Videodl: A lightweight video downloader written in pure python
Project description
📄 Documents: videofetch.readthedocs.io
🌌 VideoDL Live Status Dashboard (VideoDL有效性实时监测)
Auto-updated every day via GitHub Actions, with ~3 randomly sampled preview clips.
🆕 What's New
- 2025-11-26: Released videofetch v0.2.1 - add/fix support for more video platforms and perform some code optimizations.
- 2025-11-21: Released videofetch v0.2.0 - code refactored and extensive support added for downloading videos from many additional platforms.
🚀 Introduction
A fast and lightweight video downloader built entirely in Python! 🚀 If you find this project useful, don't forget to star the repository and help us grow—your support means the world! 🙌
📜 Statement
This repository is created solely for learning purposes (commercial use is prohibited). All APIs used here are sourced from public networks. If you wish to download paid videos, please ensure you have a paid membership on the respective video platform (respect copyright, please!). If any content in this repository causes concerns or infringes on copyright, please reach out to me, and I’ll promptly remove it.
🎥 Supported Video Client
The video platforms currently supported for parsing are,
| VideoClient (EN) | VideoClient (CN) | WeChat Article | Search | ParseURL | Download | Core Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AcFunVideoClient | A站 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | acfun.py |
| PipigaoxiaoVideoClient | 皮皮搞笑 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | pipigaoxiao.py |
| PipixVideoClient | 皮皮虾 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | pipix.py |
| HaokanVideoClient | 好看视频 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | haokan.py |
| TedVideoClient | TED视频 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ted.py |
| Ku6VideoClient | 酷6网 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ku6.py |
| BilibiliVideoClient | 哔哩哔哩 (B站) | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | bilibili.py |
| KuaishouVideoClient | 快手 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | kuaishou.py |
| YinyuetaiVideoClient | 音悦台 (关停ing😭) | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | yinyuetai.py |
| BaiduTiebaVideoClient | 百度贴吧 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | baidutieba.py |
| MGTVVideoClient | 芒果TV | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | mgtv.py |
| OasisVideoClient | 新浪绿洲 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | oasis.py |
| PearVideoClient | 梨视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | pear.py |
| HuyaVideoClient | 虎牙视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | huya.py |
| DuxiaoshiVideoClient | 度小视 (全民小视频) | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | duxiaoshi.py |
| MeipaiVideoClient | 美拍 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | meipai.py |
| SixRoomVideoClient | 六间房视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | sixroom.py |
| WeishiVideoClient | 微视 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | weishi.py |
| ZuiyouVideoClient | 最右 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | zuiyou.py |
| XinpianchangVideoClient | 新片场 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | xinpianchang.py |
| WeSingVideoClient | 全民K歌 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | wesing.py |
| XiguaVideoClient | 西瓜视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | xigua.py |
| RednoteVideoClient | 小红书 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | rednote.py |
| WeiboVideoClient | 微博视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | weibo.py |
| CCTVVideoClient | 央视网 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | cctv.py |
| SohuVideoClient | 搜狐视频 | click | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | sohu.py |
| YouTubeVideoClient | 油管视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | youtube.py |
| ZhihuVideoClient | 知乎视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | zhihu.py |
| KakaoVideoClient | KakaoTV | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | kakao.py |
| YoukuVideoClient | 优酷视频 | - | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | youku.py |
📦 Install
You have three installation methods to choose from,
# from pip
pip install videofetch
# from github repo method-1
pip install git+https://github.com/CharlesPikachu/videodl.git@master
# from github repo method-2
git clone https://github.com/CharlesPikachu/videodl.git
cd videodl
python setup.py install
Also, some video downloaders depend on Ffmpeg,
CBox, N_m3u8DL-CLI, and Node.js,
so please make sure both programs are installed and can be invoked directly from your system environment (i.e., they are on your PATH).
A quick way to verify this is:
-
For Ffmpeg: open a terminal (or Command Prompt on Windows) and run,
ffmpeg -versionIf the installation is correct, you should see detailed version information instead of a "command not found" or "'ffmpeg' is not recognized" error.
-
For CBox and N_m3u8DL-CLI (Windows only for CCTVVideoClient): You only need to download CBox from the GitHub releases and add the path to cbox to your environment variables. If you don’t need to download the highest-quality videos from CCTV, you don’t need to install this library. If your downloader calls it from the command line, you should also be able to run
python -c "import shutil; print(shutil.which('cbox'))" python -c "import shutil; print(shutil.which('N_m3u8DL-CLI'))"
in Command Prompt and get the full path without an error. If the N_m3u8DL-CLI version is not compatible with your system, please download the appropriate one from the N_m3u8DL-CLI official website yourself.
