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There is any good program to download YouTube videos? I am using Ubuntu 14.04 32-bit.

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3 Answers 3

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To install youtube-dl:

  • Recommended way (latest version):

    1. Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T or searching Terminal in the dash.
    2. Install youtube-dl with this command (you'll be prompted for your password):

      sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl && sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
      
  • Not recommended way (older version):

    1. Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T or searching Terminal in the dash.
    2. Install youtube-dl with this command (you'll be prompted for your password):

      sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
      

To use youtube-dl:

  1. To select where to save the video, you can follow these steps:
    • Type cd on the terminal.
    • Press Space
    • Drag the folder from File Manager and drop it on the terminal.
    • If you skip this step, the video will be saved on your home folder.
  2. To download the video you can use one of these procedures:

    2.1. Run youtube-dl video_url where video_url is the URL of the video.

    2.2. If you want to download many videos, you can follow these steps instead of 2.1:

    • Run the below command:

      xargs youtube-dl
      
    • Repeat the following procedure for each link:
      • Paste a link.
      • Press Enter
    • Press Ctrl+D

    2.3. If do you have a plain text file with a list of links, you can download them this way:

    • Type cat on the terminal.
    • Press Space
    • Drag the file form the File Manager and drop it on the terminal.
    • Press Space
    • Type | xargs youtube-dl
    • Press Enter
  3. Now the video(s) will download to the selected folder.


Some final thoughts:

  • On the method 2.3 the final command should look like this:

    cat '/home/foo/Desktop/myawesomevideos.txt' | xargs youtube-dl
    
  • You can also use the URL of a channel and youtube-dl will save the entire channel.
  • You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl -U
  • You can see all the options of youtube-dl with youtube-dl --help

Thanks to user185719 and Michael Grünewald for their contributions to this answer.

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  • You should download it directly from the website instead from the repository because that's a outdated version. rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html Follow the 2 commands given there.
    – jancoow
    Apr 18, 2015 at 10:23
  • Most of the time, video URLs contain strange characters like ? which must be escaped. It much easier to use xargs youtube-dl which allows to paste several URLs in the terminal and saves from adding single quotes around them. Apr 18, 2015 at 10:34
  • @user185719: I updated the answer. Thanks.
    – 0x2b3bfa0
    Apr 18, 2015 at 10:50
  • @MichaelGrünewald: There is no need to escape ? or any other sign (at least on my computer ;-). However, the xargs solution is good.
    – 0x2b3bfa0
    Apr 18, 2015 at 10:52
  • @Helio It depends on your shell. The ? is a wildcard character that can be used to write globbing patterns, and the ? will match any character. When there is no match, some shells use the globbing pattern as an argument, some other shells signal an error. On these shells, the ? must be protected and the xargs trick is even more useful. Apr 18, 2015 at 13:26
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You can use firefox as the browser and there are some addons which will enable you to download videos from youtube like this

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  • 1
    +1: Easy solution for newbies (i.e. The OP). However, youtube-dl is better.
    – 0x2b3bfa0
    Apr 18, 2015 at 9:06
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simply open an additional tab in the same browser and search for savefrom.net and open the website. Now open the youtube video and copy the URL when it starts playing. Paste that in the space given for URL in the savefrom.net website.

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  • yes it's possible and working but why doing this if you can just simply add an add-on savefrom.net and download it right away.
    – JoKeR
    Apr 18, 2015 at 13:41

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