yt-dlp Video & Audio Downloader

What It Solves

When downloading video or extracting audio from sites such as YouTube, Bilibili, Twitter/X, or TikTok, yt-dlp offers many options that are easy to mix up: format selection, resolution limits, playlist ranges, subtitle handling, metadata embedding, and proxy-based DNS resolution. This skill turns those edge cases into reusable command patterns, reducing trial and error around CLI flags.

How It Works

• Core capabilities: automatic best-quality download, audio extraction to MP3, M4A, or FLAC, resolution constraints, forced MP4 output, playlist range downloads, subtitle download and embedding, thumbnail and metadata embedding, and batch processing.
• Key steps: verify that yt-dlp and ffmpeg are available; choose the right command pattern such as yt-dlp URL, -x --audio-format, -f, -I, or --write-subs; add --proxy or a config file when network access requires it.
• Output control: use template fields like %(title)s, %(channel)s, %(upload_date)s, and %(playlist_index)s to build predictable filenames, and use --restrict-filenames when needed.

Boundaries

• It depends on yt-dlp site support and network accessibility; it does not guarantee bypassing platform restrictions.
• Auto-generated Mix playlists such as list=RD... may contain hundreds of items, so --no-playlist is needed to limit output.
• Prefer socks5h:// for proxy-side DNS; if bot checks appear, try --cookies-from-browser chrome or --impersonate chrome.