Automated yt-dlp Docker image for downloading YouTube subscriptions

Docker hub page here.
yt-dlp documentation here.

• Easy Usage with Minimal Setup
  • Quality options with env parameter
  • Included format selection argument
  • Included set of starter arguments
• Automatic Updates
  • Self updating container
  • Automated image building
• Automatic Downloads
  • Interval options with env parameter
  • Channel URLs from file
• PUID/PGID
• yt-dlp Options
  • SponsorBlock
  • Format
  • Quality
  • High fps videos
  • Download archive
  • Output
  • Subtitles
  • Thumbnails
  • Geo bypass
  • Proxy support
  • Metadata
  • Etc

docker run -d \
    --name youtube-dl \
    -v youtube-dl_data:/config \
    -v <PATH>:/downloads \
    jeeaaasustest/youtube-dl

Then configure the channels as explained in the Configure youtube-dl section below.

Explanation

• -v youtube-dl_data:/config
  This makes a Docker volume where your config files are saved, named: youtube-dl_data.

• -v <PATH>:/downloads
  This makes a bind mount where the videos are downloaded.

  This is where on your Docker host you want youtube-dl to download videos.
  Replace <PATH>, example: -v /media/youtube-dl:/downloads

-e <Parameter>=<Value>

• unstable
  • Automatically built when a new GitHub commit is pushed.
  • Container updates to the newest yt-dlp commit while running.
• latest
  • Automatically built when a new version of yt-dlp is released.
  • Container updates to the latest version of yt-dlp while running.
• v<VERSION>
  • Automatically built when a new version of yt-dlp is released.
  • Does not update.

• channels.txt

  File location: /config/channels.txt.
  This is where you input all the YouTube channels you want to have videos downloaded from.

  # One per line
  # Name
  https://www.youtube.com/user/channel_username
  # Another one
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vaVaSyV14uvJ4hEZDOl0Q
  

  It is also possible to specify args to only use per URL.
  These will override any conflicting args from /config/args.conf.

  # Examples
  # Output to 'named' folder instead of channel name
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vaVaSyV14uvJ4hEZDOl0Q | --output '/downloads/named/%(title)s.%(ext)s'
  
  # Use regex to only download videos matching words
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vaVaSyV14uvJ4hEZDOl0Q | --no-match-filter --match-filter '!is_live & title~=(?i)words.*to.*match'
  
  # Use regex to only download videos not matching words
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0vaVaSyV14uvJ4hEZDOl0Q | --no-match-filter --match-filter '!is_live & title!~=(?i)words.*to.*exclude'
  
  # Download a whole playlist, also disable reverse download order
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_WbxbTAW&list=PL-oTjIcS-sULx8tlzLQY | --playlist-end '-1' --no-playlist-reverse
  

  Adding with Docker:
  docker exec youtube-dl bash -c 'echo "# NAME" >> ./channels.txt'
docker exec youtube-dl bash -c 'echo "URL" >> ./channels.txt'

  It is recommended to use the ID-based URLs, they look like: /channel/UC0vaVaSyV14uvJ4hEZDOl0Q, as the other ones might get changed. You find the ID-based URL by going to a video and clicking on the uploader.

• Authentication

  Cookies are used to authenticate your YouTube account which is necessary if you want to download members only videos you have access to or your own private videos and playlists like Watch Later.

  In order to pass your cookies to youtube-dl, you first need a browser extension to extract your cookies, for example, Get cookies.txt (for Chrome) or cookies.txt (for Firefox).
  Once you've extracted your cookies, place the cookies.txt file inside your Docker volume named youtube-dl_data or the folder /config/ inside your container. One way of doing this would be using the docker cp command: docker cp ./cookies.txt youtube-dl:/config/
  Then set the ENV Parameter youtubedl_cookies to true, by adding it to your Docker run command when creating your container:
  -e youtubedl_cookies=true.

• archive.txt

  File location: /config/archive.txt.   delete to make youtube-dl forget downloaded videos
  This is where youtube-dl stores all previously downloaded video IDs.

• args.conf

  File location: /config/args.conf.   delete and restart container to restore default arguments
  This is where all youtube-dl execution arguments are, you can add or remove them however you like. If unmodified this file is automatically updated.

  Unsupported arguments

  • --config-location, hardcoded to /config/args.conf.
  • --batch-file, hardcoded to /config/channels.txt.

  Default arguments

  • --output '/downloads/%(uploader)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s', makes youtube-dl create separate folders for each channel and use the video title for the filename.
  • --playlist-end '16', makes youtube-dl only download the latest 16 videos, per channel.
  • --match-filter '!is_live', makes youtube-dl ignore live streams.
  • --windows-filenames, restricts filenames to only Windows allowed characters.
  • --no-progress, removes a lot of unnecessary clutter from the logs.
  • --sleep-requests '1', makes youtube-dl wait 1 second between requests. Be careful changing this! YouTube might feel you are making too many requests and ip ban you.
  • --merge-output-format 'mp4', makes youtube-dl create mp4 files.
  • --sub-langs 'all,-live_chat', makes youtube-dl embed subtitles.
  • --embed-metadata, makes youtube-dl embed metadata like video description and chapters.
  • --sponsorblock-mark 'all', makes youtube-dl create chapters from SponsorBlock segments.

  yt-dlp configuration options documentation here.