Mediakit

Download YouTube videos fast, directly from the command line

Features   |    Installation   |    How to use   |    API Reference   |    Development experiences

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⚠️ Warning

This project is archived and no longer maintained. If you'd like alternatives to Mediakit, youtube-dl and yt-dlp are great options, including more features and a solid contributing community.

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Mediakit is a command line tool to download videos from YouTube.

Features

• Quickly download YouTube videos with a single command on your terminal
• Select specific download formats (video, audio and video-only) if you want to, with resolutions as high as 4K 😎

Installation

To install Mediakit, you need Python 3.6+ and pip already installed on your computer. Then, run:

pip install mediakit

How to use

You can download a video with Mediakit by running:

mediakit <video_url> [<output_path>]

• video_url: the URL of the video to download (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...).

  As URL's may have special characters, it is recommended that you wrap the URL in double quotes ("") to ensure that it will be recognized properly.

• output_path: optional destination to where to save the downloads. If not provided, this will default to the current directory.

  You can also provide a custom name for the downloaded file. To do that, include it in the output path (e.g. path/to/folder/video.mp4).

After running this command, an interactive CLI will guide you through the download process.

Examples of use:

• Download to the current directory

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI"

• Download to ~/Videos

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" ~/Videos

• Download to ~/Videos with name song.mp4

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" ~/Videos/song.mp4

Selecting specific download formats

By default, Mediakit will download the specified video with the highest available resolution. However, you can select specific download formats with the flag --formats (or its shorthand -f), followed by one or more desired formats:

mediakit <video_url> [<output_path>] [-f | --formats]

You can also download as audio (mp3) or as video only (without audio) by using the format options audio and videoonly, respectively. If no resolution is provided with these options, Mediakit will download the media with highest quality, although you can select a specific resolution by adding it right after the option used (e.g. -f audio 128kbps). Check the examples bellow for more use details.

If a resolution is not available for the video, the download will fall back to the closest available resolution lower than the one specified.

Examples of use:

• Download with resolution of 1080p

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f 1080p

• Download with resolution of 4K (2160p)

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f 4K

• Download multiple resolutions at once (each resolution will be downloaded in a different file)

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f 1080p 720p

• Download with the highest resolution available (same result as not using the flag -f)

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f max

• Download as audio (mp3)

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f audio

• Download multiple formats and resolutions at once (each resolution will be downloaded in a different file)

  mediakit "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI" -f 1080p audio videoonly 720p
  # download video with 1080p, audio with highest definition available and video-only (without audio) with 720p

Downloading multiple videos

Downloading from playlists

By providing a playlist URL, Mediakit will automatically download all videos in it.

mediakit <playlist_url> [<output_path>]

• playlist_url: the URL of the playlist to download (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=...).

Make sure the playlist is marked as public, otherwise Mediakit won't be able to access it!

You can also use other options with this command, such as specify which formats and definitions you want your downloads to be.

Using a batch file

With the option -b (or its longhand --batch), you can download multiple videos sequentially by providing a batch file (a text file containing one or more video URL's, each one in a separate line):

mediakit [-b | --batch] <batch_file>

By running this, Mediakit will read all URL's in the provided file and download them sequentially.

You can also use other options along with --batch, similarly to downloading from playlists.

Examples of use:

Using a batch file called urls.txt as an example:

# contents of `urls.txt`
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7AFEULF9LI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpWLeUt_7Cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fau8gKw33ME

• Download URL's in urls.txt with the highest available resolution

  mediakit -b urls.txt

• Download URL's in urls.txt as audio (mp3)

  mediakit -b urls.txt -f audio

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API Reference

Mediakit currently supports the following command options:

Option	Description	Example
-h, --help	Show help	mediakit -h
-v, --version	Show the currently installed version	mediakit -v
-y, --yes	Answer "yes" to all questions beforehand	mediakit https://... -y
-b <batch_file>, --batch <batch_file>	Download videos from URL's stored in a batch file	mediakit -b urls.txt
-nc, --no-colors	Disable the colors of the interface	mediakit https://... -nc
-f <formats>, --formats <formats>	Specify which formats you want to download	mediakit https://... -f audio
-p <maximum downloads in parallel>, --formats <maximum downloads in parallel>	Set a limit to downloads in parallel	mediakit https://... -f audio

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Development experiences

All experiences and learning acquired during the development of Mediakit are detailed in Development experiences and learning. Check it out if you want to know more about what were the motivations to build this project, how it was developed and what were the main challenges and experiences.

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Made by Diego Aquino 😎. Connect with me!