up, so this link is no longer necessary, you can follow the official download links lower in the description if you prefer*
https://mega.nz/folder/53g2EAYa#_HS9KHitypkKBsEM1FL3Qw
Go download this folder and continue the video from
3:46 to know what to do with it! (After downloading as a zip from the top right and extracting it into your downloads folder. If you do not have a program to open a zipped file you can download 7-zip for free:
https://www.7-zip.org/. You will need to right click the zipped file and show your computer which program you want it to use, using the Open With option. It should be located in Program Files - 7zip - and the one you choose will be 7zFM. Also check the box to always use this program to open up these kinds of files without having to go through this process again)
If youtube-dl comes back up at any point, here is the link where you can go and find the download link download it:
http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html as well as the site with the list of supported sites:
http://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html
Where I learned about FFmpeg (Thank you JBroadway):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wfUUZvybPY
Where I learned how to add a homepath:
https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.xml
My recommended offline music player:
https://getmusicbee.com/downloads/
VLC Media Player:
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
*Two important things i forgot to mention
1) The function -U to update youtube dl is very useful (capital u). Just write dl.exe then space then -U and hit enter to have it check for any updates. If youre running into any issues you cant go wrong with checking to see if it needs to update. *Important* This wont work unless youtube-dl goes back up online
2) If you're trying to download from a site that is locked behind a login, you can setup your config file with an authentication user/pass, or just user and have it ask you to manually input the password, so that you login to the site (through youtube-dl) to download whatever you're after. The functions for this are found in the ReadMe.
-u [username here] -p [password here] with no brackets
*I recently learned something new:
You don't need to use '-f' at all unless you are intentionally trying to download something specific. -f's functionality has changed over the years, and recommending '-f best' is based on years-old functionality that no longer works how people think it should work.
"best" currently means the best quality as a single file (containing ...