elizato-dl 1.1.0

YouTube Music playlist downloader with album art, metadata and lyrics

elizato-dl 🎵

A command-line tool that downloads YouTube Music playlists as MP3s (or FLAC, M4A, WAV, OPUS) with full album art, metadata tags, and synced lyrics — so your music library actually looks the way it's supposed to.

Made by Elizato Winston — first year Software Engineering student at the University of Buea 🇨🇲

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Why this exists

Every music downloader I tried either stripped the album art, lost the metadata or just dumped a messy pile of files on my laptop. As a graphic designer, that was unacceptable. So I built the solution myself.

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Installation

pip install elizato-dl

Requirements: Python 3.10+, ffmpeg on your PATH

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Quick Start

# Download a playlist as MP3 with lyrics
elizato-dl download "https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL..." --cookies cookies.txt --lyrics

# Download as FLAC
elizato-dl download "https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL..." -f flac --cookies cookies.txt

# Save metadata to a manifest file first, then download
elizato-dl fetch "https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL..." --cookies cookies.txt
elizato-dl download manifest.json --cookies cookies.txt --lyrics

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Cookie Setup (Required)

YouTube requires authentication to serve audio streams. You need to export your browser cookies:

1. Install the Get cookies.txt LOCALLY Chrome extension
2. Go to youtube.com while logged in
3. Click the extension → Export → save as cookies.txt in your working directory
4. Pass it with --cookies cookies.txt

Cookies expire — if you get 403 errors, re-export them.

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Commands

download

elizato-dl download <URL or manifest.json> [options]

Options:
  -o, --output DIR        Output directory (default: ./music)
  -f, --format FORMAT     Audio format: mp3, m4a, opus, flac, wav (default: mp3)
  --lyrics                Fetch and embed synced lyrics after download
  --no-thumbnail          Skip embedding album art
  --cookies FILE          Path to cookies.txt
  --browser BROWSER       Read cookies from browser (must be closed)

fetch

elizato-dl fetch <URL> [options]

Options:
  -o, --output FILE       Output manifest file (default: manifest.json)
  --cookies FILE          Path to cookies.txt

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What you get

Each downloaded track includes:

• 🎵 Highest quality audio available
• 🖼️ Album art embedded in the file
• 🏷️ Full metadata tags (artist, album, title, year)
• 📝 Synced lyrics embedded + .lrc file saved alongside (with --lyrics)

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Support the project

If elizato-dl saved you time, feel free to donate:

BTC (BEP20): 0x0cEDD7d8f78B45fbA25B05Ada32eB37F7c193590

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License

MIT — free to use, modify and distribute.