🎥 How to Use yt-dlp to Download Videos from YouTube (and More) – AI Generated

If you’ve ever wanted to download YouTube videos in high quality — including 4K, full playlists, or audio only — then yt-dlp is the tool for you. It’s a modern fork of youtube-dl with better features, faster updates, and broader site support.

✅ What is yt-dlp?

yt-dlp is a command-line program that lets you download videos, audio, or entire playlists from sites like:

🛠️ How to Install yt-dlp

On macOS (Homebrew):

brew install yt-dlp

On Windows:

  1. Download the latest yt-dlp.exe from: yt-dlp releases
  2. Place it in a folder, e.g., C:\yt-dlp\
  3. Add that folder to your system’s PATH

On Linux:

sudo curl -L https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp -o /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

🎬 Basic Usage

Download a single video:

yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Download a playlist:

yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxyz123456789

Extract audio only (MP3):

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 https://youtu.be/abc123

Download in 4K (if available):

yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[height=2160]+bestaudio/best" https://youtu.be/abc123

🕒 Download Part of a Video

Download a clip between two timestamps:

yt-dlp --download-sections "*00:01:00-00:03:00" https://youtu.be/abc123

🧠 Smart Features

📦 Organize Output

Save using the video title:

yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://youtu.be/abc123

Save in folders by channel name:

yt-dlp -o "%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://youtu.be/abc123

🧰 Tips & Tricks

Download English subtitles:

--write-subs --sub-lang en

Use a proxy server:

--proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080

Set default options in a config file:

📚 Helpful Resources

yt-dlp --help

✅ Final Notes

yt-dlp is powerful, fast, and flexible. Whether you’re archiving your favorite videos, grabbing audio for offline listening, or downloading only what you need — this tool can do it all.