YouTube Video Downloader

Overview

This skill downloads YouTube videos with full control over quality and format settings. It supports multiple quality levels from 360p to best available, output formats including MP4, WebM, and MKV, and audio-only downloads as MP3. It uses yt-dlp under the hood, which it installs automatically if not present.

Quick Start

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

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

Options

Quality Settings

Use -q or --quality:

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

Format Options

Use -f or --format (video downloads only):

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

Audio Only

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

python scripts/download_video.py "URL" -a

Custom Output Directory

Use -o or --output:

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 a 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