YOUTUBEDL-GUI(1)

NAME
youtubedl-gui - graphical front end to yt-dlp for downloading videos and audio

SYNOPSIS
youtubedl-gui [Qt-options]

DESCRIPTION
youtubedl-gui is a simple graphical interface to yt-dlp(1), the command line program for downloading videos from a wide variety of sites. It presents a single window in which a URL is entered, a destination folder chosen, and the desired output selected; the download is then performed by yt-dlp with post-processing by ffmpeg(1).

Two modes of operation are offered, on separate tabs of the window. In audio mode the video is downloaded and its sound track extracted, with a choice of audio format and quality, and metadata embedded in the resulting file. In video mode the video itself is kept, with a choice of container format and of maximum resolution, and the thumbnail and any subtitles optionally embedded. Whole playlists can be fetched rather than a single item.

Progress is shown while the download runs, and a download in progress can be cancelled. When the download finishes and the window is not the active one, a desktop notification is emitted using notify-send(1), if it is available; otherwise a dialogue box reports the outcome.

Checking the Defaults box leaves the format and quality selections to the website and to yt-dlp, and greys out the corresponding controls. The settings in effect when the program exits, that box included, are written to the configuration file described below and restored on the next run.

The program takes no options of its own. Arguments are passed to Qt, so the standard Qt and X11 options such as -style and --platform are accepted.

ENVIRONMENT

QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR
    Set this to 1 for the window to scale correctly on a HiDPI display under GNOME and other GTK based desktops. Qt based desktops such as KDE apply their own scaling factor and need no such setting.

FILES

~/.config/ytdl-gui/ytdl-gui.conf
    Settings saved when the program exits and restored when it starts.

~/.config/ytdl-gui/yt-dlp.path
    If this file exists, its first line is used as the command to run instead of searching for yt-dlp on the PATH. This is useful when a newer yt-dlp than the packaged one is installed elsewhere, for instance under ~/.local/bin.

/tmp/ytdl_stderr
    Standard error of the most recent yt-dlp run, shown in the dialogue reporting a failed download.

SEE ALSO
yt-dlp(1), ffmpeg(1), notify-send(1)

The upstream home page is https://codeberg.org/impromptux/ytdl-gui.

AUTHOR
youtubedl-gui was written by Jason Goulet-Lipman and is now maintained by Impromptux.

This manual page was written for the Debian project, and may be used by others.