Download videos from Yle servers
Copyright (C) 2010-2026 Antti Ajanki, antti.ajanki@iki.fi
License: GPL v3 or later
Homepage: https://aajanki.github.io/yle-dl/index-en.html
Source code: https://github.com/aajanki/yle-dl
yle-dl is a tool for downloading media files from the video streaming services of the Finnish national broadcasting company Yle: Yle Areena, Elävä Arkisto and Yle news.
Installation
Below are general installation instructions. See a separate page for specialized installation instructions for Debian, Ubuntu, Mac OS X, Windows and Android.
1. Install the dependencies
- Python 3.9+
- ffmpeg (subtitles fully supported only on ffmpeg 4.1 or later)
- wget (required for podcasts)
2. Install yle-dl
- Install pipx
- Install yle-dl:
pipx install yle-dl
Installing yle-dl with all optional dependencies (pipx install yle-dl[extra])
enables storing video metadata as extended file attributes and automatically
detecting filesystems that require restricted character sets.
Usage
yle-dl [options] URL
or
yle-dl [options] -i filename
where URL is the address of the Areena or Elävä arkisto web page where you would normally watch the video in a browser.
yle-dl options:
-o filenameSave stream to the named file-i filenameRead input URLs to process from the named file, one URL per line--latestepisodeDownload the latest episodes--showurlPrint the URL of the stream, don't download--showtitlePrint stream title, don't download--showmetadataPrint stream metadata as JSON--restrict-filename-no-specialsCreate Windows-compatible filenames--sublang langDisable subtitles if lang is "none"--subtitles-onlyDownload only subtitle file, skip video and audio--resolution resMaximum vertical resolution in pixels--maxbitrate brMaximum bitrate stream to download, integer in kB/s or "best" or "worst". Not all streams support limited bitrates.--postprocess cmdExecute a command cmd after a successful download. The command is called with the downloaded video file as the first parameter and subtitle files (if any) as the following parameters.--proxy uriProxy to use. Examples:--proxy localhost:8118,--proxy socks5h://localhost:1080--destdir dirSave files to dir--pipeDump stream to stdout for piping to media player. E.g.yle-dl --pipe URL | vlc -.-V, --verboseShow verbose debug output
Type yle-dl --help to see the full list of options.
Config file
Arguments that start with '--' can also be set in a config file. The default
config file is ~/.yledl.conf (or alternatively ~/.config/yledl.conf) or
one can be specified via --config. See yledl.conf.sample
for an example configuration.
Config file syntax allows: key=value, flag=true. If an arg is specified in more than one place, then command line values override config file values which override defaults.
Contributed packages for various distros
A list of contributed packages
Examples
Yle Areena
Save an Areena stream to a file with an automatically generated name:
yle-dl https://areena.yle.fi/1-787136
Save a stream to a file called video.mkv:
yle-dl https://areena.yle.fi/1-787136 -o video.mkv
Playing in mpv (or in vlc or in any other video player) without downloading first:
yle-dl --pipe https://areena.yle.fi/1-787136 | mpv --slang=fi -
Executing a script to postprocess a downloaded video (see the example postprocessing script at scripts/muxmp4):
yle-dl --postprocess scripts/muxmp4 https://areena.yle.fi/1-787136
Areena live TV broadcasts
yle-dl tv1
yle-dl tv2
yle-dl teema
Record the broadcast shown an hour (3600 seconds) ago:
yle-dl --startposition -3600 tv1
Elävä Arkisto
yle-dl https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2010/10/28/studio-julmahuvi-roudasta-rospuuttoon
Embedded videos on the yle.fi news articles
yle-dl https://yle.fi/a/74-20036911
Development
Install yle-dl in editable mode in a virtual environment:
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --editable .[extra] --group test
Install the pre-commit hooks for linting and type checking:
pipx install pre-commit
pre-commit install
Unit and integration tests
python3 -m pytest
Some tests succeed only when run on a Finnish IP address because some Areena streams are available only in Finland. By default, these tests are skipped. To run all tests, include the "--geoblocked" flag:
python3 -m pytest --geoblocked
Running only a single test file:
python3 -m pytest tests/integration/test_areena_radio_it.py
Creating a new release
Bug reports and feature suggestions
If you encounter a bug or have an idea for a new feature, please post it to the GitHub issue tracker. You can write in English or in Finnish.
Known problems
Problem: Subtitles are visible only for the first five minutes.
Solution: Update your ffmpeg to version 4.1 or later.
Problem: Subtitles are missing on live stream
This is a known problem. Currently, there are no fixes.
Problem: Some subtitle lines appear twice
Solution: This is a bug in recent ffmpeg versions. Downgrade ffmpeg. For example, version 4.1 generates non-duplicated subtitles.
Problem: I get warnings about unsupported subtitles and dropping subtitles
Downloading always produces certain warnings messages that are harmless and can be ignored. Subtitles should get downloaded correctly in most cases despite the warnings.
At least messages similar to the following are safe to ignore:
- mime type is not rfc8216 compliant
- Can't support the subtitle(uri: ...)
- Dropping 114 duplicated subtitle events
- Unsupported codec with id 98313 for input stream 5
Problem: On macOS, downloads fail with "Unable to negotiate TLS/SSL session" or "Bad file descriptor"
Homebrew's standard ffmpeg uses macOS SecureTransport for TLS, which is
incompatible with Yle's Akamai CDN. Install ffmpeg-full (which uses GnuTLS)
instead:
brew install ffmpeg-full
Then add to ~/.yledl.conf:
ffmpeg=/opt/homebrew/opt/ffmpeg-full/bin/ffmpeg
ffprobe=/opt/homebrew/opt/ffmpeg-full/bin/ffprobe
Problem: On macOS, downloading fails due to SSL errors
You probably have urllib3 v2.x and an incompatible SSL library installed.
Install a more recent Python that has been built with OpenSSL 1.1.1 or more recent.
Alternatively, downgrade your urllib3 to v1.x by running the following command in yle-dl's Python environment:
pip install urllib3<2
Sample errors that indicate this problem: "urllib3 v2.0 only supports OpenSSL 1.1.1+, currently the 'ssl' module is compiled with LibreSSL 2.8.3" or "ssl.SSLEOFError: [SSL: UNEXPECTED_EOF_WHILE_READING] EOF occurred in violation of protocol (_ssl.c:2426)"
Problem: I installed yle-dl but get an error message "command not found" when I try to run it
The installation location is not on shell's search path. Use the full path to run yle-dl: ~/.local/bin/yle-dl
Better yet, append the search path permanently by editing shell's config file. For example, on bash do the following:
echo "export PATH=\"\$HOME/.local/bin:\$PATH\"" >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for yle-dl 20260624
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