YouTube Private Downloader

Zero-runtime-dependency CLI for downloading a private YouTube video that the authenticated account is authorized to access. ffmpeg must be installed and available on PATH.

Install

python -m pip install youtube-private-downloader

Export the authorized browser session as a Netscape-format cookies.txt file, then run:

youtube-private-download \
  'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID' \
  ./video.mp4 \
  --cookies ./cookies.txt

Or run the command with no arguments and answer its prompts:

youtube-private-download

Use --overwrite to replace an existing output file. Never commit or share the cookie file because it can provide access to the browser session.

Publish

Build and upload from the project root:

python -m pip install ".[publish]"
python -m build
python -m twine upload dist/*

Run these commands from the project root. PyPI will prompt for credentials; use a PyPI API token as the password. Publishing cannot be completed without the package owner's PyPI credentials.