edx-dl is a simple tool to download videos and lecture materials from Open edX-based sites. It requires a Python interpreter (>= 2.7) and very few other dependencies. It is platform independent, and should work fine under Unix (Linux, BSDs etc.), Windows or Mac OS X.

We strongly recommend that, if you don't already have a Python interpreter installed, that you install Python >= 3.4, if possible, since it has better security than Python 2.

To install all the dependencies please do:

pip install -r requirements.txt

One of the most important dependencies of edx-dl is youtube-dl. The installation step listed above already pulls in the most recent version of youtube-dl for you.

Unfortunately, since many Open edX sites store their videos on Youtube and Youtube changes their layout from time to time, it may be necessary to upgrade your copy of youtube-dl. There are many ways to proceed here, but the simplest is to simply use:

pip install --upgrade youtube-dl

Once you have installed everything, to use edx-dl.py, let it discover the courses in which you are enrolled, by issuing:

python edx-dl.py -u user@user.com --list-courses

From there, choose the course you are interested in, copy its URL and use it in the following command:

python edx-dl.py -u user@user.com COURSE_URL

replacing COURSE_URL with the URL that you just copied in the first step. It should look something like: https://courses.edx.org/courses/edX/DemoX.1/2014/info

Your downloaded videos will be placed in a new Directory called Downloaded, inside your current directory, but you can also choose another destination with the -o argument.

To see all available options and a brief description of what they do, simply execute:

python edx-dl.py --help

Important Note: To use sites other than edx.org, you have to specify the site along with the -x option. For example, -x stanford, if the course that you want to get is hosted on Stanford's site.

Before reporting any issue please follow the steps below:

1. Verify that you are running the latest version of all the programs (both of edx-dl and of youtube-dl). Use the following command if in doubt:

    pip install --upgrade edx-dl
   

2. If the problem persists, feel free to open an issue in our bugtracker, with as much information as possible. At a bare minimum, please specify the following information: following information:

   • Your operating system/version
   • Python version
   • Version of youtube-dl
   • Which course (the URL) you have problems with:
   • If it helps it is better if you refer to a concrete subsection or unit.
   • Any other information that you may think that would help us finding the problem.

If the script fails and throws some exception, please copy the entire output of the command or the stacktrace (but you may be free to obfuscate your username and password, of course).

If you cannot copy the exception that the script shows, attach a screen shot/capture to the bug system.

These are the current supported sites:

• edX
• Stanford
• University of Sydney
• France Université Numérique
• GW Online SEAS - George Washington University
• GW Online Open - George Washington University

This is the full list of sites powered by Open edX. Not all of them are supported at the moment, we welcome you to contribute support for them and send a pull request also via our issue tracker.

See the contributors to the project in the AUTHORS.md file. If you have contributed to the project, we would like to gladly credit you for your work. Just send us a note to be added to that list.