https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl

youtube-dl is a way of getting videos off of youtube and some other sites. I've successfully used it on soundcloud to download Trillbillies and And Introducing episodes that weren't normally downloadable, but I haven't tried it elsewhere.

You run it through command lines instead of browser add-ons like other downloaders I've used in the past, which makes it seem intimidating at first if you aren't accustomed to it. Once you get the basic functions, it's pretty good though. You can even download whole youtube playlists in one command.

Here's a "cheat sheet" a person wrote for using it: https://sachithmuhandiram.medium.com/youtube-dl-cheatsheet-bcc0782e7124

  • eduardog3000 [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    One thing the cheatsheet doesn't mention is you can specify both the audio and video format at the same time and youtube-dl will combine them.

    In the example given in the post, the best format that has both video and audio included is
    22 mp4 1280x720 hd720 221k , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (44100Hz) (best)
    but there are better formats available in video only and audio only:
    248 webm 1920x1080 1080p 1445k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 48.80MiB
    251 webm audio only DASH audio 144k , opus @160k, 15.32MiB
    so to get those as a single file you would do youtube-dl -f 248+251 video-url

    You don't even have to dig into the available qualities, you can just do youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio video-url and it will automatically pick the best format for each and combine them into one file.

  • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Thank you i never quite understood how that work, but the cheat sheet got me to download and install super easy!