Youtube-dl: download youtube video from Ubuntu terminal

Youtube-dl is a program that can be used only from a terminal, without any graphical interface, which allows you to download videos from Youtube and other websites with a simple text command.

SUPPORTED WEBSITES, from which it is possible to download videos via youtube-dl there are so many: YouTube, YouTube playlist, Yahoo! screen, DepositFiles, vimeo, MTV, XNXX, CollegeHumor, YouPorn, Veoh; the complete list can be viewed by typing from the terminal:

youtube-dl --list-extractors

obviously we will have to first install youtube-dl with the command:

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

and then update it to thelatest version:

sudo youtube-dl -U

to download the video simply type in the terminal:

youtube-dl [video-to-download-URL]

we will find the video downloaded in our home, in .flv format

to define another video format, we will have to add the -f option to the youtube-dl command, followed by the corresponding number of the format:

youtube-dl -f [n ° format] [url-video]

the numbers corresponding to the chosen video format can be viewed in This Page, if for example we wanted to download the previous video in .mp4 format:

we find the number corresponding to the mp4 format, which in this specific case is the 22:

at this point we give the following command:

youtube-dl -f 22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvlZMs6YqQ

the video will be downloaded in .mp4 format, for further information on the youtube-dl functions consult the documentation directly from the terminal with: