sync-yt 1.0.0

CLI tool to mirror YouTube playlists into local directories

sync-yt

sync-yt is a command-line tool that synchronizes YouTube playlists to local directories on your system. It uses yt-dlp for downloading videos and a JSON based configuration file to define playlists and other options.

Features

• Declarative config.json to specify playlists and other configurable options.
• Option to save playlists in audio-only format, useful for music playlists.
• Can sync private YouTube playlists by specifying the logged-in browser.
• Automatically skips repeated video entries.
• Detects videos which become unavailable.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• yt-dlp
• FFmpeg (Highly recommended)

Installation

• From PyPI

$ pip install --user sync-yt

OR

• Build yourself

$ git clone https://github.com/sidtronics/sync-yt.git
$ cd sync-yt
$ pip install --user .

Configuration

Configuration file is first searched at ~/.config/sync-yt/config.json on POSIX compliant systems or at
C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\sync-yt\config.json on Windows.

config.json

sync_dir

• Type: string
• Description: Specifies the local directory where YouTube playlist folders will be synced. This path can be relative to the user's home directory (using ~) or an absolute path.
• Examples: "~/Music" , "D:\YouTube"

cookies_from_browser

• Type: string
• Description: Specifies the browser from which cookies should be extracted. This is required for downloading private playlists that are accessible only when signed into a Google account. Supported browsers include firefox, chrome, edge, etc. You can choose to leave this option blank if you're not downloading private playlists.
• Examples: "firefox", "chrome", "brave", "edge", "vivaldi"

playlists

• Type: array

• Description: An array of playlist objects, where each object represents a YouTube playlist to be synced. Each object in the array has the following properties:

  • name

    • Type: string
    • Description: A descriptive name to refer the playlist. This is the name of folder created in sync_dir where corresponding playlist is synced.

  • url

    • Type: string
    • Description: The URL of the YouTube playlist.
    • Example: "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSdoVPM5WnndSQEXRz704yQkKwx76GvPV"

  • convert_to_audio

    • Type: boolean
    • Description: Indicates whether the videos in the playlist should be converted to audio files. If true, the videos will be converted to audio.

Example Configuration

Below is a sample config.json file demonstrating the use of the configuration options:

{
    "sync_dir": "~/Music",
    "cookies_from_browser": "firefox",
    "playlists": [
        {
            "name": "Daft Punk - Discovery",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSdoVPM5WnndSQEXRz704yQkKwx76GvPV",
            "convert_to_audio": true
        },
        {
            "name": "Minuscule Compilation",
            "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7eLsxQrsg-4DNH682TNzgSlCXEeJ3IsX",
            "convert_to_audio": false
        }
    ]
}

Usage

$ sync-yt

Notes

• Manual intervention is needed when a video becomes unavailable. Remove it from upstream youtube playlist to get rid of error/warning. Upon removal from upstream playlist it will be removed locally as well on next sync. So backup before syncing if needed.

• Two different playlist can share same name attribute to sync both playlists in a single folder.

• You can skip installation of FFmpeg but it is highly recommended especially if you are using convert_to_audio option.