Anon tries to download videos from youtube

The fundamental issue is that he's looking for someone to provide a free service instead of for someone to provide free software.

The latter happens so much more often because it doesn't create ongoing costs for the developer.

What's the best free software?
- Yt-dlp
- I haven't tried enough of the options to tell you that.
  
  Personally I use Smooth Video Project anyway, so it's conveniet to also use their SVPtube tool. It just wraps youtube-dl and provides a little GUI for it.
  
  There are a bunch of other GUIs for youtube-dl too

yt-dlp

I was surprised at how well it works but anything command line is not for normies
- Large language models from two years ago can write you an executable script that displays a window to provide an url.
  
  My “subscriptions” are downloaded automatically on a schedule and imported in jellyfin. I never need to interact with it myself.
- Anyone who’s done “/gamemode creative” is smart enough to figure out “yt-dlp <url>”. Seriously people need to stop acting like typing the most basic commands that you can find tutorials about is some kinda level 9 magic
- Thats why I run it in docker with a web ui (On my server behind a reverse proxy, so I could get HTTPS working)
  
  Shut up, im not a nerd
- Nah I'm sorry. There is a point where it's unreasonable to expect someone to learn something, but that isn't it.
  
  Using yt-dlp is extremely straightforward.
  
  Being ignorant and proud of it is a horrid personality trait. The average person knows how to drive a car, how to call others using their phone and how to use an ATM.
  
  Typing 7 characters and copy-pasting a link is well within their abilities.
- If you are on an android phone you should check the F-Droid pages for Seal. No commandline, a nice GUI, works great.
- You can use the OpenWith extensions to add it as a right click option.
  
  I have this setup for my non-technical family members, so they just right click on the page choose open with -> ytdlp and it saves it to their downloads folder.
  
  You can set up different options for example video or audio only.
  
  In Firefox install: https://webextension.org/listing/external-application-button.html
  
  In the Extension options, add an application
  
  Name it something like "Open in YT-DLP: mp4"
  
  Set the exe name to the path of a local copy of yt-dlp
  
  Set the arguments to be -S res,ext:mp4:m4a --recode mp4 [HREF]
  
  Under the Placement options -> Context Menu -> select "All Contexts"
  
  You should now be able to right click on a YouTube page and choose "External Application launcher -> Open in YT-DLP: mp4"
  
  If you want audio only, add another application in the extension settings and use the arguments -f ba[ext=m4a] [HREF] for m4a files.
- There's GUIs for it though. Obviously not for everyone, but I made my own.
  
  That it can download virtually from any site is pretty useful, assuming you know what to give it.
You can add it as a right-click option to Firefox:

Install: https://webextension.org/listing/external-application-button.html

In the Extension options, add an application

Name it something like “Open in YT-DLP: mp4”

Set the exe name to the path of a local copy of yt-dlp

Set the arguments to be -S res,ext:mp4:m4a --recode mp4 [HREF]

Under the Placement options -> Context Menu -> select “All Contexts”

You should now be able to right click on a YouTube page and choose “External Application launcher -> Open in YT-DLP: mp4”

If you want audio only, add another application in the extension settings and use the arguments -f ba[ext=m4a] [HREF] for m4a files.
- I love you
Grayjay works too, and they have a desktop client now (at least for Linux, and probably windows).
Youtube seems to be blocking that for me
- Might need an update. Just fixed mine by grabbing the latest release from 2 weeks ago.
- It shouldn't. When I first set it up the commands I was entering were creating an unreadable file. Double check the format you're outputting too and dont listen to the people in this thread saying its easy. Its pretty complex.

If you are into docker use tubearchivist as it lets you host the videos as well.

This was legit me untill I learnt about yt-dlp. I remember I used some random ass website for downloading yt vids, since I didn't have mobile data back then, and I wanted to listen to some tunes while I was going to school. The site would completely mess up file names every single time. Yt-dlp is the reason that pushed me to use cli apps more.

Yt-dlp my beloved

Yeah yt-dlp is an amazing software, unfortunately it no longer works for nsfw without cookies.

Pro tip to teach people to fish instead of giving them a fish:

Whenever you're looking for a new software tool to do something, especially something "sketchy" like this, add something like "GPL" or "open source" to the end of your search string. It might not be quite enough to raise the official site of the best tool all the way to the first search result, but it cuts way, way down on the scam sites.

Or perhaps even better yet, go straight to checking AlternativeTo.net.

Or add "reddit" and check what people recommend Though you would have to use Google or perhaps Startpage
- This worked a few years ago, but half of reddit is just bots and guerilla marketers now :(
- Yes, but eww.
- How dare you.
- May as well walk into an AA meeting and tell people they can just keep drinking

jdownloader includes yt-dlp and is generally good if you want to download things that you might or might not be supposed to download

!piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com has a list ;)

Also, I'm just gonna leave this here: https://github.com/jely2002/youtube-dl-gui
- Thats what I use now. Got it through scoop.sh.

yt-dlp

cobalt.tools

The screenshot is an old version of MacOS. Either install yt-dlp (at the command line) or, and this is better by far, get the Downie app. I've been downloading videos all morning.

Jdownloader 2 is the most straightforward.

Cobalt.tools

yt-dlp

If on Android, use Seal, a FOSS app that uses yt-dlp and allows you to download the video in a shit ton of format and stuff. Apparently can even embed subtitles and metadata into the files, although I never do that.

I really like Seal. Clean UI, FOSS, transparent about the fact that it's "just" a yt-dlp frontend
EDM mixes, downloaded as audio only, split by YouTube chapters, thumbnail embedded as cover and the single parts named by the chapter names, 5/5. I usually do an extra step where I embed fideo name and file name splits as Album, Artist and Track and then they're good to go into my Jellyfin instance.

If you’re technically inclined, you can selfhost metube for your friends/family

Is that just a yt-dlp front end? Was hoping it would also do the streaming which is what I currently have been thinking of setting up. Probably yt-dlp to download all latest videos and then stream that over UPNP so any device with VLC can watch over the LAN.
- That's what I do! Just save everything to my media server, better that way.
This is a really nice front end, thanks.for the recommendation.

VLC still works right?

Yeah, last time I checked anyway. I think it's been about a year since I last used it for that though.

On firefox: shift + right click -> save video as

Some say there’s an allow right click extension needed to bring it back for YouTube

Alternatively yt-dlp

The save as option is greyed out for me. I've even inspected the element, removed a class="nodownload", but no dice

Same thing when I use to want to download photos from instagram for... uh... personal research.

I haven't had to do this in awhile so I can't recommend the best downloader for this job... But I will say that this is the sort of thing where you absolutely need to have a good adblocker

yt-dlp. Works right from the command line, no sketchy sites, on linux you can probably install it from your package manager
- Well damn, guess I'm still windows-brained, never thought that there'd be a package for that!

If anyone looking for Android app. It's flkay for sites other than youtube, but do give it a try

https://sealapk.net/

Actually one of the steps is always offering downlaoder EXE to get the fucking video...