Yt Dlp Downloader

This wraps yt-dlp for downloading videos from YouTube, Bilibili, Twitter, and thousands of other sites. You get audio extraction to MP3, subtitle downloads, quality selection, and playlist handling. The documentation is thorough about YouTube's 403 errors and recommends always using browser cookies for YouTube downloads, which is honestly the main gotcha you'll hit. It includes bilingual trigger phrases for Chinese and English, so it picks up on "下载视频" or "extract audio" naturally. The workflow is sensible: check dependencies, ask what format they want if unclear, run the command, handle errors. Good for when you need video downloads but don't want to remember yt-dlp's flag combinations.

skills.sh installs: 834
GitHub stars: 214
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add mapleshaw/yt-dlp-downloader-skill --skill yt-dlp-downloader --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

yt-dlp Video Downloader

Download videos from thousands of websites using yt-dlp.

Prerequisites

Before downloading, verify dependencies are installed:

# Check yt-dlp
which yt-dlp || echo "yt-dlp not installed. Install with: pip install yt-dlp"

# Check ffmpeg (required for audio extraction and format merging)
which ffmpeg || echo "ffmpeg not installed. Install with: brew install ffmpeg"

If not installed, install them first:

pip install yt-dlp
brew install ffmpeg  # macOS

Quick Start

Basic Download (Best Quality)

yt-dlp -P "~/Downloads/yt-dlp" "VIDEO_URL"

YouTube Download (Recommended - with cookies)

YouTube often blocks direct downloads with 403 errors. Always use browser cookies for YouTube:

yt-dlp -P "~/Downloads/yt-dlp" --cookies-from-browser chrome "YOUTUBE_URL"

Supported browsers: chrome, firefox, safari, edge, brave, opera

Download with Custom Output Path

yt-dlp -P "/path/to/save" -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "VIDEO_URL"

Common Tasks

1. Download Video (Default - Best Quality)

yt-dlp -P "~/Downloads/yt-dlp" "VIDEO_URL"

2. Extract Audio Only (MP3)

SKILL.md on GitHub

Details

Repository: github.com/mapleshaw/yt-dlp-downloader-skill
Categories: Code Review & Quality, Video & Audio Editing
First seen: Jun 3, 2026