25

youtube-dl is advanced but it lacks a good GUI. I personally can't use such a program without a GUI. Something similar to YTD downloader will be good.

I need it to have a progress bar and other quality control option. Ability to download multiple videos at a time would be good too.

Also please don't suggest flareget or Minitube.

8
  • you want to download video from youtube??
    – Sukupa91
    Dec 4, 2013 at 13:06
  • 1
    @Sushantp606: So, do you use youtube-dl for anything other than that?
    – Ufoguy
    Dec 5, 2013 at 9:46
  • 2
    hm, isn't the GUI for youtube-dl called youtube.com? :)
    – roadmr
    Dec 5, 2013 at 12:00
  • 1
    @roadmr: youtube.com is for viewing videos not downloading them. LOL!
    – Ufoguy
    Dec 6, 2013 at 7:38
  • 1
    "I personally can't use such a program without a GUI." For the life of me, I don't see why you can't use a program without a GUI.
    – Marc
    May 22, 2014 at 2:17

11 Answers 11

33

You can use Youtube-dlG, a multi-platform GUI for youtube-dl. The GUI lets you download multiple videos at once, can automatically convert downloaded videos to audio, lets you select the video quality and more.

enter image description here

To install it in Ubuntu, you can use the main WebUpd8 PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install youtube-dlg

For more information, see the article on WebUpd8: Multi-Platform youtube-dl GUI: YouTube dlG

3
  • 1
    Thank you this is just what I wanted. Is it made in python coz I wanna edit the Source code.
    – Ufoguy
    May 3, 2014 at 3:25
  • Yes, it uses Python. May 5, 2014 at 13:19
  • While the original repo for this seems to be archived, there is seemingly a modern/active version maintained at github.com/jely2002/youtube-dl-gui Sep 2, 2021 at 4:53
8

I know this is not really the answer for a GUI however, I couldn't help but notice how the specific characteristics mentioned are already available with youtube-dl if you add a few extra options to your command.

First, to control the quality of a youtube-dl download you can use the helpful -F option to list all the available formats even showing which format is "best".

youtube-dl -F 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzm5b6FFY'

Here is the output:

[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Downloading webpage
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] P9pzm5b6FFY: Extracting video information
[info] Available formats for P9pzm5b6FFY:
format code extension resolution  note 
140         m4a       audio only  DASH audio , audio@128k (worst)
160         mp4       144p        DASH video , video only
133         mp4       240p        DASH video , video only
134         mp4       360p        DASH video , video only
135         mp4       480p        DASH video , video only
136         mp4       720p        DASH video , video only
17          3gp       176x144     
36          3gp       320x240     
5           flv       400x240     
43          webm      640x360     
18          mp4       640x360     
22          mp4       1280x720    (best)

The best quality here is option 22 so . . . change the -F to -f 22 like this:

youtube-dl -f 22 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzm5b6FFY'

If you do this in an open terminal it shows progress in % until completion. Finally, if you want to download multiple videos at once . . .

Just use CTRL+SHIFT+T to open a new tab in the existing terminal. Use CTRL+PGDN or CTRL+PGUP to navigate open tabs.

It can't hurt to know.

3
4

There is GUI for youtube-dl

enter image description here

Download the dpkg file and you can install it the normal way.

Please note the message under the download button

The window will freeze while the file is being downloaded, it is working just fine, do not force quit me!

1
  • 2
    This is the worst GUI I've ever seen in my life. The CLI is literally a thousand times better than this. You can have more option there. It doesn't even have a progress bar or quality option.
    – Ufoguy
    Dec 5, 2013 at 9:41
3

Not a frontend for youtube-dl but another gui option that you could try is SMTube:

sudo apt-get install smplayer smtube

This is a very nice gui that can be called from within SMPlayer, or can run on its own, and has the capability of browsing, playing and downloading YouTube videos.

enter image description here

Newer versions also have the capability of updating their code 'on the fly' to compensate for changes at the YouTube end.

2

Ultimate media downloader is a Gui based video audio downloader which support download media from various sites.

Features Features included are :

  1. One Click download best media quality available .
  2. Beautiful and simple GUI.
  3. Save Download Locations.
  4. Loads informations before Downloading any media .
  5. Advance Download options .
  6. Two Download Engine Support. Option to update download engine from app setting , so you will get all site support those will added to engine in future.
  7. Convert video to Audio with preferred format and quality.
  8. Resume support , Resumes media download even it was paused months ago.
  9. Saves history of what you did with detailed information.
  10. Inbuilt fastest Browser to browse media sites which allow you one click download.
  11. Powerful setting module enable you to control every part of application.
  12. Added a option which saves all the history of your downloaded video to resume them later or redownload them in different formats.
  13. App now support Dark theme , you can change the theme of app with just a click.
  14. Lots of other features can't be described here, more features and updates are coming soon in future.

Available as snap package and debian package via Ubuntu Play Store by Keshav Bhatt.

[![Ultimate Media Downloader][2]][2]

Ktube Media Downloader is Another Powerful Media downloader App which is Successor of Ultimate Media downloader, Ktube saves history with thumbnails which make it easy for users take log of what they did before. Lots of features are there ,Ktube is much powerful than UMD check details and install methods in Ktube's official website. Ktube Media Downloader

Main Features

  1. Responsive Design
  2. Single Click Download
  3. Support Various Sites
  4. Download Diff Formats
  5. Live Tv Option
  6. Inbuilt Powerful Youtube Browser
  7. Inbuilt Video to Audio Convertor
  8. Youtube Live Channel Management
  9. Inbuilt Youtube Videos Player with Live Stream Playback Support
  10. Download Engine Update without Updating whole Application
  11. AppImage is available for other Linux distribution (Non Debian Distributions).
  12. Snap Package is also there so app will work on Snapd supported Linux Distros.
  13. Small sized debian binary is also there for distributions who are shipping qt 5.5.1 and above.
1
  • It looks like, it's a freeware with a limit of 2 url per day.
    – Ehvince
    Apr 13, 2018 at 16:43
1

You can try vido, a rewrite of ytd-gtk with various options including

  1. Queuing multiple urls
  2. Ability to stop, pause, re-order downloads
  3. Resume downloads after stopping from where it left to save bandwidth
  4. Along with standard formats, use of custom formats is also available
  5. Always on top drop area to easily drag drop urls from browser to vido
  6. On error ability to refresh/requeue the download to try again
0

This gui isn't designed for downloading multiple files at once but it's quite nice if you want to browse youtube at the same time you are downloading. You can also sign into your account, create playlists and then download your playlist in sequence.

It's quite basic but I prefer this over the copy-paste dance. It can be found here:

https://github.com/jman27182818/youtube-dl-gui-simple

0

The most feature rich GUI in 2020 is probably the web-ui provided by YoutubeDL-Material which can be run in docker container.

enter image description here

To get an idea of how it to use it after a fresh install, take a look at https://youtu.be/Y-lS-_4mbvc?t=133.

0

There's also MeTube (https://github.com/alexta69/metube), a docker-installable web UI with playlist support.

0

16.04 and later

Gydl (Graphical Youtube-dl) is a GUI wrapper around the already existing youtube-dl program. To install Gydl in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu open the terminal and type:

sudo snap install gydl

When using Gydl, you have the option to download your YouTube video as a Video or Audio.

enter image description here

0

https://downloadasaur.com/ is a web GUI. Is pretty legit, works with any website

2
  • It doesn't depend on youtube-dl. Isn't it?
    – Kulfy
    Apr 6, 2021 at 16:13
  • it uses it behind the scenes
    – Ethan SK
    Apr 6, 2021 at 21:34

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