ytcc

Command line tool to keep track of your favorite playlists on YouTube and many other places.

Installation

pipx install ytcc

Alternative installation methods are described in the documentation.

Usage

Add "subscriptions". Note that subscribe does not save discovered videos to the database. Run ytcc update to check and fetch video metadata after subscribing.

# Any playlist supported by yt-dlp (or youtube-dl)
ytcc subscribe "Jupiter Broadcasting" "https://www.youtube.com/c/JupiterBroadcasting/videos"
ytcc subscribe "NCS: House" "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRBp0Fe2GpgmsW46rJyudVFlY6IYjFBIK"
ytcc subscribe "Neus" "https://soundcloud.com/neus/tracks"

# RSS feed podcasts
ytcc subscribe "LINUX Unplugged" "https://linuxunplugged.com/rss"
ytcc subscribe "Darknet Diaries" "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/darknetdiaries"

Import subscriptions from Google Takeout. Hint: When requesting a takeout make sure to select only the YouTube data, otherwise the takeout might take quite long to complete.

ytcc import ~/Downloads/Takeout/Youtube/subscriptions/subscriptions.csv

Fetch metadata of new videos.

ytcc update

List unwatched videos.

ytcc list

List playlist content in JSON format.

ytcc --output json list --playlist "NCS: House" --since 2020-07-07 --watched --unwatched

List all videos as RSS feed.

ytcc --output rss list --watched --unwatched

Start the interactive terminal interface.

ytcc tui

Mark all videos of a playlist as watched without playing them.

ytcc ls -p "Jupiter Broadcasting" | ytcc mark

Listen to some music without limitations.

ytcc ls -p "NCS: House" | ytcc play --audio-only

Alternative terminal interface with thumbnail support. Requires fzf version 0.23.1 or newer, optionally curl and either ueberzug or kitty. The script is automatically installed on most platforms during installation of ytcc. If it's not installed, you can download it from here.

ytccf.sh

# Show help and key bindings
ytccf.sh --help

Configuration

Ytcc searches for a configuration file at the following locations:

1. The file given with -c or --config options
2. ~/.ytcc.conf
3. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ytcc/ytcc.conf or ~/.config/ytcc/ytcc.conf
4. /etc/ytcc/ytcc.conf

If no config file is found in these locations, a default config file is created at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ytcc/ytcc.conf or ~/.config/ytcc/ytcc.conf

Example config

[ytcc]

# Directory where downloads are saved, when --path is not given
download_dir = ~/Downloads

# Downloads videos to subdirectories by playlist name. If a video is on multiple playlists, ytcc
# will download the video only to one subdirectory and symlink it to the other subdirectories.
download_subdirs = on

# Parameters passed to mpv. Adjusting these might break video playback in ytcc!
mpv_flags = --ytdl --ytdl-format=bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best

# Defines the order of video listings.
# Possible options: id, url, title, description, publish_date, watched, duration, extractor_hash,
# playlists. Every option must be suffixed with :desc or :asc for descending or ascending sort.
order_by = playlists:asc, publish_date:desc

# Default attributes shown in video listings.
# Some ytcc commands allow overriding the default set here in the config.
video_attrs = id, title, publish_date, duration, playlists

# Default attributes shown in playlist/subscription listings.
# Some ytcc commands allow overriding the default set here in the config.
playlist_attrs = name, url, reverse, tags

# Path where the database is stored.
# Can be used to sync the database between multiple machines.
db_path = ~/.local/share/ytcc/ytcc.db

# The format of used to print dates
date_format = %Y-%m-%d

# Default failure threshold before a video is ignored.
# When a video could not be updated repeatedly, it will be ignored by ytcc after `max_update_fail`
# attempts. This setting can be overridden with the --max-fail commandline parameter.
max_update_fail = 5

# Default update backlog.
# The update command will only check the first `max_update_backlog` videos of a playlist to improve
# performance. This setting can be overridden with the --max-backlog commandline parameter.
max_update_backlog = 20

# Ignore videos that have an age limit higher than the one specified here.
age_limit = 0

# Skips livestreams.
skip_live_stream = true

# Skips private and member-only videos.
skip_non_public = true

# Prompt and table colors. Supports 256 colors. Hence, values between 0-255 are allowed.
# See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#8-bit for the color codes.
[theme]
prompt_download_audio = 2
prompt_download_video = 4
prompt_play_audio = 2
prompt_play_video = 4
prompt_mark_watched = 1
table_alternate_background = 245
plain_label_text = 244


[tui]
# The characters to use for selecting videos in interactive mode.
alphabet = sdfervghnuiojkl

# Default action of interactive mode.
# Possible options: play_video, play_audio, mark_watched, download_audio, download_video
default_action = play_video


[youtube_dl]
# Format (see FORMAT SELECTION in yt-dlp manpage). Make sure to use a video format here, if you
# want to be able to download videos.
format = bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best

# Output template (see OUTPUT TEMPLATE in yt-dlp manpage).
# Note that the output template will be prefixed with the `download_dir` directory and the name of
# the playlist if `download_sub_dir` is enabled.
output_template = %(title)s.%(ext)s

# If a merge is required according to format selection, merge to the given container format.
# One of mkv, mp4, ogg, webm, flv
merge_output_format = mkv

# Limit download speed to the given bytes/second. Set 0 for no limit.
# E.g. limit to one megabyte per second
#ratelimit = 1000000
ratelimit = 0

# Set number of retries before giving up on a download.
# Set 0 for no retries.
retries = 0

# Subtitles for videos.
# If enabled and available, automatic and manual subtitles for selected languages are embedded in
# the video.
#subtitles = en,de
subtitles = off

# Embed the youtube thumbnail in audio downloads.
# Transforms the resulting file to m4a, if enabled.
thumbnail = on

# Don't download videos longer than 'max_duration' seconds.
# 0 disables the limit.
max_duration = 9000

# Restrict filenames to only ASCII characters and avoid "&" and spaces in filenames.
restrict_filenames = off

mpv configuration

Ytcc uses mpv to play videos. You can configure mpv to integrate nicely with ytcc. Specifics are documented here.

Reporting issues

Create a new issue on the GitHub issue tracker. Describe the issue as detailed as possible, and please use the issue templates, if possible! Important: Remember to include the output of ytcc bug-report in bug reports. It also might help a lot to run ytcc with the --loglevel debug option and include the output in your report.

Development

We use hatch for development.

hatch env create
hatch shell

# Verify successful install
ytcc --help

Run the following commands before every pull request and fix the warnings or errors they produce.

hatch fmt --check
hatch test

External dependencies

Optional requirements:

• ffmpeg for .mp4 or .mkv merging
• mpv, if you want to play audio or video

Requirements for the ytccf.sh bash script:

• fzf version 0.23.1 or newer
• Optionally, for thumbnail support
  • curl
  • Either ueberzug or kitty.