youtube-downloader

SKILL.md

YouTube Video Downloader

Download YouTube videos with full control over quality and format settings.

Quick Start

The simplest way to download a video:

python scripts/download_video.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

This downloads the video in best available quality as MP4 to /mnt/user-data/outputs/.

Options

Quality Settings

Use -q or --quality to specify video quality:

best (default): Highest quality available

1080p: Full HD

720p: HD

480p: Standard definition

360p: Lower quality

worst: Lowest quality available

Example:

python scripts/download_video.py "URL" -q 720p

Format Options

Use -f or --format to specify output format (video downloads only):

mp4 (default): Most compatible

webm: Modern format

mkv: Matroska container

Example:

python scripts/download_video.py "URL" -f webm

Audio Only

Use -a or --audio-only to download only audio as MP3:

python scripts/download_video.py "URL" -a

Custom Output Directory

Use -o or --output to specify a different output directory:

python scripts/download_video.py "URL" -o /path/to/directory

Complete Examples

Download video in 1080p as MP4:

python scripts/download_video.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" -q 1080p

Download audio only as MP3:

python scripts/download_video.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" -a

Download in 720p as WebM to custom directory:

python scripts/download_video.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" -q 720p -f webm -o /custom/path

How It Works

The skill uses yt-dlp, a robust YouTube downloader that:

Automatically installs itself if not present

Fetches video information before downloading

Selects the best available streams matching your criteria

Merges video and audio streams when needed

Supports a wide range of YouTube video formats

Important Notes

Downloads are saved to /mnt/user-data/outputs/ by default

Video filename is automatically generated from the video title

The script handles installation of yt-dlp automatically

Only single videos are downloaded (playlists are skipped by default)

Higher quality videos may take longer to download and use more disk space