yt-fts is a simple python script that uses yt-dlp to scrape all of a youtube channels subtitles and load them into an sqlite database that is searchable from the command line. It allows you to query a channel for specific key word or phrase and will generate time stamped youtube urls to the video containing the keyword.
Project description
yt-fts
yt-fts is a simple python script that uses yt-dlp to scrape all of a youtube channels subtitles
and load them into an sqlite database that is searchable from the command line. It allows you to
query a channel for specific key word or phrase and will generate time stamped youtube urls to
the video containing the keyword.
Installation
pip
pip install yt-fts
from source
git clone https://github.com/NotJoeMartinez/yt-fts
python3 -m venv .env
source .env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m yt-fts
Dependencies
This project requires yt-dlp installed globally. Platform specific installation instructions are available on the yt-dlp wiki.
pip
python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp
MacOS/Homebrew
brew install yt-dlp
Windows/winget
winget install yt-dlp
Usage
Usage: yt-fts [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Options:
--help Show this message and exit.
Commands:
delete delete [channel id]
download download [channel url]
export export [search text] [channel id]
list Lists channels
search search [search text] [channel id]
download
Will download all of a channels vtt files into your database
yt-fts download "https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow/videos"
--channel-id [channel_id]
If download fails you can manually input the channel id with the --channel-id flag.
The channel url should still be an argument
yt-fts download --channel-id "UC4woSp8ITBoYDmjkukhEhxg" "https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow/videos"
--language [en/fr/es/etc..]
Specify subtitles language
yt-fts download --language de "https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow/videos"
--number-of-jobs [num_threads]
Speed up downloads with multi threading
yt-fts download --number-of-jobs 6 "https://www.youtube.com/@TimDillonShow/videos"
list
List all of your downloaded channels
yt-fts list
output:
Listing channels
id channel_name channel_url
---- ------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------
1 The Tim Dillon Show https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4woSp8ITBoYDmjkukhEhxg/videos
2 Lex Fridman https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSHZKyawb77ixDdsGog4iWA/videos
3 Traversy Media https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29ju8bIPH5as8OGnQzwJyA/videos
search
you can specify which channel to search in using the id or channel_name
and it will print a url to that point in the video.
Usage: yt-fts search [OPTIONS] SEARCH_TEXT [CHANNEL]
Search for a specified text within a channel or all channels. SEARCH_TEXT is
the text to search for. CHANNEL is the name or id of the channel to search
in. CHANNEL is required unless the '--all' option is specified.
Options:
--all Search in all channels. If not specified, a channel name or id is
required.
- The search string does not have to be a word for word and match
- Use Id if you have channels with the same name or channels that have special characters in their name
- Search strings are limited to 40 characters.
Ex:
yt-fts search "life in the big city" "The Tim Dillon Show"
# or
yt-fts search "life in the big city" 1 # assuming 1 is id of channel
output:
The Tim Dillon Show: "164 - Life In The Big City - YouTube"
Quote: "van in the driveway life in the big city"
Time Stamp: 00:30:44.580
Link: https://youtu.be/dqGyCTbzYmc?t=1841
Search all channels
Use --all to search all channels in your database
Ex:
yt-fts search "text to search" --all
Advanced Search Syntax
The search string supports sqlite Enhanced Query Syntax. which includes things like prefix queries which you can use to match parts of a word.
Ex:
yt-fts search "rea* kni* Mali*" "The Tim Dillon Show"
output:
The Tim Dillon Show: "#200 - Knife Fights In Malibu | The Tim Dillon Show - YouTube"
Quote: "real knife fight down here in Malibu I"
Time Stamp: 00:45:39.420
Link: https://youtu.be/e79H5nxS65Q?t=2736
Export
Similar to search except it will export all of the search results to a csv
with the format: Channel Name,Video Title,Quote,Time Stamp,Link as it's headers
yt-fts export "life in the big city" "The Tim Dillon Show"
You can export from all channels in your database as well
yt-fts export "life in the big city" --all
Delete
Will delete a channel from your database
yt-fts delete [channel_id]
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