pytube 5.1.0

A simple, yet versatile package for downloading YouTube videos.

A lightweight, dependency-free Python library for downloading YouTube Videos.

Description

Downloading videos from YouTube shouldn’t require some bloated library, it’s unusual to have to do so in the first place. So I present to you, PyTube!

Requirements

• Python 2.6+ (2.7 or 3.4 recommended)
• PIP (for some installation methods)
• GIT (for some installation methods)

Installation

If you are on Mac OS X or Linux, chances are that one of the following two commands will work for you:

Using PIP via PyPI

pip install pytube

Using PIP via Github

pip install git+git://github.com/nficano/pytube#egg=pytube

Adding to your requirements.txt file (run pip install -r requirements.txt afterwards)

git+ssh://[e-mail]/nficano/pytube#egg=pytube

Manually via GIT

git clone git://github.com/NFicano/pytube pytube
cd pytube
python setup.py install

Command-Line Usage

You can download a video by simply passing the -e (or --extension=) switch and setting it to the desired filetype:

$ pytube -e mp4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-RsDGPI5Y

Same thing for specifying a resolution:

$ pytube -r 720p http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-RsDGPI5Y

You can also specify a download file path (-p or --path=):

$ pytube -e mp4 -p ~/Downloads/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-RsDGPI5Y

and/or optionally choose the filename (-f or --filename=):

$ pytube -e mp4 -f Dancing Scene from Pulp Fiction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-RsDGPI5Y

Library Usage

from pytube import YouTube

# not necessary, just for demo purposes
from pprint import pprint

yt = YouTube("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-RsDGPI5Y")

# Once set, you can see all the codec and quality options YouTube has made
# available for the perticular video by printing videos.

pprint(yt.get_videos())

# [<Video: MPEG-4 Visual (.3gp) - 144p>,
#  <Video: MPEG-4 Visual (.3gp) - 240p>,
#  <Video: Sorenson H.263 (.flv) - 240p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 360p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 480p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.mp4) - 360p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.mp4) - 720p>,
#  <Video: VP8 (.webm) - 360p>,
#  <Video: VP8 (.webm) - 480p>]

# The filename is automatically generated based on the video title.  You
# can override this by manually setting the filename.

# view the auto generated filename:
print(yt.filename)

# Pulp Fiction - Dancing Scene [HD]

# set the filename:
yt.set_filename('Dancing Scene from Pulp Fiction')

# You can also filter the criteria by filetype.
pprint(yt.filter('flv'))

# [<Video: Sorenson H.263 (.flv) - 240p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 360p>,
#  <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 480p>]

# Notice that the list is ordered by lowest resolution to highest. If you
# wanted the highest resolution available for a specific file type, you
# can simply do:
print(yt.filter('mp4')[-1])
# <Video: H.264 (.mp4) - 720p>

# You can also get all videos for a given resolution
pprint(yt.filter(resolution='480p'))

# [<Video: H.264 (.flv) - 480p>,
# <Video: VP8 (.webm) - 480p>]

# To select a video by a specific resolution and filetype you can use the get
# method.

video = yt.get('mp4', '720p')

# NOTE: get() can only be used if and only if one object matches your criteria.
# for example:

pprint(yt.videos)

#[<Video: MPEG-4 Visual (.3gp) - 144p>,
# <Video: MPEG-4 Visual (.3gp) - 240p>,
# <Video: Sorenson H.263 (.flv) - 240p>,
# <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 360p>,
# <Video: H.264 (.flv) - 480p>,
# <Video: H.264 (.mp4) - 360p>,
# <Video: H.264 (.mp4) - 720p>,
# <Video: VP8 (.webm) - 360p>,
# <Video: VP8 (.webm) - 480p>]

# Notice we have two H.264 (.mp4) available to us... now if we try to call get()
# on mp4...

video = yt.get('mp4')
# MultipleObjectsReturned: 2 videos met criteria.

# In this case, we'll need to specify both the codec (mp4) and resolution
# (either 360p or 720p).

# Okay, let's download it!
video.download()

# Note: If you wanted to choose the output directory, simply pass it as an
# argument to the download method.
video.download('/tmp/')

Philosophy

My only real goal for this is to never require any third party dependancies, to keep it simple and make it reliable.