How to Download YouTube Videos

This article is going to be a quick guide on how to download YouTube videos in mp3 format or mp4 format. The tools used is the Android application NewPipe linked here and yt-dlp linked here

Downloading the application

This tool is the fork of the popular tool YouTube-dl which has now been discontinued.

First download the latest version of the tool from the release page on github linked here (if on windows download the this version.

You will need to download the separate tool ffmpeg and you can get Windows binaries linked here Be sure to download the “ffmpeg-git-essentials.7z”.

You will also need 7zip to extract the files linked here

Configure application in environment variables

Make a directory “C:\ytdl” and then place “yt-dlp.exe” in this directory and then place the file “ffmpeg.exe” into the directory (you should find it in the bin directory).

Next you can add “C:\ytdl” to environmental variables so that you don’t need to cd into it every time.

To do this Windows Key + R > run box type “SystemPropertiesAdvanced” and hit run > Environment variables > System variables > scroll to PATH > Edit > New > type “C:\ytdl” > Click ok to save changes

Open a new command prompt and you should be able to type “yt-dlp” and it should run the application and just give an error because you didn’t specify option.

Download MP3 from Youtube videos

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 -P "<Path to store the files>" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8lB54gbsTA

You can simply add further YouTube videos to the end with a space between them i.e

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 -P "<Path to store the files>" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8lB54gbsTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZiWWjlG-Zs

Downloading the video and audio

yt-dlp -P "<Path to store the files>" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Downloading Playlist MP3

yt-dlp -i --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 -P "<Path to store the files>" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTTBqAPJzTqooqXyALeL9JfRq3dJoPYQ

Downloading video + audio of an entire channel

You can simply navigate to the directory you want to store all the videos of someone’s channel and then run

yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/@OutperformMP

Replace the youtube channel with the one you want to download

Outputting without the YouTube ID

yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 -o "C:\Users\<user>\Documents\%(title)s.%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK8cjJ8kv8I

Stay up-to-date

Simply run
yt-dlp -U

NewPipe Download YouTube videos on Android

First download NewPipe on your android device from the official website and you may need to turn on the setting “Download applications from unknown sources”.

Once downloaded you can search for a video you wish to download and then on the right side there is an option to Download and then you can choose to either download the video or the audio.

Resources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/qzqzaz/can_someone_please_post_a_simple_guide_on_making/
https://github.com/yt-dlp
https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/add-windows-path-environment-variable/
https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5327495/list-all-environment-variables-from-the-command-line https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Yt-dlp
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/qzqzaz/can_someone_please_post_a_simple_guide_on_making/
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/14c31go/how_to_use_ytdlp_advanced_tutorial_guide_2023/