YouTube-dl for mac is an important program. YouTube-dl is a command-line program that enables you to download videos from YouTube and other sites. It’s way better than the other paid YouTube downloader as it will help you download videos from anywhere. It requires python to run and you can use different interpreters like 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform-specific. Windows has its own YouTube GUI but nothing is available for macOS. It is available for everyone to use in the public domain so you can modify it and use it however you feel like it. So, nothing is available for macOS we bring basic information on YouTube-dl so let’s start.

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YouTube-dl for mac Installation:

Before installing YouTube-dl you need to install Wget first and to install Wget you have to install homebrew . So, we have provided you with the command just copy and paste it into your in your MacOS terminal (press cmd + space and type in terminal). The code given will automatically download the homebrew master file from the GitHub. It may ask for your password couple of times. And the process will be slow or fast depending upon your internet speed.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Youtube-dl install homebrew

Once you are done with homebrew you have now install Wget. Again copy and paste the command given below also allow OpenSSL for TLS support.

brew install wget --with-libressl
YouTube-dl install wget

Now after installing homebrew and Wget. We will install youtube-dl package just run the command given below and it will be done instantly.

brew install youtube-dl

When you have successfully installed Youtube-dl on your mac. However you can come across some permission issue error you can enter the following and get rid of the issue.

sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl 

Now that everything has been setup you will be able to download videos from youtube and anywhere you just have to write the following Command.

youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]
#The URL of videos you want to download
YouTube-dl downloading video

You can find videos that you have downloaded in your home folder on mac. For downloading the videos in the highest quality you may have to install FFmpeg. Without FFmpeg you may get second highest resolution. So for installing FFmpeg write in the following command.

brew install youtube-dl ffmpeg

Configuration of YouTube-dl for mac:

You can configure the YouTube-dl by writing the following command line. Configuring YouTube-dl can help you save time and you will get what you want for example if you only want audio of the particular video you can easily do that the following command will help you extract audio and use proxy to download videos on your home directory.

# Lines starting with # are comments

# Always extract audio
-x

# Do not copy the mtime
--no-mtime

# Use this proxy
--proxy 127.0.0.1:3128

# Save all videos under Movies directory in your home directory
-o ~/Movies/%(title)s.%(ext)s

 switches used in regular command line calls thus there must be no whitespace after (-) or (–), e.g. or (-o) or (–proxy).

YouTube-dl important features:

Video Format Options: These are some options available to download videos in the formats you want. You can choose from different formats as per your requirements.

all-formatsDownload all available video formats
F, --list-formatsList all available formats of requested videos
youtube-skip-dash-manifestDo not download the DASH manifests and related data on YouTube videos
f, --format FORMATVideo format code, see the "FORMAT SELECTION" for all the info
prefer-free-formatsPrefer free video formats unless a specific one is requested
merge-output-format FORMATIf a merge is required (e.g. bestvideo+bestaudio). One of mkv, mp4, ogg, webm, flv. Ignored if no merge is required

Subtitle Options: There is also an option for Subtitle. You can download subtitles for the videos or you can give the command or write it. And you have also an option of downloading all subtitles available for that particular videos.

write-subWrite subtitle file
write-auto-subWrite automatically generated subtitle file (YouTube only)
-all-subsDownload all the available subtitles of the video
list-subsist all available subtitles for the video --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats
sub-lang LANGSLanguages of the subtitles to download (optional) separated by commas, use --list- subs for available language tags

VIDEO SELECTION:

You can add filters in downloading your videos according to dates by following commands  --date--datebefore or --dateafter. YouTube-dl accepts date in two formats.

  • Relative dates: Dates in the format (now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?
  • Absolute dates: Dates in the format YYYYMMDD.

We will show you a example for you to understand it easy.

# Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
$ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months

# Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
$ youtube-dl --date 19700101

$ # Download only the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
$ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231

Conclusion:

We have provided you the best thing from which you can download YouTube videos on macOS. And provide you with different options for subtitles and formats and configuring according to your need. It works exactly as given. Now you like it you download it.

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