-
For Node.js: open a terminal (or Command Prompt on Windows) and run,
node -v npm -v
If Node.js is installed correctly,
node -vwill print the Node.js version (e.g.,v22.11.0), andnpm -vwill print the npm version. If you see a similarcommand not found/not recognizederror, Node.js is not installed correctly or not available on yourPATH.
⚡ Quick Start
After a successful installation, you can run the snippet below,
from videodl import videodl
video_client = videodl.VideoClient()
video_client.startparseurlcmdui()
Or just run videodl (maybe videodl --help to show usage information) from the terminal.
Usage: videodl [OPTIONS]
Options:
--version Show the version and exit.
-i, --index-url, --index_url TEXT
URL of the video to download. If not
specified, videodl will start in terminal
mode.
-a, --allowed-video-sources, --allowed_video_sources TEXT
Platforms to search. Separate multiple
platforms with "," (e.g.,
"AcFunVideoClient,PipixVideoClient"). If not
specified, videodl will search all supported
platforms globally and use the first one
that can download the video url.
-c, --init-video-clients-cfg, --init_video_clients_cfg TEXT
Config such as `work_dir` for each video
client as a JSON string.
-r, --requests-overrides, --requests_overrides TEXT
Requests.get kwargs such as `headers` and
`proxies` for each video client as a JSON
string.
-t, --clients-threadings, --clients_threadings TEXT
Number of threads used for each video client
as a JSON string.
--help Show this message and exit.
The demonstration is as follows,
If you just want to parse a video link and retrieve information about the video, you can do it like this,
from videodl import videodl
video_client = videodl.VideoClient()
video_infos = video_client.parsefromurl("https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDUxOTc1NDg4MA==.html?spm=a2hkl.14919748_WEBHOME_HOME.scg_scroll_3.d_2_play&s=faab858435f24d5bb6d3&scm=20140719.rcmd.feed.show_faab858435f24d5bb6d3&alginfo=-1reqId-249a939e8%203783%204341%2099d9%20974d2b07ad23%231764142230027-1seqId-20IX2riz0CjZG971l-1abId-2468080-1sceneId-246595&scg_id=22896555")
print(video_infos)
The output of this code looks like,
[
{
"source": "YoukuVideoClient",
"raw_data": {
"cost": 0.020000001,
...
},
"download_url": "http://pl-ali.youku.com/playlist/m3u8?vid=XNDUxOTc1NDg4MA%3D%3D&type=mp4hd2v3&ups_client_netip=725c13f7&utid=dJytIY%2Bx4WYCAXJcE%2Few6YTM&ccode=0564&psid=2fb1945e5c8cc1b213f831c70ace818841346&duration=2205&expire=18000&drm_type=1&drm_device=0&drm_default=1&dyt=0&ups_ts=1764142708&onOff=0&encr=0&ups_key=f30ad69f9025369053e0932bfe1d2276&ckt=3&m_onoff=0&pn=&drm_type_value=default&v=v1&bkp=0",
"title": "史家绝唱",
"file_path": "videodl_outputs\\YoukuVideoClient\\史家绝唱.m3u",
"ext": "m3u",
"download_with_ffmpeg": true,
"err_msg": "NULL",
"identifier": "XNDUxOTc1NDg4MA==",
"guess_video_ext_result": {
"ext": "m3u",
"sniffer": "requests.head",
"ok": true
}
}
]
Then you can also call the video downloading function to download the video parsed by videodl. The code is as follows:
from videodl import videodl
video_client = videodl.VideoClient()
video_infos = video_client.parsefromurl("https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDUxOTc1NDg4MA==.html?spm=a2hkl.14919748_WEBHOME_HOME.scg_scroll_3.d_2_play&s=faab858435f24d5bb6d3&scm=20140719.rcmd.feed.show_faab858435f24d5bb6d3&alginfo=-1reqId-249a939e8%203783%204341%2099d9%20974d2b07ad23%231764142230027-1seqId-20IX2riz0CjZG971l-1abId-2468080-1sceneId-246595&scg_id=22896555")
video_client.download(video_infos=video_infos)
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🌟 Star History
☕ Appreciation (赞赏 / 打赏)
| WeChat Appreciation QR Code (微信赞赏码) | Alipay Appreciation QR Code (支付宝赞赏码) |
|---|---|
📱 WeChat Official Account (微信公众号):
Charles的皮卡丘 (Charles_pikachu)
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