Platform guide
How to use yt-dlp for YouTube
YouTube is the platform most people associate with yt-dlp first. The real value is not the platform label itself. It is knowing which command to run for normal downloads, playlists, subtitles, quality control, and signed-in content.
Quick answer
yt-dlp "YOUTUBE_URL"That is the simplest YouTube download command. Everything else is just an extension of what you want the output to do.
Most common YouTube use cases
- • standard video download
- • best quality video plus audio
- • subtitles only
- • full playlist download
- • signed-in or age-gated content using cookies
The most useful adjacent topics
- • format selection for quality control
- • subtitles if you need captions only
- • cookies for age-gated or signed-in content
- • playlists for batch downloads
- • output templates if you want sane file organization
The mistake to avoid
Do not treat YouTube as one single workflow. Downloading one video, downloading a playlist, grabbing subtitles, and handling login-required content are different jobs. Use the right guide for the right problem.
Recurring source
Downloading from the same sources repeatedly?
Once this stops being a one-time command and starts becoming a repeated source workflow, it is usually worth moving beyond copy-pasting terminal commands every time. Importly is built for that step up.