Python API for YouTube
by nagev
- Download any stream for a particular video
- Select best quality stream for download
- Retreive metadata such as viewcount, duration, rating, author, thumbnail, keywords
- Retrieve all availabe streams for a YouTube video (all resolutions and formats)
- Retrieve the Download URL to download or stream the video
- Small, standalone, single importable module file.
- Works with age-restricted videos and non-embeddable videos
- No dependencies
- Command line tool (ytdl) for downloading directly from the command line
Here is how to use the module in your own python code. For command line tool (ytdl) instructions, see further below:
>>> from pafy import Pafy
>>> url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw"
# create a video instance
>>> video = Pafy(url)
# get certain attributes
>>> video.title
u'Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning'
>>> video.rating
4.93608852755
>>> video.length
355
# display video metadata
>>> print video
Title: Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning
Author: Ryan915
ID: cyMHZVT91Dw
Duration: 00:05:55
Rating: 4.93608852755
Views: 672583
Thumbnail: https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/cyMHZVT91Dw/default.jpg
Keywords: Rick, Astley, Sings, Live, on, This, Morning, Never, Gonna, Gunna, Give, You,...
# show all formats for a video:
>>> streams = video.streams
>>> for s in streams:
>>> print s.resolution, s.extension
480x854 webm
480x854 flv
360x640 webm
360x640 flv
360x640 mp4
240x400 flv
320x240 3gp
144x176 3gp
# show all formats and their download url:
>>> for s in streams:
>>> print s.resolution, s.extension, s.url
480x854 webm http://r12--sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
480x854 flv http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
360x640 webm http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
360x640 flv http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
360x640 mp4 http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
240x400 flv http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
320x240 3gp http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
144x176 3gp http://r11---sn-aoh8kier.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
# get best resolution regardless of file format:
>>> best = video.getbest()
>>> best.resolution, best.extension
('480x854', 'webm')
# get best resolution for a particular file format:
# (mp4, webm, flv or 3gp)
>>> best = video.getbest(preftype="mp4")
>>> best.resolution, best.extension
('360x640', 'mp4')
# get best resolution for a particular file format, or return
# a different format if it has the best resolution
>>> best = video.getbest(preftype="mp4", ftypestrict=False)
>>> best.resolution, best.extension
('480x854', 'webm')
# get url, for download or streaming in mplayer / vlc etc
>>> best.url
'http://r12---sn-aig7kner.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?expire=1369...
# Download video and show progress:
>>> best.download(progress=True)
-Downloading 'Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning.webm' [56,858,674 Bytes]
Traceback (most recent call last):ed. Rate: [1095 kbps]. ETA: [33 secs]
# Download video, use specific filepath:
>>> myfilename = "/tmp/" + best.title + "." + best.extension
>>> best.download(progress=False, filepath=myfilename)
-Downloading 'Rick Astley Sings Live - Never Gonna Give You Up - This Morning.webm' [56,858,674 Bytes]
Doneusage: ytdl [-h] [-i] [-s] [-f {webm,mp4,3gp,flv}] [-r NNNxNNN] [-n N] [-b]
url
YouTube Download Tool
positional arguments:
url YouTube video URL to download
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-i Display video info
-s Display available streams
-n N Specify stream to download by stream number (use -s to
list, ignores -f and -r)
-b Download the best quality video (ignores -n, -f and
-r)
format and quality:
Specify the stream to download by resolution and file format
-f {webm,mp4,3gp,flv}
format of the video to download
-r NNNxNNN resolution of the video to download
Examples:
# Download best available resolution (-b):
ytdl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw" -b
# get video info (-i):
ytdl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw" -i
# list available download formats (-s):
ytdl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw" -s
Stream Format Resolution Size
------ ------ ---------- ----
0 webm 480x854 54 MB
1 flv 480x854 50 MB
2 webm 360x640 33 MB
3 flv 360x640 31 MB
4 mp4 360x640 24 MB
5 flv 240x400 13 MB
6 3gp 320x240 10 MB
7 3gp 144x176 3 MB
# Download mp4 360x640, ie. stream number 4 (-n4)
ytdl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw" -n 4
# Download flv at 240x400 (-f flv -r 240x400)
ytdl "youtube.com/watch?v=cyMHZVT91Dw" -f flv -r 240x400