Features

Retreive metadata such as viewcount, duration, rating, author, thumbnail, keywords
Download video or audio at requested resolution / bitrate / format / filesize
Command line tool (ytdl) for downloading directly from the command line
Retrieve the URL to stream the video in a player such as vlc or mplayer
Works with age-restricted videos and non-embeddable videos
Small, standalone, single importable module file (pafy.py)
Select highest quality stream for download or streaming
Download audio only (no video) in ogg or m4a format
Download video only (no audio) in m4v format
Works with Python 2.7 and 3.x
No dependencies

Documentation

Full documentation is available at http://pythonhosted.org/Pafy

Usage Examples

Here is how to use the module in your own python code. For command line tool (ytdl) instructions, see further below:

>>> import pafy

create a video instance from a YouTube url:

>>> url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw"
>>> video = pafy.new(url)

get certain attributes:

>>> video.title
u'Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning'


>>> video.rating
4.93608852755

>>> video.length
355

display video metadata:

>>> print video

Title: Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning
Author: Ryan915
ID: cyMHZVT91Dw
Duration: 00:05:55
Rating: 4.93608852755
Views: 672583
Thumbnail: https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/cyMHZVT91Dw/default.jpg
Keywords: Rick, Astley, Sings, Live, on, This, Morning, Never, Gonna, You...

list available streams for a video:

>>> streams = video.streams
>>> for s in streams:
>>>     print(s)

normal:webm@640x360
normal:mp4@640x360
normal:flv@320x240
normal:3gp@320x240
normal:3gp@176x144

show all formats, file-sizes and their download url:

>>> for s in streams:
>>>     print s.resolution, s.extension, s.get_filesize(), s.url

('640x360', 'webm', 34775366, 'http://r20---sn-aiglln7e.googlevideo.com/v..
('640x360', 'mp4', 25027697, 'http://r20---sn-aiglln7e.googlevideo.com/v..
('320x240', 'flv', 15363436, 'http://r20---sn-aiglln7e.googlevideo.com/v..
('320x240', '3gp', 10097332, 'http://r20---sn-aiglln7e.googlevideo.com/v..
('176x144', '3gp', 3659867, 'http://r20---sn-aiglln7e.googlevideo.com/v..

get best resolution regardless of file format:

>>> best = video.getbest()
>>> best.resolution, best.extension

('480x854', 'webm')

get best resolution for a particular file format: (mp4, webm, flv or 3gp):

>>> best = video.getbest(preftype="mp4")
>>> best.resolution, best.extension

('360x640', 'mp4')

get url, for download or streaming in mplayer / vlc etc:

>>> best.url

'http://r12---sn-aig7kner.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...

Download video and show progress:

>>> best.download(quiet=False)
-Downloading 'Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning.webm' [56,858,674 Bytes]

  56,858,674 Bytes [100.00%] received. Rate: [ 720 kbps].  ETA: [0 secs]
Done

Download video, use specific filepath:

>>> myfilename = "/tmp/" + best.title + "." + best.extension
>>> best.download(filepath=myfilename)

Get audio-only streams (m4a and/or ogg vorbis):

>>> audiostreams = video.audiostreams
>>> for a in audiostreams:
>>>     print(a.bitrate, a.extension, a.get_filesize())

('48k', 'm4a', 2109164)
('128k', 'm4a', 5630839)

Download the 2nd audio stream from the above list:

>>> audiostreams[1].download()

Get the best quality audio stream:

>>> bestaudio = video.getbestaudio()
>>> bestaudio.bitrate

'256k'

Download the best quality audio file:

>>> bestaudio.download()

show ALL formats for a video (video+audio, video-only and audio-only):

>>> allstreams = video.allstreams
>>> for s in allstreams:
>>>     print(s.mediatype, s.extension, s.quality)

('normal', 'webm', '640x360')
('normal', 'mp4', '640x360')
('normal', 'flv', '320x240')
('normal', '3gp', '320x240')
('normal', '3gp', '176x144')
('video', 'm4v', '854x480')
('video', 'm4v', '640x360')
('video', 'm4v', '426x240')
('video', 'm4v', '256x144')
('audio', 'm4a', '48k')
('audio', 'm4a', '128k')

Command Line Tool (ytdl) Usage

usage: ytdl [-h] [-i] [-s]
            [-t {audio,video,normal,all} [{audio,video,normal,all} ...]]
            [-n N] [-b] [-a]
            url

YouTube Download Tool

positional arguments:
  url                   YouTube video URL to download

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -i                    Display vid info
  -s                    Display available streams
  -t {audio,video,normal,all} [{audio,video,normal,all} ...]
                        Stream types to display
  -n N                  Specify stream to download by stream number (use -s to
                        list available streams)
  -b                    Download the best quality video (ignores -n)
  -a                    Download the best quality audio (ignores -n)

ytdl Examples

Download best available resolution (-b):

ytdl -b "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw"

Download best available audio stream (-a): (note; the full url is not required, just the video id will suffice):

ytdl -a cyMHZVT91Dw

get video info (-i):

ytdl -i cyMHZVT91Dw

list available dowload streams:

ytdl cyMHZVT91Dw

Stream Type    Format Quality         Size
------ ----    ------ -------         ----
1      normal  webm   [640x360]       33 MB
2      normal  mp4    [640x360]       24 MB
3      normal  flv    [320x240]       13 MB
4      normal  3gp    [320x240]       10 MB
5      normal  3gp    [176x144]        3 MB
6      audio   m4a    [48k]            2 MB
7      audio   m4a    [128k]           5 MB
8      audio   m4a    [256k]          10 MB

Download mp4 640x360 (ie. stream number 2):

ytdl -n2 cyMHZVT91Dw

Download m4a audio stream at 256k bitrate:

ytdl -n8 cyMHZVT91Dw

Metadata

Release files for pafy 0.3.31

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for pafy 0.3.31
File	Size	Uploaded
Pafy-0.3.31.tar.gz	11.3 kB	Feb 4, 2014	Details

Release files / Pafy-0.3.31.tar.gz

Download URL	Pafy-0.3.31.tar.gz
Size	11.3 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d3ea99e2e2d1aeba680cb8a16728acadc3da96ef7872932bd1cd76c19695c072`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`5643df29a047d9f0477e4c022e43822dd2a17cdbc483db6284a7ab088e3ccded`
Upload date	Feb 4, 2014
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No