Install yt-dlp on Raspberry Pi

The yt-dlp is a command line tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other websites. The yt-dlp is based on youtube-dl and offers additional features. The list of all the supported websites can be found in GitHub repository. The yt-dlp is a cross-platform tool that requires the Python interpreter.

This tutorial demonstrates how to install yt-dlp on Raspberry Pi.

Install yt-dlp

Use SSH to connect to Raspberry Pi. Run the following command to download the latest version of yt-dlp from GitHub repository:

sudo wget -qO /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp

Set read and execute permissions for a file:

sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp

Now yt-dlp command will be available for all users as a system-wide command.

We can check yt-dlp version as follows:

yt-dlp --version

We can update yt-dlp to the latest version by using the following command:

sudo yt-dlp -U

Testing yt-dlp

Video from website can be downloaded as follows:

yt-dlp <VIDEO_URL>

The <VIDEO_URL> is a video URL that you want to download. For example:

yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0DPdy98e4c

In most cases, you don't need to install any external dependencies in order to use yt-dlp. However, if you want to convert video/audio, you will need to install FFmpeg. You can read post how to install it.

The -x option can be used to convert video files to audio only files. Note that, this feature requires FFmpeg.

yt-dlp -x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0DPdy98e4c

Uninstall yt-dlp

If you want to remove yt-dlp, execute the following command:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp